A Taste of Fall with Booze Venison and Pumpkin Stew

Pumpkin Spice has taken over the culinary world and it gets worse every year. The amount of food and drinks that include "pumpkin spice" has become downright disgusting. When it comes to a REAL taste of fall, it all comes down to the fall harvest. Fresh ingredients either harvested from the garden or from the woods. When you think of fall, you picture pumpkins and hunting season. For those fortunate enough to have already harvested fresh venison,  the folks at meateater.com have shared an amazing recipe that involves all that is good about fall. Booze, venison and pumpkin.

According to the recipe from Meateater.com, what you will need:

2 1/2 -3 lbs. venison stew meat
1 tbsp. cooking oil
3 tbsp. butter
1 large sweet onion, diced
4 parsnips (or carrots), roughly chopped
1/4 cup bourbon or whiskey
6 cups venison or beef stock
2 tbsp. maple syrup
1 1/2 cups pumpkin purée*
1 cinnamon stick
1/8 tsp. allspice
3-4 sprigs of fresh thyme
Kosher salt and fresh-cracked pepper to taste
Buttery polenta or bread for serving

The rules are simple. Dice the meat into small chunks. Brown the meat in a pan or dutch oven. Remove meat. Melt butter and brown veggies. Deglaze the bottom of the pan with the booze. Add remaining ingredients and EVERYONE else back into the pool (veggies and meat) and let simmer on low for a couple hours. You can also add all ingredients into a crockpot and set on high for 4 hours.

For a more details and step by step cooking instructions, check out the FULL RECIPE and other great wild game recipes on meateater.com.