Yesterday a friend and I got together for one of those big cooking sessions...maybe some of you gals out there have heard of...Kind of a cook all day long, preparing meals to put in the freezer...and at the end of one long, tiring day of shopping, slicing, dicing and other prep work, you have enough dinner meals to feed your family supper for an entire month! 

The really cool thing for me was being able to use much of that venison in our freezer!  I have found, that for our family anyway, I can subsitute venison in just about any recipe that calls for beef.  I guess we've become more partial to venison anyhow, which we feel is better for ourselves and our daughters anyhow. 

Now the fun begins...each day, I pull one frozen dinner out of the freezer, place it in the fridge, where it will thaw and be ready to heat and serve the following day!  This leaves more time for me to play mom each night, helping the kids with homework, target practice, baths, reading stories, saying bedtime prayers, etc.  It also creates more time for KansasBowGuy and myself to snuggle on the couch after the kids are in bed, which keeps us both happy and connected!

Another cool part about having meat on hand that we've harvested ourselves is that it really saves a considerable amount of money each month from our family's food budget.  And, because we are cooking from scratch, using simple ingredients, we are able to avoid additives, preservatives, and all of those horrible words on the ingredient labels that we cannot even begin to pronounce!  Not to mention the fat, sugar, sodium, cholesterol and all of those other things some people must avoid in their diets! 

I know exactly what is going into each meal I serve my family, which I personally find pretty satisfying.  I feel I am really taking good care of them, providing high-quality, nutritious, healthy food each and every night we sit down at the dinner table! 

Now, don't get me wrong, we enjoy junk food just as much as the next person...ice cream, chips, candy...you get the picture.  However, we don't tend to keep a lot of this sort of thing around the house, so when we DO indulge, I console myself with the fact that I know we will be eating a well-balanced dinner each night. 

The hubby and I enjoy gardening in the warmer weather, and that's always a great way to boost the nutrition, fiber, vitamins, etc. in our diets.  I must admit, living off of the veggies we grow and harvest in the warmer months, as well as filling our freezers with the fish and wild game we harvest year-round, really leaves us feeling pretty good, knowing we are relying on ourselves for much of our family's food supply, as opposed to the local grocers, with their over-priced, over-processed so-called "food". 

For those of you who know us and live around here, be sure and stop by our table the next time you see us at the local Chinese, Mexican, or Pizza place here in town!  HA HA!  While we eat healthy most of the time, we sure know where to find the less diet-friendly foods as well!  =) 

If any of you have any good venison, wild turkey or pheasant, quail or fish recipes to share, I'd love it if you could share them with me!  I'm always on the look-out to try something new!  Have a great weekend...what's left of it...and stay warm!