A Year of Deer, Episode 15: Country-Style Skillet Dinner

And with this post, I'm up to date! Hurrah! I prepared this meal on Tuesday of this week. Monday night found me on the couch, flipping through cookbooks to find a simple recipe in which I could use a pound of ground venison and other ingredients I already had in my pantry. My search ended when I found a recipe for a "Country-Style Skillet Dinner" in the Kitchen Keepsakes cookbook that had been compiled as a fundraiser for FBC Wheaton back in 1994.

As I looked over the recipe, I realized that as written, it would taste okay, but not like much of anything beyond ground meat, pasta, and tomato sauce. And that's when I went to my spice cupboard and grabbed several jars of spices and seasonings. The more time I spend in the kitchen (cooking & baking), the more comfortable I'm getting with deviating from recipes: adding spices, changing quantities, substituting this for that. I am gaining confidence as a cook, becoming more comfortable with the ingredients that pass through my hands on their way to our table, and finding great satisfaction in the process.