New Year’s Day 2017

I spent a quiet New Year’s Day.

In past years, I have occasionally gone to a gathering with some family friends in the Teufelsmoor region just north of Bremen on New Year’s Day. But they always invite a guy who sprouts a lot of racist and xenophobic nonsense and I’ve had my fill of that.

So I stayed at home, slept in, wrote a bit on the next In Love and War story and did my bimonthly taxes (which I have to hand in on Monday).

And since I missed the meeting at a (pretty good) restaurant, I treated myself to a really nice meal. And since I love Cajun food and can’t get it in Germany, unless I cook my own, I made Venison Sauce Piquante.

Now many Sauce Piquante recipes use some very unusual (outside Louisiana, that is) meats like alligator, snapping turtle or armadillo, all of which are pretty much unavailable in Germany, unless you raid the local zoo (and I’m pretty sure ours does not have snapping turtles or armadillo). However, I came across a recipe using deer, which is readily available in Germany during the winter months. Better yet, I still had some leftover deer in the freezer from Christmas. So Venison Sauce Piquante it was.

Here is the venison sauce piquante simmering on the stove. You can barely see the meat for sauce and vegetables, but it is in there.

And here it is on the plate, served with rice.

The result was absolutely delicious. I’ll definitely be making this again.