Snow Villages and Roasting Pheasants

I am getting real creative at these blog post titles, I know.

For the past 36 hours I’ve been brining two of the pheasants the boys brought home from their hunting trip in preparation for my most intimidating meal to date…This coming from the girl who recently made rabbit stew! Oh. My. Gosh. So. Good. But that’s a different story.

We spend the day by a roaring fire, while Johnny and the kids set up his favorite part of our Christmas decor. Snow Village! Last year, after Christmas we were gifted several large boxes full of someone’s discarded porcelain memories to add to our Johnny’s village. We will need a bigger mantle someday…

Someone was scolded for “helping too hard.”

Johnny wanted to make sure we documented our first attempt at pheasant (and that cute, little quail in the middle, how cute?) Here’s a recipe we kinda made up. I’m sure you could try this with any meat bird:

1. Place breasts in dish on top of potatoes and onions.

2. Place sprigs of sage and thyme inside of the breasts.

3. Roast in oven at 450° for 30 minutes.

4. Remove from oven and pour glaze of a maple and cayenne pepper, add bacon to the pan and pop it back in the oven.

5. Cook for a total of 55 minutes (or until internal is 160°) basting with the maple glaze every 10-15 minutes.

We took a recipe we found online for our inspiration but tweaked it a bit. Dinner was served with sides of brussel sprouts and maple bacon (my air fryer is my new favorite toy) and homemade bread from my thrifted bread maker. Best $13 I’ve ever spent! Everyone cleared their plates, and we couldn’t believe how tender and delicious it turned out! New favorite for sure.

Lighting my homemade beeswax candle was just the icing on the cake. Oh, I shoulda made cake! Dessert was homemade granola over vanilla yogurt. I did NOT make the yogurt but once we have our goats, I may take a whack at that.

Anyway, I said I’d follow up after our pheasant hunting trip so there ya go!