Stuffed peppers rank up there with meatloaf, spaghetti, and chicken pot pie as staples of the American dinner table. Many of us grew up eating stuffed bell peppers on an almost weekly basis as a cheap, quick, and filling meal to feed a family. But ...
Food
A Venison Kebab Recipe That Will Impress Everyone
To most Americans, the word kebab, or kabob, simply means skewered chunks of marinated meat and vegetables. But in the rest of the world, kebab is a widely popular dish, and there are many kebab recipe variations beyond the cubed style we are ...
How To Make Amazing Feral Hog Shank Pork Tamales
Before I even touched the trigger, I knew exactly what I was going to do with the hog in my crosshairs. In my mind, I was already in my kitchen back home, whipping up a batch of pork tamales. I’ve made tamales a handful of times using venison, but ...
Escarole and Beans With Smoked Wild Turkey Wings
Italian greens and beans is a dish that feels like home. This hearty Italian dish is a soup of bitter greens, aka escarole or endive (think swiss chard), and white beans, mopped up with a good piece of bread, is exactly what I want in the ...
Venison Ragu: A Classic Wild Game Recipe
“Ragu” is one of those words we see on menus and hear in conversation all the time, but most of us have no idea what it actually is. As if things weren't confusing enough, sometimes you see it spelled “ragú,” and sometimes “ragout.” There’s even a ...
Introduction to Food Storage
When it comes to preparedness in my home, I work diligently to make sure that it flows with the normalcy of our routine as much as possible. Rather than viewing preparedness as a staunch concept that runs perpendicular to who we are, it is a parallel ...
The Perfect Hasenpfeffer Recipe With Homemade Spaetzle
If you’ve only ever heard of one rabbit recipe, it's probably hasenpfeffer. Hasenpfeffer is a German rabbit dish characterized by a tart sauce and heavy use of spices. Loosely translated to “pepper rabbit” (hase meaning hare, and pfeffer meaning ...
Homemade Ricotta and Cured Salmon: Easy to Make, Delicious Together
There are a million ways to preserve fresh salmon, but sometimes the best way is the simplest. All you really need is a little salt and sugar to transform your catch into orange gold. Many cultures have their distinct variations, like Scandinavian ...
How to Make Country-Fried Deer Heart
Country- or chicken-fried steak is one of those things I can’t pass up if it’s on the menu. If you can deny yourself a tender slab of fried beef, then you’re a better person than I am. I don’t care if it comes on a sandwich or with a side of mashed ...
Recipe for Rabbit: Spice Up Wild Game Meat Tandoori Style
Most of us were introduced to tandoori cooking through Indian restaurants and buffets. Tandoori refers to food cooked in a tandoor, which is a large cylindrical oven, often made of clay or metal. Tandoors and similar ovens are an integral part of ...
Get a Little Classy With This Venison Wellington Recipe
Beef Wellington is an iconic British dish that lends itself well to a wild game adaptation. In fact, plenty of you will probably prefer the venison Wellington you're about to learn how to make, and that's a good thing. In the traditional recipe, a ...
Reader’s Choice: The 10 Biggest Free Range American Stories of 2021
This was a good year for Free Range American. We grew by hundreds of percentage points in every conceivable metric and covered a wide range of topics (and controversies) other outdoor media sites were afraid to touch. We broke the news on an ...
How To Make a Perfect Bowl of Creamy Grits and Crispy Fish
Seafood and grits is a southern classic. Whether we’re talking shrimp or a fried or blackened fish filet, a bowl of cheesy, buttery grits is the perfect companion. Being an inland Yankee, freshwater fish such as panfish, bass, and trout are usually ...
This Savory Tomato Jam Recipe Makes Sure No Harvest is Wasted
This tomato jam recipe is the perfect way to use up extra tomatoes from the garden before they go bad. Each year, as gardening season comes to a close, we often find ourselves with too much of a good thing. If you have fresh memories of tomatoes you ...
The People’s History of Barbecue
Whether sweet or tangy, sauced or dry, pulled, sliced, or on the bone, everyone loves barbecue. Barbecue is a product of meat, smoke, time — and history. It is an institution that defines us as a nation. Barbecue is a quintessential piece of American ...
