Thai Venison

I am secretly afraid of the slow cooker.    I love the idea of it - all that cooking happening and I don't even have to be in the kitchen.  Who wouldn't love that?   But deep in my heart of hearts, I fear the commitment required to have a successful relationship with the slow cooker.   For some reason it is impossible for me to plan ahead when it comes to meals.   [Those of you who know me well, know the extent of the terrible irony of this facet of my personality.]

In order for the slow cooker to do its thing, you have to decide way ahead of time what you want cooked.  Then you have to get it all together.   Then you have to put it in the cooker.   Then you have to remember to turn on the stupid thing.  Then you can relax and feel really smug until it's time to do the dishes.

Mostly, my husband does the slow cooker thing.   OK, the truth is that if anyone uses it at all, it's he.    He totally gets the planning ahead about meals thing. [Also a terrible irony, but I probably shouldn't go there.]   In addition, we have a freezer full of venison harvested by some excellent friends right off our property.   Venison that has spent the summer feeding on our grass and hostas tastes great!   My husband loves finding new ways of cooking it.

Thai red curry makes life worth living in the winter here.   I love it.  I also love coconut milk.   Lo and behold we discovered that you can throw a can of coconut milk, 1 T of red curry paste and a package of venison out of the freezer into the slow cooker and 7 hours later, you're in gastronomical paradise. 

Here's a photo of Thai red curry from importfood.com with directions on how to make your own.   This is not something we've tried yet.   We just go to Sahara Mart and buy it in a package.


Thai Venison in the slow cooker

1 can coconut milk
1-2 Tablespoons of red curry paste
venison [Some.  Use your imagination.]
cilantro - chopped fresh if you have it.   Optional.  Throw it in before you serve it all.

Cook it all day.  After a few hours, shred the meat so it soaks up the Thai red curry goodness.  Serve over rice.   Great with steamed broccoli and pineapple.   We like the pineapple cool so there's a contrast in temperatures as well as flavors.   This means that you can put the can of pineapple chunks on the table with the can opener as you're sitting down to dinner.    That's pretty much all the planning ahead I can do.