Cooking Wild Turkey Legs & Things: Don't Waste Them

2017 TN Turkey Season Video: Parts 2 & 3

Checking In...

Well, it is amazing how quickly time can get away from you.  A few years ago I decided to start this blog after watching a good friend David Knapp create his blog The Trout Zone.  Those first couple of years I worked to maintain and update my content and keep the blog current.  Shortly after life caught up with me and the process of raising the kids, helping maintain my parents' farm, and increasing job responsibilities has taken me away from contributing to the blog as often as I would like.  While those things are still occurring, they have change a little.  For example, my employer has recently closed my office and moved my work location to my home office.  That turns out to be a wonderful blessing from God because it gives me more time with my family, but also it allows me to focus on the other distraction in our lives.  That distraction being that we are in the process of building our forever house on the farm, a place where we can raise our kids where they feel safe and are free to roam and enjoy the country lifestyle that we so enjoy.  Hopefully, I will also be able to become more consistent in updating the blog content, and I really need to get back out on the water.  I had intentions of getting out recently, but work obligations popped up and I found myself out of town traveling instead of fishing. 

I did make a more dedicated effort this past turkey season to record every hunt, and I even took along a couple of special guests with me.  Below is Part 1 of a little video I created from the TN Spring Turkey Season.  Part 2 is in progress, but it will probably take a little while to complete because I managed to capture about 100 video clips over the course of 5 weeks, and editing these all together is taking some time.

2017 NWTF Convention Video

General Tso's Pheasant

Tonight I made one of my wife's favorite dishes that I cook, and it was using one of the pheasants harvested in the video posted last night.

After defrosting the bird in the vacuum bag, you must de-bone it.  One whole pheasant makes enough meat for my family of 4, when eating it with fried rice.

I choose to use all of the meat, including leg and thigh meat. 

I cut all the meat into small 1" x 1/2" chunks.  Cutting it into chunks helps to look over the meat for any pellets that may have been missed during the cleaning process.

Then toss the pheasant chunks in corn starch.

Pan fry the coated chunks in a non-stick skillet with vegetable oil in it.  Make sure to cook on medium high heat, and for chunks of this size it should only take about 10 minutes to cook thoroughly.

Once the pheasant is cooked completely, add about 3 tablespoons of General Tso's (or General Tao's) sauce along with a 1/4 cup of peanuts for flavor and texture.

I prefer to eat mine with a light drizzle of Sriracha hot sauce.  It is a really simple use of this flavorful bird and not only does my wife like it, so do my kids.

2017 Season Short_KS Pheasant Hunt

A short video of my very first pheasant and quail hunt, this time in early January. The weather was variable and made for some interesting conditions!

WestTrip 2016 Slideshow

2016 Season Short: The Preparation

Below is a short video of our summer preparation for the upcoming fall deer season.