The most perfect melt in your mouth venison steak!

I've had some requests for this recipe since I posted the photo for my 365 project so I figured I would throw it up here really quick. This venison steak is melt in your mouth delicious.  I actually got this deer steak recipe from Field and Stream but I've added my own little tweaks to it. I think this tastes best with tenderloin because it's thicker.

I have hubby pull some tenderloin or steaks from the freezer and let them thaw for a few days.

Once they thaw I then put them in a marinade made of Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, salt, pepper and steak seasoning for no less than 24 hours. I also beat them a few times with a meat hammer to make them a little more tender.

1. When I'm ready to cook I take the steaks and marinade out of the fridge about an hour before I'm ready to throw them on the skillet.  I let the meat rest on the counter until it comes to room temperature or close to it.

2. Place a 10-12 inch cast iron skillet in the oven and set the temperature to 450 degrees.

3. Using a paper towel, blot any surface moisture, blood and marinade off steak. Rub both sides with canola or vegetable oils. Sprinkle heavily with salt and cracked pepper, pressing the seasonings into the meat with your hand.

4. When the oven comes up to temperature, carefully remove the hot pan to a stovetop burner set to medium-high.

5. Place the steak in the pan and sear one side quickly, no more than 30 seconds. Flip the steak and transfer the pan back into the oven. Cook about two minutes per side for medium rare, but no longer than 3 minutes per side.

6. Remove the pan from the oven and transfer the steak to a plate. Let the meat rest for about five minutes before slicing. Use this time to deglaze the pan with a little red wine or stock to make a quick, easy pan sauce.

Once sliced your steak will look and taste as delicious as this......

Enjoy!


xxx

Ryan

Just need to POST THESE! Whew. That's better.

I'm seriously slacking in the blog department! I promise I'll get caught up eventually but things have been so busy with little bug I haven't had time to think! First things first. In order to get back on track I need to post my recent 365 images. I know some of them are posted in previous blogs here and there but I need to get them all on one blog to focus. Ha!

So, here they are:

Day 93.

Day 94. Just a reminder.

 

 Day 95. Chopped off my hair. 

Day 96. Sweet girls birthday party.

Day 97. Recipe Here

Day 98. April Showers

Day 99. Macro love.

Day 100! Isn't it obvious?

Day 101. Sleeping love.

Day 102. Backyard play time. (This photo scored me another feature on my 365 group!)

Day 103. Senior session stopping traffic!

Day 104. Happy birthday to this sweet girl. 

Day 105. New shoes for the big girl.

Day 106. Frosty macro morning. I laid a blanket out in my backyard and shot for about 20 minutes this morning. I'm sure my neighbors think I'm crazy. :-)

Whew! Now that that's over I can breathe! I'm currently working on editing a senior session which will hopefully be on the blog by the end of the weekend and of course I'm still shooting my 365. The weather is getting warmer so I'm trying to spend more time outdoors with the little one. She loves being outside.

Last Saturday we had a photoshoot scheduled for Miss Charlie's cake smash session with my friend Carla over at Carla Thompson Photography. I'm not going to post all the pictures here because her blog showcases them so beautifully, so I'll just post the link if you want to check them out. It's HERE and I'm totally in love with it and all the images she captured. Those are amazing memories that I will have forever!

I went back and forth about doing Charlie's cake smash myself but I don't have much to work with in that department and I really wanted to be able to watch little bug have fun with the cake instead of worrying about my settings and exposure and composition and all those fun photographer things. Carla did amazing and I got to get in some of the shots too! Yay!

Ok friends, that's all for today until later! Hope everyone is having a great day!!

xxx

Ryan

Turkey Sausage Bake!

I fully intend on doing a catch up blog tomorrow but tonight I want to share with you one of my favorite recipes that I found on Pinterest. Not only is this recipe healthy, it's really filling too!

