Wild Kingdom Dinner

I've had several cooking adventures over the past month and just didn't get around to posting something for them. Here's a shot of some mushrooms simmering in red wine to make up for that...

Among our cooking misadventures came a book cake that looked very little like what I was trying for (baking good, decorating bad), homemade sushi (inspired by the Machtolff's), and last night we grilled some elk steaks. While I wasn't 100% sure on prepping them, I figured "how different from beef can they be?" So, I put them on a cutting board with some foil on top of them and beat the tar out of them. It definitely flattened them, but not sure if I got them tender enough. I messed up on seasoning them however. In an additional attempt at tenderizing them, I coated them in kosher salt and put them in the fridge for a few hours. Well, they pretty much soaked up all the salt and so we had salty elk steaks that were a little tough. You live and you learn, right?

Luckily, I decided to make an appetizer too and make something very sinful: prosciutto wrapped around asparagus and cream cheese. Quite simple to make, quite yummy to eat.

So the elk was okay, but the asparagus was excellent! But thanks to my in-laws, I have more elk to experiment with later.