Oh, Deer...

Some time ago, a friend gave me a pint jar full of canned venison (deer meat.) It has been sitting on the shelf patiently waiting for me to think up a way to use it. For supper, I decided to make soup. Here are the ingredients I gathered. The venison, a pint of chicken broth, some of the basil that I preserved last year in raw apple cider vinegar, a small chunk of cabbage, two skinny carrots, some Swiss chard, a scallion and fresh kale from the greenhouse, and a garlic clove. You can also see in this picture a small bowl that contains 1/4 cup of whole wheat flour, combined with 1/4 cup yogurt:



I made this soup in the morning, and finished preparing it right before dinner time. During that time, I let the whole wheat flour soak in the yogurt.



To my cast iron Dutch oven, I added a Tablespoon of butter and a Tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil and heated that on low heat:



The scallion and garlic are minced:



and then sauteed for 2 minutes, stirring constantly:



The carrots were scrubbed and sliced:



I removed the ribs from the kale and then chopped up all the green things:



When the saute was finished, I added everything (including a teaspoon of the basil) except the flour to the pot:



I brought it to a boil, reduced to simmer, put the lid on and let it cook for 30 minutes:



I put the soup into the refrigerator to wait for suppertime and then added some of the juice from the pot to the soaking flour and stirred that well.

The cold soup was transferred to a stainless saucepot and I brought it back to a boil and gradually stirred in the soaked flour, then stirred and cooked it until the flour had slightly thickened the broth. I like my soups to have more "body." I then put in RealSalt and freshly ground pepper to taste.



It was delicious, and would serve 3 nicely.