Baked Turkey Sausage, Peppers, Carrots & Potatoes

(Yes, I eat on tiny salad plates for portion control)

Here is what you need to do:

Ingredients

• 1 package (at least 1 lb) of your favorite sausage links (johnsonvilles, evergood, generic smoked sausage, whatever you like.  i used smoked turkey sausage, 2 long links)
• 4-5 decent-sized potatoes (i prefer yukon gold or red bliss)
• 1 small jar banana peppers
• 1-2 bell peppers, sliced (I didn't do this on this recipe but I added carrots)
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 3 tbsp olive oil (yes, it has to be OLIVE oil)
• salt & pepper
• Parmesan Cheese (enough to sprinkle over the top)
• *optional — 3 tbsp creole seasoning ( I use Tony's because it's THE BEST)

Instructions:


Spray a large baking pan w/ nonstick spray (make sure there is at least a small “lip” that provides a “side” to the pan, don’t use a flat baking sheet.

1. Slice sausages into thin rounds, about 1/5″ thick. 
2. Cut potatoes into 1/2″ chunks
3. Slice onion and pepper into strips
4. Leave baby carrots as is if you use them. Just throw them in with everything else.
5. Place all ingredients on baking sheet and drizzle oil over.  use your hands to toss everything together in the oil, making sure everything feels coated.
6. Add salt & pepper and spices (if using)
7. Top w/ sliced banana peppers
8. Sprinkle Parmesan Cheese over the top
9. Bake at 400 for about 40-45 minutes or until potatoes are tender

There ya have it! This dish is really good and husband approved. It's one of his favorites as well. I added a salad to this meal too because I LOVE salad.

I'll be back tomorrow with a full 365 update and trip blog!

This photo is day 93 for the record. :-)

xxx

Ryan

Progress, ear infections & cranky babies. Oh my!

Hello my loves! Hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful Friday! Today's weather is going to be GREAT! I cannot wait to soak up some sunshine and longer daylight hours this weekend.

I have a busy weekend planned, some plans cannot be talked about yet but on Sunday we have a birthday party to attend for our friends little boy. I cannot believe he is one already. Seriously, all the 2013 babies are growing up too fast. So many of my friends were pregnant last year, it's awesome that our kids are going to get to grow up together and be friends!

So, this week has pretty much been hell. I picked Charlie up from daycare on Monday night and she had a fever of 101. I gave her some tylenol, gave her a bath and she conked out pretty early. Throughout the night she kept waking up screaming and she was burning up so we kept the tylenol coming every 6 hours and on Tuesday morning I called into work so I could stay home with her.

By noon her fever was still climbing and at one point it got up to 105. When we saw that, we called the doctor and they told us to come in right away. Turns out little bug has a double ear infection. Our poor girl has never been this sick before and I just feel awful for her. We got some antibiotics, switched to Motrin to bring down the high fever and then headed home. Ryan had to go to work so lucky me was stuck with a crying baby by myself at night. Yay!

On Wednesday I came into work for a few hours but then left because our girl was still having a rough day at home and daddy needed to get some rest before work. I was pretty much ready to pull my hair out by the end of the second night. I have never seen her so mad and upset but I'm sure she was in pain. Poor girl finally started to feel better yesterday (Thursday) and she didn't have a fever anymore so we sent her to daycare. YAY!

She is still on the antibiotics for another 7 days but she seems to be getting better. I'm so glad!

Next topic. Today was my weekly weight in and round 2 of my diet bet weigh in! I have officially lost 16.4 pounds since January 5th. I am SO excited. I'm 3 pounds away from my pre baby weight and about 15 lbs away from my ultimate goal. I'm also noticing a difference in my figure not just the scale! Here is a few progress pictures. Please disregard the no makeup face and messy hair in the last shot. I had just come in from a run :-)

The day before having Charlie. SO SWOLLEN. Crap. Probably shouldn't have went to the Spring Football game. ha!

Three  weeks after having little bug.

Now! I really notice the weigh loss in my face the most right now.

 

Had to move some of hubby's crap away from the mirror to get this shot. I really miss my closet. Boo. Haha.

So yeah, that's what I have going on right now. I have been seriously focused on losing this weight for the past two months. I feel SO much better about myself too. I have a ways to go but seeing progress has definetly made the journey easier. Not to mention the fact that so many of my friends are super into fitness right now, we are all kicking our own asses and it feels great.

I just wanted to update everyone on my life and my journey. I'm ready for the weekend and some fun! I'll be back to update everyone on Sunday!

xxx

Ryan

Ready for sunshine!

Well hello there! A 365 update!