Kansas City BBQ: ‘The Sauce’ is King
Ask someone if they’ve tried Missouri BBQ, and the response will most likely be a confused look. Ask the same person if they’ve tried Kansas City BBQ, and they’ll start salivating like Pavlov’s dog. Kansas City is where “the sauce” began, and we ...
St. Louis BBQ Ribs: From Surplus to Luxury Cut
Kansas City may be where “the sauce” began, but across the state, St. Louis BBQ became world-renowned for its specific cut of ribs. St. Louis–style ribs hit the scene during the post-WWII 1950s, and the name referred to a specific cut, not a cooking ...
Mexican BBQ: As Authentic as it Gets
While the process of slow-cooking meat over hot coals originated in the Caribbean, it’s been a part of Mexican BBQ for generations. In the old days, lamb or goat was cooked in a type of underground oven called píib. Another common barbacoa technique ...
Barbecue, Politics, and Alabama White Sauce
Sitting quietly in the heart of the southern barbecue belt, the Crimson Tide state harbors a somewhat strange and fanatical affinity for Alabama white sauce. Although this obsession only began in 1957, their love affair with slow-cooked meat goes ...
Memphis BBQ: Dry Rub or Sauced, You Can’t Go Wrong
Graceland, Sun Records, Gibson guitars, Beale Street, Peabody’s ducks, the muddy Mississippi, blues music, juke joints, and barbecue: If you want a taste of the southern experience, Memphis has got it going on. Union troops occupied Memphis ...
Mississippi BBQ: Slow and Low in the Delta
Don’t sleep on Mississippi BBQ, y’all. The Magnolia State is home to 18 competition-winning pitmasters — more than any other in the country. Community barbecues have a long tradition in Mississippi and may be more central to the ...
North Carolina BBQ: You Say Tomato, I Say No Way
North Carolina BBQ enthusiasts will argue with South Carolinians until the sun rises in the West. What about? Whether or not North Carolina is the home of “original” barbecue. It’s easy to see how the conflict came to be. Historical accounts of the ...
South Carolina BBQ: A Tale of Two Tastes
When it comes to meat, South Carolina BBQ is whole-hog country. That means slow-cooking a 125-pound pig for 12 hours or longer in a cinder block pit over a fresh bed of hot coals until the meat simply falls apart. Whole-hog barbecue is the ...
Texas BBQ: Big, Like Everything Else in the Lone Star State
Everything’s bigger in Texas: Friday night football, the stars at night, never-ending wide-open ranges, belt buckles, Stetsons, and country-bluegrass music. And you have to add Texas BBQ to that list. Texas is one of the four main barbecue ...
How To Cook the Perfect Fried Squirrel
Sorry pork, squirrel is the other white meat. Squirrel meat is tender and lean with a mild flavor, and it’s a fantastic wild game alternative to pork and chicken. Plus, it can often be prepared using many of the same techniques and recipes. While ...
Poutine Recipe Twist: Use Wild Turkey Wing Meat and an Air Fryer
While french fries and hot gravy have been an American staple since at least the 1950s, it was our neighbors to the north who perfected it. French-Canadians began embellishing simple deep fried potatoes by adding not only gravy but also cheese curds ...
Classic Venison Osso Buco Is Stupid Simple and Guaranteed to Impress
Osso buco is one of those cliche wild game dishes that’s actually worthy of the hype. Traditionally made with veal shank, this Italian classic has found a devoted following among hunters using deer, elk, and other wild game — venison osso buco comes ...
Sheepshead Mushrooms: Hunting Guide and How to Cook Them
Mushroom hunters are badass. Foraging for wild edible mushrooms is a challenge that's all about the thrill of the hunt that ends, hopefully, with a freezer full of nutritious and medicinal mushrooms, all for free. It's for the stout-hearted who are ...
Wild Turkey Recipe: Buffalo-Style Smoked Wing Dip
Most turkey hunters don’t take the time to clean and cook the wings from a bird. Honestly, it's hard to blame them. Of all the potentially edible meat that is sometimes left in the woods, the meat on wild turkey wings is among the most forgivable ...
Fall Mushrooms: 7 Easy-to-ID Autumn Fungi That Are Great Eating
It can be intimidating for beginners to get into mushroom foraging, but with a little bit of knowledge and attention to detail, you’ll be coming home with a good haul of mushrooms to add to all your favorite wild-game dishes before you know ...