Ground Out.

I never thought I would complain about actually harvesting two deer this past hunting season...but it did leave us with a fairly high percentage of ground meat in our freezer.  The only problem with that is that there is a somewhat limited menu that can be covered with ground meat...burgers, and meat loaf, and...Mexican and Italian.  Yes, there is an almost infinite variety of things that fall under the 'Mexican/tex-mex' umbrella, but in the end, it's a spicy, and cheesy, and saucy...just like all of the variety of Italian is saucy, and cheesy, and pasta(y). 

So...off to the internet I went, and spent a LOT of time surfing though different variations of taco, taco bakes, manicotti, baked ziti, shepherd's pie etc. before finding something that looked...different. 

Thai-Style Ground Beef

It was pretty okay.  I got the official wife/kid stamp of approval, with all three asking that we add it to the rotation.  That's nice, because I had to go buy fish sauce and red curry paste to make this recipe today, so I'm glad I'm not stuck with nothing to do with the rest of the containers. 

My only complaint is that it's not quite 'thai' enough.  Partly because I've never played with red curry paste before, and partly because I am the father of girls who don't always have the world's highest tolerance for 'heat', I used 50% more meat than the recipe called for, but didn't increase any of the spice quantities.  Next time, I'm going to kick it up a notch or two...maybe even toss in a few red pepper flakes. 

It was a fairly healthy dinner too...ground venison, some rice, and then instead of serving it with lettuce wedges, we actually used romaine leaves to make little 'thai lettuce wraps'.