Bison Stroganoff… Yum!

For dinner I made Bison Stroganoff.  And it is YUMMY!  Extremely rich so only a small portion was able to be consumed today – and I have dinner for the next several days. Which is always a good thing.

Stroganoff is one of those easy dishes that doesn’t require exact measurements – I hate using measuring cups and spoons as it is just more stuff to clean up.  When I give a measurement it is more of an approximation – I eyeball everything.  But don’t worry, I am accurate!

Bison Stroganoff

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup olive oil (or any kind you want) **Note – I added the oil as bison is extremely lean, if you are using regular ground beef you could probably skip the oil if you prefer.

1 medium sliced onion

2 cloves of chopped garlic

1 pound of ground bison (or any meat/protein – I’ve done this with soy “ground round”)

1 pound of sliced or chopped mushrooms (any type – I used 1/2 button and 1/2 crimini)

1 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp sea salt (adjust to taste)

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup cream (coffee cream or whipping cream)

8 ounces of cream cheese

1/2 or 1 cup of sour cream (to your taste.)

To a large skillet or dutch oven add the oil and butter. Heat up on medium high heat.  Add the onion and cook until it is starting to brown, add the garlic and the ground meat. Stir and watch until meat is starting to brown well – you want it to be browning on the bottom of the pan because that’s all the good flavour!

Add the mushrooms and all the seasonings and stir well.  Turn the heat down to medium. Add the water and put a lid on for five minutes or so.  Stir, make sure to scrape up any brown on the bottom of the pan. If the mushrooms still need a bit more cooking you can add more water if needed, and put the lid back on for a few more minutes.  (The crimini mushrooms stay a lot firmer and hold their shape, compared to the button mushrooms.)

Then add the cream and the cream cheese (cut it up into chunks to make it easier to work with) and stir until blended in and melted. Let the mixture start to bubble.

Last step is to add the sour cream and stir it in.  Let it start to bubble, and immediately remove from the heat.

In keeping with LCHF, I served it over steamed cauliflower.  It would also be good on zucchini, spaghetti squash or steamed cabbage.

 

 

Summer Squash & Bison Taco Soup

I had to turn the furnace on yesterday… in August!  Yikes.  Last year August got damp too.  And it has been raining quite a bit this year.  Definitely feels like Fall is here even though there is still a month of Summer left.

They are cute, but these pattypans aka sunburst squash are plentiful right now, and best to use them when still fresh!

I had a package of ground bison thawing in the fridge so when I got home tonight I decided the two could go together to make a nice meal.  I hadn’t intended it to be soup to start with but part way through decided to add some homemade stock and other things.

I am allergic to beef so I use ground bison (which is extremely lean) or pork or lamb when I want ground meat.  I watch for the 50% off stickers at the store and grab the bison and lamb when it is marked down and freeze it.  It is pretty expensive otherwise.

I just grab things and toss them into the pot.  No measuring.  Aside from the squash – I had five of them – I had fresh onions, green onions, green pepper and in the freezer diced celery and homemade stock.  And a can of diced tomatoes from the pantry.  I also used my homemade taco seasoning mix.

Soup is a great way to use up vegetables that are left over or getting a little limp, or just stuff that you need to use before it is time to throw it out.  The green onions were pretty dead looking that I used.

The celery in the freezer was the diced scraps from cleaning stalks of celery – the leafy ends and centres that weren’t “stick” material for my munching.  I have bags of it in there!  I put it in soups, stews, casseroles, in the bottom of the roaster to set the meat on, etc.

I also freeze chicken carcasses and bones from roasts and steaks – I just keep adding to a large Ziploc freezer bag.  When I have a substantial amount I roast them until they are well-browned (much better flavour that way!) and make stock in my crock pot to freeze.

I used my dutch oven for this soup but you could do it in a crock pot if you wanted.  I browned the bison in some peanut oil, then added the chopped onions, green onions, green peppers and the frozen celery and let them sweat down a bit.  Then added the cubed squash.  Even though the squash were still fairly small I needed to remove the seeds before cutting them up.

I stirred it a few times and once the squash was starting cook I added about three to four tablespoons (well, I dumped about a third of what was left in the bottle in actually) of my taco seasoning mix.  Then I added a 12-ounce can of diced tomatoes and approximately two cups of stock (I’m guessing – it was a frozen container that could have been three cups.)

Once the pot was starting to boil, I put the lid on and put in the oven at 350F for about an hour and a half.

I find finishing soups in the oven works really well, and you don’t end up with a splattered stove top.

It turned out great!  A bit spicier than I was expecting due the amount of the taco mix I’d added, but still excellent. I am developing a taste for spicier things lately.

Eat it as is, or garnish with cheese, sour cream, guacamole, etc.  I added shredded cabbage to the bowl and put the soup on top!  It was very good that way.  I’m all about getting in as many vegetables as I can in a meal.

The rest will be frozen in serving sizes for quick meals.  I like having things ready to grab and heat once theatre season starts – which is in less than a month – as I don’t have much of a break between work and call times.

I make my own spice mixes – that way I know I am only getting what I want in them.  Commercial taco seasoning mixes usually contain flour or cornflour and sugar in some form – so I don’t use them.

Shannon’s Taco Seasoning

I make big batches (this makes around 2 cups) and store in recycled spice jars – those industrial sized ones from Costco.  It keeps a very long time.

1/2 cup of chilli powder

1/3 cup of dried minced onion OR you can use 2 tablespoons of onion powder instead

2 tablespoons of garlic powder

2 tablespoons of salt (your choice – table salt, sea salt, etc.)

1.5 tablespoons of ground cumin

1.5 tablespoons of dried oregano

1 tablespoon of cayenne pepper

2 teaspoons of ground coriander

Combine all of the ingredients either directly into your storage container, or in a bowl.  Shake or mix well.  Put in sealed container and store with your spices in a cool, dry, dark place.