I’m putting these suggestions out here because I keep getting visitors based on searches for bear meat recipes. My mother has cooked bear meat and recommends the following:

Cook the meat in a pressure cooker with a cup and a half of water and a half tsp of salt. (The length of time depends on the size of the pressure cooker and the meat–your pressure cooker should give some guidelines.) In general a two-three pound roast takes an hour to an hour and a half.

The pressure cooker method is good because it will keep the meat tender and not allow it to dry out. You can use beef or chicken broth in place of the water and salt.

You can also cook bear meat in a crockpot–this will take much longer, more in the neighborhood of 6 to 8 hours.

If you are worried about bear meat being “gamey” soak the meat overnight in milk, although mom says it was quite mild in flavor and not fatty. You can also cook the bear roast for a few hours in the crockpot and then dump off the liquid and start with fresh liquid in the crockpot. This cooks off a lot of the gamey flavor.

If you want to try herbs in the mix, I’d recommend sage with thyme. If you aren’t partial to those two, try rosemary, but remember it can be strong so go easy with it. In both cases a few onions will also be a nice addition.

Once the meat is cooked, you can serve it a variety of ways–if it is strong in taste, consider making it into a curry. If it is mild, use it in stew or chile. You can probably use the meat in burritos as well–but always pre-cook the bear roast before putting the beans and chiles into the mix. This will allow you to determine if the meat is tender enough and mild enough for your dish.

For non-fatty cuts of meat, you might try jerky.

For ground bear meat, I recommend a nice pot of chile.

In crockpot combine:

Two beef bones and beef stew cuts (about 1/2 to 3/4 pound of meat) The bones are critical in getting enough flavor in the soup. If you leave them out, make sure you use beef stock in place of any of the water.

4 diced celery stalks with leaves
1 diced potato
1/2 diced large onion
1 can tomatoes, diced
1/3 cup sliced green beans
3/4 cup barley or a mix of wild rice and barley
8 cups of stock/water (I use two cans of store beef stock and three cups of water. At the end, I add one more can of chicken stock to blend all the flavors. The canned stock contains a lot of salt, so no additional salt is required.)
1 cup diced carrots

Cook on high in crockpot, covered for 6 to 8 hours, until the meat falls into tender pieces. Add chicken or beef stock as it cooks if more liquid is needed. The barley/rice will soak up the liquid so check it several times. About two hours before you wish to eat, add 1 tablespoon of minced rosemary leaves (optional.)

At the end, remove the bones. Cut any large pieces of meat. Serve with toasted, buttered fresh bread.

This recipe is for one pound of beef, sliced 1/4 inch thick. Obviously this recipe works for venison too!

Marinade:

1/4 tablespoon meat tenderizer
1/8 cup soy sauce
1/8 cup water
2 finely minced garlic cloves
1/4 tablespoon black pepper
1/4 cup liquid hickory smoke
1/4 cup worcestersire

Marinate the meat in a large sealed plastic bag overnight. Make sure the meat is properly coated (turn and mix a few times).

Dry for 24 hours at 140 degrees in a dehydrator. If using an oven, use a drip pan underneath. Hang strips from topmost rack. Do not allow pieces of meat to touch one another or fold over such that the two ends are touching. If you want the jerky strips to look their best, fold and use a weak clamp at one end of the strip of meat to avoid a large fold in the middle of each piece. Dry at 140 degrees for 24 hours.

When the jerky is done, use a 5% vinegar spray on both sides and allow to air dry. This keeps mold from growing for longer term storage. You can also freeze the jerky, but when you take it out of the freezer, you must thaw flat on paper towels to avoid moisture accumulation.

I fell in love with Carrabba’s Caesar salad from the first time I tried it. Luckily, the owners of the restaurant published a cookbook with the recipe:

Ciao Y’All by Damian Mandola and Johnny Carrabba

If you want the exact recipe, I’d advise you to get the book or check it out from the library. I tried the recipe, but even with perfection, I had to have my own additions/subtractions, tweaking here and there until the dressing I made was distinctly my own. That said, I certainly do recommended the recipe in the cookbook!

