Enjoying the fruits of outdoor efforts

One of the rewards of notching a big game tag, bagging a game bird or catching fish is the enjoyment of cooking and eating the catch.

My wife, Garnet, recently cooked a three-pound elk roast. The roast was solid meat with no gristle or sinew. She first sliced three good-sized yellow onions and placed them in a Dutch oven with a little olive oil in the bottom. When the onions were partly cooked, they were removed and set aside.

Small incisions were made throughout the roast and small slices of garlic were placed in each. The roast was browned on all sides and seasoned with salt and pepper. A few of the onions were placed in the bottom of the Dutch oven and the roast placed on top. The rest of the onions were placed around the roast.

The top was covered with bacon slices. This meat cooked at 350 degrees for four hours. The caramelized onions were delicious and the roast succulent.

This was Garnet's recipe, so I asked why she didn't add potatoes and carrots, making it a pot roast.

"Then I would have needed to add a little liquid to the Dutch oven," she said.

This roast was delicious, but to make a full meal at camp or at home, add a little liquid, as little as a half cup of wine, water, coffee or whatever liquid you prefer, along with potatoes and carrots. While Garnet cooked her roast at 350, other cooks like to drop the temperature to as low as 225 degrees.

Garnet used the bacon to keep the roast moist, as there was not a speck of fat on it. I have heard of cooks using a knife steel to make a hole or holes in a wild game roast and inserting slices of bacon. This is intended to add fat to the middle of the roast, thus adding moisture.

This, in my way of thinking, is defeating the purpose of eating lean meat. Placing bacon on top is difficult enough for me to endure, but this procedure provided a moist and delicious roast.

I have been playing around with fish recipes. My normal fish recipe, for all types of fish, is to place the fish in tinfoil, with a squeeze or two of lemon on top a sprinkle of pepper and a bit of garlic salt. Close the foil and bake at 350 until done.

My favorite walleye recipe has pieces of walleye breaded and deep fried or baked and served with tartar sauce.

Recently a recipe popped out of a cookbook and into my mind. The original recipe called for lining a pie plate with mashed potatoes. Next, sauté one green and one red sweet pepper, cut in rounds, along with four cloves of garlic.

To this add two 14.5 ounce cans of stewed tomatoes, along with the juice. Plus a pinch of salt and a quarter cup of sliced black olives.

Place a third of this mixture into the pie plate, add a half of the pound of fish fillets, the recipe called for cod. The fish was covered with a half of the remaining tomato mixture and then the other half pound of fish, followed by the last part of the tomato mixture. This was topped with a third cut of coarsely chopped almonds. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the fish was cooked.

So this recipe was completed and it tasted rather good. But I wanted to expand the amount beyond a pie plate.

The revised recipe, my recipe, calls for two green peppers, cut into bite-sized pieces. The cost of red or yellow peppers does not fit into my budget to simply add a little color to the dish.

I added six cloves of garlic, instead of four. Diced tomatoes were used, instead of stewed. No salt was added, because there was plenty of salt in the canned tomatoes.

A cup of sliced black olives were added, instead of the quarter cup.

Boneless chunks of rainbow trout were used, instead of the cod. Slices of carrots, onions and celery were added as a bonus.

A small slow cooker was used instead of a pie plate.

All ingredients were sautéed, except the fish, and added to the slow cooker, which was placed on high.

The temperature was monitored with a digital thermometer and when it was nearing 200 degrees, most of the tomato mixture was taken out of the slow cooker.

A layer of trout was placed on top of the remaining mixture, then another layer of tomatoes was added followed by a layer of trout and this happened two more times, until all of the trout and tomatoes were in the slow cooker.

There was no hurry to serve the meal, so the fish was allowed to cook for 90 minutes.

I was a little concerned the fish might become soft or mushy, but it was firm and delicious.

A slow cooker will be filled with the revised recipe and taken to an event at Fairchild Air Force Base tomorrow.

Attending will be several hungry airmen. I will let you know the verdict.