The Catchatarian™ Cookbook & Lifestyle

It’s springtime in the Rockies, and that means the days are getting warmer and the grass by the side of the road is getting green. A sad result of this spring awakening is that deer frequently graze by the side of the road, and as a result there are many deer that get hit by cars. The other day a friend of mine was driving home from work and saw a deer get hit by a car. The deer managed to continue off the road a bit before it collapsed. The woman who hit the deer clearly was not going to grab her knife out of the trunk of her car and go field dress the deer, so my friend called Barney…who else but a catchatarian would consider heading out at dusk to butcher a deer that had been hit by a car?

As it turns out, it is not all that uncommon for people in Colorado to harvest meat from game animals that are killed on the highway. I learned in my hunter safety class that many Division of Wildlife offices have lists of people they can call to come and harvest game meat…mostly churches and other organizations that feed the homeless or low income families. Apparently though it is pretty rare around here, because when Barney got to the scene and asked the police officer if it was okay to take the meat, the officer said it was the first time in his career that anyone had made such a request. We were lucky that my friend happened to see this accident, because Barney grilled the tenderloin for a group of us, and it was delicious. He also smoked the hind quarters with the intention of slicing the meat to use on sandwiches, but that meat turned out so well that we ate almost all of it that day as well.

We all had a pretty good laugh at the fact that Barn was willing to drop everything (his alma mater was playing to win a spot in the elite eight, for goodness sake!) and go butcher the deer. But we also all had stomachs full of fresh, wild venison. So hats off to Roadkill Barney!

I am actually just going to link to a good description from the Kansas Department of Wildlife site, but I did clean a pheasant for the first time last week, by myself, with no idea what I was doing. A friend showed up unexpectedly at my door with two pheasant that he had gutted but were otherwise intact. I’ve been there for the cleaning of grouse and turkey, but I had never actually done it myself. I decided I would pluck one bird and skin the other. So I started with the plucking.

I decided the first thing I had to do was cut off the head and wings. I don’t know if that’s the right way or not, but I didn’t feel right about plucking the poor thing when it still looked like an animal to me. So it was off with his head. I’m pretty sure that’s the first time I’ve ever cut the head off anything, and I just kept saying, “I’m sorry. Thank you for giving your life for me.” It wasn’t SO bad–the life was long gone from this critter–and at the same time I kept thinking to myself everyone who eats meat should have to do this at least once in their life. Meat doesn’t just magically appear in that plastic package in your supermarket. Even at the most humane, completely organic farms, someone has the job of taking the life of a lot of animals. And any of us who eat commercial meat are in some way responsible for that. But back to the pheasant….

Next I cut off the wings, and cut the legs off. I’ve cooked a lot of chicken in my life, so this wasn’t all that difficult to me. But still you will want to make sure your knife is sharp and it’s best to try to get through the joints cleanly. Now to pluck this sucker.

Surprisingly, the feathers came off pretty easily, but they stick to everything, so it becomes a challenge just to get the feathers off the bird and into some kind of trash receptacle. Then you always have the areas where the shot entered the bird, and the feathers get tucked up inside the bird at those entry points. So you have to do bit of digging to get the feathers out if you are trying to leave the skin on. I like to make soup from the whole carcass, and I think the skin adds so much to the broth. You also may end up with the ends of some feathers still stuck in the skin, and those can be hard to get out because everything is sort of slippery and loose. I have a tiny pair of needle nose pliers that I will use to get the bird completely clean. Rinse the bird well, pat it dry, and vacuum seal it and voila! One of life’s delicacies, ready to prepare any way you see fit.

For the second bird, I have read wonderful stories about stepping on the head/neck of the bird and just pulling the skin off the entire body. That would be great, and it might work in the field, but for this bird after I removed the head and wings, I just used my knife to gently cut the skin off and peel it back. Even though I thought the plucking was less of a chore than I was expecting, the skinning method is MUCH easier. If you get a lot of birds and just want the breast meat this is definitely the way to go. But if you only have a couple of pheasant I think it is well worth the effort to try to keep the skin on one bird so you can roast it. I know I have mentioned it in some of my recipes, but ground pheasant is a marvelous substitute for ground beef in almost any recipe. My two favorites are pizza and spaghetti sauce.