One other note: I keep getting searches by people who want to make caesar dressing without anchovies–try anchovy paste and/or worcestershire sauce as a substitute, but keep in mind anchovy is the heart of caesar salad dressing.

Here’s my version of Caesar Salad Dressing:

Open and drain 1 can (2 oz) of anchovies. Place the anchovies in plain water. This removes some of the salt and since the oil in the anchovies is permeated with the fish, it also keeps the anchovies from being too strong in the recipe.

Soak the anchovies for five to ten minutes and drain the water and oil off.

Mince four large cloves of garlic and put in bottom of blender with 2 tablespoons of olive oil
Blend on low speed (you won’t get much blending at this stage).

Add to blender:
1 tablespoons capers
8-10 anchovies (1 can) –or 1 1/2 tablespoons anchovy paste
Blend on low speed until completely mixed.

Add:
1 and 1/2 tsp dry mustard
2 tsp sugar
Blend again on low speed.

Add:
3 egg yolks with a little of the egg whites
Blend on low speed until everything is creamy and well-mixed.

After everything has mixed well, continue blending on slowest speed and drizzle slowly into the blender:

1 1/4 cups olive oil.
Adding it slowly allows the mixture to “cream.”

When everything is well blended:
Add 8-9 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/4 tsp to 1/2 tsp Tabasco sauce
juice from 1 medium lemon

Blend

Add 1 cup grated (not packed) romano or asiago cheese and blend again.

For the salad, tear romaine lettuce and slice fresh mushrooms. Toss. Use about 2 tablespoons of the salad dressing per salad serving. Serve with extra romano, parmesan or asiago cheese on top!

The key to a good sandwich is to start with good bread and in this case, good chicken. I recommend that you first marinate and grill chicken breasts, but this recipe can be made with canned chicken.

Dice 2 grilled chicken breasts
Dice 4 stalks of celery. Use the inner stalks and dice them very fine.
Mince 2 tablespoons of a sweet onion
chop 1/2 cup of pecans
dice 1/2 of a sweet apple such as gala (apple is optional).

Mix all these ingredients in a medium bowl with enough mayonaise to keep all ingredients together. Mix in two tablespoons Miracle Whip (this will sweeten the mix–you could put in a pinch of sugar if you don’t have miracle whip, but it won’t be *quite* the same.)

Serve on bread with slices of tomato, lettuce and alfalfa sprouts.

Homemade granola is quite good and lower in salt and sugar than most store-bought granola snacks. Here’s my recipe:

4 cups of oatmeal
1 cup bran cereal
1 cup grapenut cereal
(You want about 6 cups of cereal–you can pick your own favorites!)
1 cup flour
1 cup powdered milk
1 cup chopped pecans

In small bowl mix:
1 cup melted margarine or baking-type olive oil
3/4 cup honey warmed slightly in microwave for easier stirring
1/2 cup buttermilk

Mix everything together in 9/13 oblong baking pan. Make sure it is mixed well–any cereal or powdered milk not coated with the liquid mixture isn’t going to bake well.

Cook at 350 for 25 to 30 minutes. Stir once after 15 minutes. The longer you bake it, the crunchier the granola. If it isn’t sweet enough for your taste-buds, up the honey to 1 cup and/or when eating this mix as cereal, you can always add sugar!

Grilled chicken breasts can be used in a variety of dishes: chicken salad sandwiches, chicken casseroles, chicken in alfredo sauce, chicken in pasta salad.

All require a nice, simple marinade to keep the chicken juicy and flavorful. Here’s my favorite:

Marinate chicken and ingredients for 3 to 4 hours. I usually start with frozen chicken. Marinate until the chicken is thawed, turning several times.

