Wild Game Dinner

Some days bring us a healthy dosage of being thrown out of our comfort zone. It seems to be a bit of life lately for this blogger, mom, wife, and homeschool teacher. However, I’d have to admit that even when stretched a bit out of the realm of comfort, I always come out having learned much and enjoying the results. When my husband approached me a few weeks ago about helping him with the decorating and cooking for our church’s wild game dinner, I’ll have to admit, I chuckled! I have NEVER done anything like that. I grew up eating wild game, but to host an event centered around that…that was a new one for me. I got excited after I talked to a friend who offered to be my partner in crime.

We opted to decorate on a $0 budget! Crazy, right? Well, since it was a sportsman themed dinner we went with lots of tree cuttings, pinecones, mounts we borrowed from a local taxidermist, and hunters stash of blinds and more.

Here is our buffet table before we put the food out. The barrel typically resides in my bedroom, but I dusted it off and shoved a bunch of branches and greens in it to give some height and color to our table.

I whipped together our deer head pallet sign for just a little extra and cut a piece of wood down to make little rustic chalkboard signs for each of the game dishes.

We had a great selection of dishes: pork ribs, butterfly fried venison steaks, catfish stew, venison taco soup, buffalo stroganoff, variety of venison sausages, dirty rice, and lots of sides!

Oh, and a rabbit potpie…

I had fun experimenting while making the buffalo stroganoff and rabbit potpie. This definitely was another “out of the comfort zone” when it came to cooking in my kitchen.

Our church has wonderful burlap runners for events. My sweet children wrapped the silverware and I tied them off with a piece of jute to stick with our rustic feel.

I made 9 of these pallet trays and stained them with various colored stains and made rope handles to serve as our centerpieces. With the help of a quart size jar, tree trimmings, and some sticks, it was complete and FREE!

Prize table…

Corner display of decorations

My husband had a hunting video playing quietly in the background. We just grabbed a crate, some tree clippings and horns to help it fit in.

It was a wild night of fun, crazy food, wonderful people, awesome prizes, and a great reason to do it again. I cannot wait to do it again next year.

Have you tried any crazy game dishes? Would love to hear about your concoctions.