So here is the link to the KDOW instructions for cleaning pheasant, complete with photos. http://www.kdwp.state.ks.us/news/Other-Services/Education/Hunter/Tips-and-Techniques/How-To/How-to-Clean-a-Pheasant

Annie’s first deer hunt, October 2007

Let me start by saying I have been traipsing around the woods of Colorado, Elk hunting for 6 years now. I DO NOT have one in the bag. I have smelled, spooked, tracked and pushed them, but have not killed an Elk – YET! But I did get a deer, and here’s the story.

My husband Barney and I spotted a group of deer across a meadow and decided we could move in on them. We pushed them a bit as we tried to “sneak” (they were fully aware of us, just didn’t care that much – deer are very curious. Clue. Curious = Dumb) across the snow covered meadow. The deer stopped about 50 yards away, there was a fence post to rest my gun and everything was looking good. Let me remind you that I had hunted but never shot a big game animal. I was VERY nervous and filled with adrenaline! I steadied the gun on the fence post. I looked through the scope and put the crosshairs through the kill zone. I was ready! I pulled the trigger. CLICK.

I looked at my husband, he forgot to put a bullet in the chamber! Yes yes, I know what you are thinking. Why didn’t I KNOW that there wasn’t a bullet in the chamber? Because! I am a girl, and it is freezing out, and I am billowing through snowdrifts and swamps, climbing over fallen trees…. The least the guy can do is load my rifle (well he can carry it for me sometimes too). So he did, he had loaded my gun back at the truck, but apparently he had forgotten to pop one in the chamber.

What ensued next was a “discussion” between husband and wife. Clue. Discussion = Fight. Deer were running away and I was standing there frazzled! We got it together and moved on. Deer luckily don’t tend to move too far before they get “curious” again. We set up again. Fencepost, crosshairs, deer 100 yards ahead broadside– pulled the trigger, and dropped her! This time around things went right. We got to the animal and she was dead. We proceeded to skin and gut the animal. We removed the heart and liver. It is very intense to hold an animal’s heart in your hand right after you kill it. It’s a far cry from what this girl from suburbia ever thought she would be up to. This is always a good time to give thanks to the animal for sacrificing their life for your food, a practice we always like to include. This really does make you think how FAR removed most people in the US are from knowing where there food comes from. FYI- I keep the heart for soups and stuffing. I use the liver to make a liver parmesan – I know how it sounds but it’s really good! The End.

Sept. 1, 2009, Grouse hunting, Lenado.

Barney and I went hunting in Lenado. (Few things for the audience – I am a much newer person to the ol’ hunting game than my husband. When I started I told his friends to treat me as though I was their 13 year old younger sister, tagging along, now that I am much more accomplished (ha!), I might be 16 if I’m lucky.) Also you should note, that since we are “food” hunters and not “sport” hunters, we shoot grouse that are on the ground and in trees – and still miss sometimes, but the point being that I get REALLY excited if I shoot them in the air! I sometimes actually jump up and down.

Back to Lenado…. My husband Barney and I were road hunting (we do this intermittently with walking hunts) we spotted a couple of grouse heads bobbing along in a field. We park and walk into the field without the dog. We see that there are a group of at least 3 grouse. I shoot at one on the ground – miss. Spook them, they fly. Barney misses. I miss (Yes there is a whole lot of missing going on). And then to my amazement I get a second shot off – thus being 16 and not 13 anymore, I sometimes get a 2nd shot off! – and I drop it from about 40 yards! Barney says, “Well that wasn’t very impressive”. I say, “What do you mean? I got one!!!” He says, “What? WELL GO AFTER IT!” – birds tend to run when not hit well enough! Not this one though, I found it lying where I shot.

Birds: Annie – 1, Barney – 0 (First time for everything)

So we are on our merry way. We stop for a walking hunt. A funny thing about hunting, you are walking, looking for birds/animals, so why is it every time you see one or flush one you are spooked and startled? Well this was the case as usual when our dog, Max, flushed our next group of grouse. They started going up in all directions and we were shootin’ up a storm. It was over and Barney said, “Well that wasn’t very impressive.” I said, shockingly “I got one!” He said, “NO WAY! WELL GO GET IT!” Max did the job for me and found my bird.

Birds: Annie – 2, Barney – 0 (Should I even comment? I RULE!)

End of story, Barney shot one, blah blah blah. It was my first ever getting more than him and 2 in the air!!!!! Something I did figure out that day. I started using high brass #6 loads as my shotgun shells. I use a twenty gauge, yes I am a girly wimp and the 12 gauge gets a little cumbersome for me. Barney had me using quail loads – #7.5. I think he was trying to sabotage my game! Well needless to say I smartened up and showed him. The End.