4 or 5 breasts of chicken
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon honey
2 tablespoons olive oil

The olive oil will keep the chicken from sticking during cooking. The soy and honey will carmelize just slightly when grilled, giving a wonderful depth to the chicken. Once the chicken is grilled, top it with sauteed mushrooms, onions and cheese. Or dice the chicken and use in quesadillas or one of the other dishes described above.

Grill or pan broil.

Enjoy!

We have a smoker, but smoking meat is time-consuming. Here’s a short-cut method or one to use if you don’t have a smoker.

Marinate 1 to 2 pounds meat (ribs, brisket, even roast) in the following:

1/2 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tsp sage
2 minced cloves of garlic
4 tablespoons lime juice
1 tsp mesquite liquid smoke
1/4 cup of your favorite BBQ sauce (mine is Rudy’s!)
2 or 3 bay leaves

I marinate the meat overnight. In the morning, grill the meat on an outdoor grill, burning the fat and browning the rest.

Put the leftover marinade in a crockpot and add the grilled meat. Add 1 tablespoon brown sugar and 1/4 tsp celery seeds. Cook for 4 to 6 hours on high or 6 to 8 hours on low.

The meat will be very tender and taste as though you smoked it for several hours.

Serve with BBQ beans and potato salad.

Red beans and rice is often a side dish in the south, but it makes a perfectly good “soup” or meal. I make mine in a pressure cooker, but you can also make them in a crockpot. I also use a summer sausage in mine rather than the more tradional ham bone or salt pork.

In pressure cooker:
16 oz red beans sorted, washed and soaked for 2 hours (some restaurants use kidney beans or a combination of beans. I like the small red beans.)
1 large sweet onion, diced
2 large stalks of celery, diced
5 baby carrots, diced
2 jalapenos, diced (with seeds for more heat)
6 oz chopped summer sausage
1 tablespoon crushed thyme leaves
1 tsp sage
2 bay leaves
1 tsp minced fresh parsely

Cook under pressure for 1 hour. After cooling, taste. Sprinkle additional thyme, salt and pepper if needed. Remove bay leaves and serve over white rice or a combination of wild rice mixed with white rice.

If you are cooking in a crockpot, cooking time will be 6 to 8 hours. I would advise searing the sausage, onions and celery in a skillet before adding to the crockpot. Make sure to add the grease from the sausage as this is important in flavoring the beans.

The secret to good scalloped potatoes is to cook them hot enough that the milk boils and soaks into the potatoes, taking some of the potato back into the milk. If you’ve ever tried making them and had the dish turn out tasting like potatoes sitting in milk, you probably didn’t cook the dish hot enough and/or you needed more cream or butter in the dish.

For creamiest potatoes, use cream. If you’re trying to diet (what are you eating scalloped potatoes for???) and want to cut back on fat, you can use 2 percent milk–but put in some half and half or 1/4 cup of butter. The fat helps the potatoes cook properly.

2 large idaho potatoes, peeled and sliced
1 large onion sliced
place in ovenproof casserole bowl that is large enough so that at least an inch remains free at the top–this dish is going to boil and you don’t want it to boil over!

Dissolve 2 tablespoons flour in a cup of milk. (This will help the mix thicken while cooking. You can substitute 1/4 cup mashed potatoes.)

Add the milk/flour and enough additional milk (2 percent is fine) such that the final layer of potatoes are still dry

Top with half and half or cream so that only a few tops of potatoes are sticking above the milk mixture.

If you don’t want to use half and half or cream, add in 2 to 4 tablespoons butter or margarine.

Cook until bubbly at 400 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour. A fine, browned layer should form across the top. You can stir the potatoes once after about 1/2 hour; but you don’t want them to cool. Do not cook covered.

You can add cheese to this dish (au gratin usually has cheese and a high content of cream) during cooking or after. Bacon, ham, grilled shrimp or even hamburger are also other nice additions.

Chili is the ultimate Superbowl food, but it’s pretty darn good on an any cold winter day. I serve mine over fluffy white rice, but it’s awfully good with a side of sweet buttered cornbread as well.