Hey friends! I just want to update the bloggy blog with my 365 pics! I've been super busy lately with the snow, the babe, birthday's, friend and family time & relaxation!

Thanks for following along :-)

Day 34. "Home"

 Day 35. "Reflection"

Day 36. "Ice"

Day 37. "Happy birthday Grandma"

Day 38. "Birdhouse"

Day 39 "Bowling with friends"

Day 40. "Scrunch Face"

Day 41 "Inspector Carrot Head"

Day 42 "Salt Rocks"

Day 43 "Reading My Mom & Me" *Love*

Day 44. "No 10 month pics mom"

Day 45. "Favorite" *Happy valentines day :-)

Day 46 "Debating on running the mini again this year"

Day 47. "So fresh and so clean"

The SUN is finally out here in Louisville and all this snow is melting. I seriously cannot wait to get outside and start shooting again. This winter has been such a drag. Hope everyone is enjoying the warm up!

xxx

Ryan

It's just one of those days...

Sitting here listening to Lana Del Rey Radio on Pandora, playing around with photos and hacking the husbands Facebook account. It's a lot of fun. :-)

Yesterday was Charlie's 9 month doctors appointment and of course Dr. Hubbs didn't tell us anything we didn't already know. Our little bug is perfect :-) She weighs a whopping 22 lbs and is 27.4 inches long. Last Friday she started crawling and then out of no where yesterday she started pulling up to her knees on her toy box. I guess this means she's going to be pulling up to standing position and walking before I know it. I can't believe how fast this is all happening! Make it stop! Just kidding, I enjoy watching her grow, learn and discover things.

She only had to get one shot yesterday so she was pretty happy about that. Here is day 20.

Today is the last day to post my week 3 image for the lyric "It's like you're my mirror, my mirror staring back at me" for The Photographer Within's P52. I had this whole idea planned out in my head that incorporated Charlie but she just didn't want to cooperate with me this week. So instead of Charlie, I completed another selfie.

Day 21. Week 3.

I feel like it was kind of cliche to take a picture of myself in the mirror. I guess I was a little uninspired this week. Hopefully I can have some fun with next week's lyric.

I haven't really talked much about my weightless journey recently. I weigh in again Saturday but I'm currently down 7 lbs. Hopefully I'll be down another 2 by the time I weigh in again. I've really been doing great running and eating right. I feel so much better than I did 20 days ago. I'm not really trying to diet, I'm just trying to focus on making lifestyle changes and not eating crap that I was before. Luckily for me I've got a lot of motivation $$$ and some good friends along for the ride. :-)

Christina Perri's Jar of Hearts just came on. Wow. I love this song, it reminds me of a million different things.  I think I'll go ahead and sign off for tonight and sing this song at the top of my lungs. (Hope my neighbors can't hear me.)

xxx

Ryan

xxx

Ryan

A grapefruit a day keeps the doctor away!

Day 8.

An apple? How about a grapefruit a day keeps the doctor away! Not really sure if that's true but it sounded good to me!

This morning I figured I'd shoot early because there is a good chance when I get home tonight I'm either going to run and then crash or just crash. Deer chili is already cooking in the crockpot so I don't have to worry about dinner when I get home. Winning!

I woke up today (late) and didn't get to run but I also realized my throat was so sore! I never get sore throats and I think I jinxed myself because I was just telling my in-laws that I never get sore throats because I had my tonsils out when I was a kid. Welp, today I have a sore throat. Yay.

Since my throat is sore I didn't want to eat much for breakfast so a grapefruit and cottage cheese was on the menu. I took a picture of my grapefruit for my photo today.

Tada!

This photo really makes me wish I had white dishes. I love white dishes. White everything! Whenever we build our next house and get new stuff, I'm going with white. White white white! White is so clean and pretty and it photographs so well!

So there is my photo. Day 8. Kind of boring, but I wasn't very motivated this morning. Maybe my mood and throat will get better as the day progresses.

 TPW just posted their new lyric for the week and I'm really excited about it.

“And when you smile the whole world stops and stares for awhile.”  

I pretty much know what I'm going to do and I have the image I want in my head. Hopefully I can execute it tonight or tomorrow. I really love this project. It's so fun!

Welp, that's all I've got for right now. Hope you like my grapefruit. :-)

 xxx

 

Ryan