Autumn has arrived and so has the excitement of finding delicious mushrooms on forest walks.

Hen of the Woods & Chicken of the Woods

Together my wife and I made Anthony Bourdain’s Mushroom Soup Recipe.

The same day I managed to harvest a doe from the forest and it being Saturday, we finally had the time to try butchering it ourselves. The process was very time consuming having not done it before but very much rewarding. We took our time scavenging all the meat including the smallest scraps that would be put into a grinder with a mix of bacon fat.

Exhausted, I threw some in a pan with a few slices of mushrooms for a quick meal.

But later after all was packaged, placed in the freezer and wiped clean multiple times… my wife made the most delicious venison meatballs with home grown tomato sauce.

It was a rewarding day and felt like a culmination of skills recently learned put into the culture of our daily lives.