In a crockpot combine:

16 oz tomato sauce
1 can (15 oz) chili beans or ranch style beans (you basically want pinto beans with spices)
1 can (15 oz) of diced tomatoes
I usually throw in a extra tomato or two if I have fresh ones from the garden–peel them by blanching and dice before adding to the pot.

Brown in skillet:

1 pound hamburger
2 medium-sized cloves of minced garlic
1/2 large onion, chopped
2 minced jalapenos or one large red/yellow/green bell pepper

When the meat is cooked, add it to the crockpot.

Add:

2 tablespoons BBQ sauce
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/2 tablespoon cumin
1 1/2 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Cook on low for about four hours. (About halfway through, taste the sauce and adjust spices to your taste!)

Serve over rice with extra chopped onions and grated cheese!

For cornbread I use Martha White’s Sweet Yellow Cornbread or Pioneer brand. Most excellent!

This stuffing can be made in the oven, or stuffed into a chicken or turkey. It will be more moist and have more flavor if stuffed into a bird!

Cube approximately 24 slices of bread (I like honey wheat!)

melt 1/2 cup of margarine in a deep pan

Cook the following in the margarine:

3/4 cup diced onion
1 1/2 cup diced celery

When the vegetables are tender add:

1 1/2 tsp sage
2 tsp thyme
pepper to taste

Add the breadcrumbs to the margarine and vegetables

Allow the margarine/bread mixuture to cool down for fifteen minutes. Add 1 egg and stir well. If you are baking in an oven, drizzle the stuffing with 1/4 cup chicken broth and bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes or until the top begins to brown.

If you are stuffing a bird, do not add any chicken broth. The broth will incorporate naturally while the chicken/turkey cooks. Stuff your bird and cook according to the bird directions!

Deer meat is a very low-fat, excellent meat. Most of the time, it isn’t very gamey either. If you do have gamey meat, soak it in buttermilk or milk for a few hours. Another technique is to cook in a crockpot with chicken stock for two or three hours–then throw out the broth and cook again with fresh broth another two hours until the meat is tender. The first cooking should take off some of the stronger flavor. The second cooking tenderizes the meat. You can then use the meat in a stew or as meat in just about any dish. (This crockpot method works for almost any game meat–elk, deer and even bear meat. If you are in a hurry, you can achieve the same tenderness by using a pressure cooker. Bear meat is quite good when cooked in a pressure cooker.)

The best venison steaks (back steaks, tenderloin, meaty part of the leg) can generally be used in dishes such as pepper gravy or strogonoff without much preparation. Marinate the pieces of steak in soy sauce or sprinkle with a meat tenderizer. Sprinkle with pepper and leave in the refrigerator for several hours (usually venison is frozen, so just marinate it until well thawed, turning several times.)

When ready to cook:

Dredge the meat in flour, coating both sides.
Pepper the top with fresh ground pepper.

Heat two tablespoons olive oil in skillet and lay each steak pepper side down. Pepper the top side.

Cook on medium heat until juices form on the top of the steaks. The flour will begin to clear on the edges and top. Turn the meat over, carefully scraping the flour coating with it.

Cook the meat through. When the meat is very nearly done, add any remaining marinade. Slowly add chicken or beef stock, about 1/4 cup at a time until you have incorporated about a cup to a cup and a half. You can let the juices cook down, but if you add slowly, you’ll end up with a nice gravy without needing more cooking time.

Venison should be cooked all the way through with no red, but you don’t want to overcook. The gravy keeps the venison from being too dry. It also picks up the richness and flavor of the meat, melding the flavors quite nicely.

Serve with mashed potatoes and stuffing. (You might want to make an additional, light gravy to smother the mashed potatoes and stuffing.)

Leftover Tip: If you have venison steaks/gravy leftover, add sauteed mushrooms and onions. Heat the meat/gravy and then add a few tablespoons of sour cream and you have strogonoff! Serve over cooked noodles.