If you got lucky and managed to harvest a deer, hopefully a big-racked buck, you can enjoy its tasty and healthful venison meat throughout the winter. And one way to enjoy it that everyone would approve of is with meatballs. If made according to this recipe, it won’t even hint of a so-called gamey taste. And we added a bit of variation from my buddy Jay, to spice them up as Slow Cooker Mozzarella-Stuffed Meatballs recipe.

To make them, the recipe calls for one pound of venison (you can add an additional pound of pork or mild sausage with the venison).

The recipe is as follows:

Quarter cup bread crumbs; quarter tsp. Nutmeg; quarter cup finely chopped onion; one tbsp chopped parsley; half tsp. garlic powder; eighth tsp. pepper; half tsp. salt; one egg; one tbsp olive oil; five tbsp butter; three tbsp flour; 2 cups beef broth, or substitute a half or full cup of dry red wine; one cup heavy cream; one tbsp Worchester sauce.

For the sauce you’ll need seven cups of crushed tomatoes; half cup chopped onion; two cloves crushed garlic; two tsp. dried basil; one tsp. dried oregano; half tsp. pepper; half tsp. salt. If you’re in a hurry, you can just use canned/jarred tomato sauce.

From here, combine all sauce ingredients (or canned sauce) in a slow cooker/crock pot and stir. Set to high and cover while making the meatballs, or for 30 minutes.

Combine all meatball ingredients in a large bowl and mix until fully combined. Now for the secret ingredient. Take four sticks of mozzarella cheese cut them into 4-5 dice-sized pieces. Then take a golf ball-size piece of the ground venison mixture and place a piece of mozzarella cheese in the middle of it. Press the meat around the piece of cheese, fully enclosing it. Repeat until all the meat is used.

Place the meatballs in a slow cooker and submerge in sauce. Cover and cook on high for 2-2.5 hours or until meat is fully cooked.

Now you can serve the meatballs by themselves in a steak roll, as an appetizer, or over pasta. Whatever you decide, enjoy what you harvested. Guaranteed they’ll be a hit, particularly if serving them to guests.

WATERFOWL

SEASON

While the rifle deer hunting season continues until Dec. 9, the Canada goose season kicks off again Dec. 11 and continues until Jan. 2, and again from Feb. 2-Feb. 24.

Driving around the valley, the goose population appears about normal for our area with scattered flocks feeding on harvested corn and soybean fields. And hunting pressure seems very low right now perhaps because the smart geese put down on private property where no hunting is allowed.