The Bison Girl :: a lifestyle of good cooking, good eating & living well

I need to find a new way to start my posts other than stating "I LOVE this food!" But I can't help it... it's just so often true. I just love food! This, however, is a great recipe – one that has been passed down in the family at least a couple generations, and one that I've now modified for using with bison. Runzas are well known throughout Nebraska, with a large chunk of our population's heritage coming from German and Slovak regions. Trying to describe a Runza to someone unfamiliar with the food, is kind of a weird experience... because to be perfectly honest, it doesn't sound very great. So, if you're unfamiliar with this food... you're just going to have to trust me – it's much better than it sounds! In fact, here in Nebraska we have a whole (very popular) fast food restaurant chain which is completely built around this little bun of meaty deliciousness. I'm not going to lie to you, making runzas takes a lot of work. It's a ...

I LOVE these breakfast burritos. They're one of my favorite breakfasts, and in fact, I love them so much that I've even been known to make these for dinner from time to time, when we haven't had the chance to have them for breakfast in awhile. The awesome thing is these are so easy to make, and don't require many ingredients. In fact, you can probably whip these up in about 20 minutes. AND -- they're really good as leftovers too!

I've had some extra bison stew meat in the freezer for awhile, leftover from what I used during an old bison photo shoot. I'd been holding onto it, trying to wait for a good time and idea to use it. I'm not a huge fan of stew, so I was looking for another way to use it. The truth is, on my site, NebraskaBison.com, bison stew meat is just pre-cut chunks of the bison roast. It makes it easy to use in things like stew, or even kabobs. Because it comes from the roast, it's a prime cut and is tender and flavorful. The dish I finally ended up making with this can be easily made with the Bison Stew Meat , or you could also use cut up bison steak or bison roast. As long as they are small (1-2" chunks) of a prime cut, you should be good. This recipe is very simple and straight forward. The first thing you'll want to do is mix up your seasoning. I used equal parts (1 tsp. each) garlic salt, rosemary and black pepper. I discovered this seasoning combination c...

To tell you the truth, this isn't a meal I make a lot. But I don't know why. It's insanely easy and it tastes delicious. Serve it up with some mashed potatoes and bread, and you've got a pretty fantastic meal. But usually, I just forget about it. However, I was walking by the meat case at the grocery store this week and saw the chicken drumsticks and thought, yup. I'm going to make those tonight. But an even better thing about this meal is that it's cheap! Drumsticks are usually much cheaper than buying chicken breast, so I like to splurge and buy Smart Chicken when I can. This package of drumsticks was only $5.22 -- and it's enough for 3 servings!

Recently I had the opportunity to make some delicious Bison Steak Fajitas for my parents and little sister. This dish is fairly easy to make and so... so... good! You really can't go wrong when you're having a meal using bison steak, let's be honest.  Even though this is a fairly simple dish, it's not one I've made more than a couple times, combine that with the fact that I was filming myself for a video for NebraskaBison.com and the fact that I'd gotten a bit of a later start than I was hoping for (meaning we were all hungry!) I was quite flustered during the making of these fajitas. Although they still turned out delicious, the downside is I didn't get quite as many photos of the process as I would have usually liked - and I haven't yet gone through and edited the video, so God only knows how that turned out! :) But I wanted to share this recipe with all of you. It's a great way for preparing steak when you don't want to stick with t...

I've never made real, honest-to-goodness macaroni and cheese that didn't come out of a blue box before. But I've been thinking about doing so a lot lately. And today was just one of those days where it really hits you that it's fall. I was legitimately cold all day yesterday, and today I even contemplated turning on the heat as my thermostat continued to read lower and lower temps! (Side note: Can you believe that?! It's early September!) So, I kept thinking about a nice warm bowl of REAL mac and cheese. And then, wouldn't you know it, I open up Pinterest on my phone, and the pin at the very top of my feed is for a delicious looking bowl of, you guessed it, Macaroni and cheese. That pretty much settled it. I used this "Copycat Panera Mac & Cheese" recipe from my Pinterest feed as inspiration and modified it from there to suit what I was wanting, specifically a baked macaroni and cheese with bread crumbs on top. This is the delicious bowl of ...

I LOVE bison burgers. I suppose that's probably a given, since you're on a website called "The Bison Girl." I also love sharing bison burgers with friends and family and introducing them to how awesome bison burgers can taste. My cousin recently moved to Lincoln and she still hadn't had a bison burger yet, so after she got settled in, I invited her over for one. Over the few years I've been associated with my company, I have come to cook many bison burgers, and, I think, I've gotten pretty good at it. As burgers have always been one of my favorite foods, and I realized some time ago that I always enjoyed them even more in steak houses or burger restaurants, I taught myself some time ago how to cook a restaurant quality burger. When it comes to bison burgers, my theory is that you're paying extra for this better quality meat, you should make a better quality burger. Don't skimp on any of the ingredients. You might think I have a lot of st...

Seriously. Because this is my mom's recipe. See what I did there? Except actually, I wouldn't know because I don't think I've ever actually had my mom's biscuits and gravy. She always made other breakfast when she made biscuits and gravy, because while Dad loved them, the rest of us were too stubborn to try. Which is too darn bad. Because these are phenomenal. The truth is, I didn't know I liked biscuits and gravy until I had my first apartment in college. I decided to give mom's recipe a try - and once I actually looked at the ingredients, I realized it probably wasn't as scary as it looked. I've never looked back from there. I love making biscuits and gravy now, although I don't make them very often. That requires getting up to work right after waking up in the morning on a weekend. No thank you! But there are those times when nothing can hold me back from the thought of nice warm biscuits smothered in this thick, creamy gravy... and on those...

In case you haven't read my introduction/about me section, I should preface this post by flat out saying: I sell bison meat as my full time job. So that is reason number one why I made the switch from beef to bison. However, I can also tell you, that if I didn't love it, I wouldn't eat it ( see #2 of my rules of the kitchen section ). So, I promise to you, I have several other, much more real reasons for choosing bison meat as the primary source of protein in my diet, and I would love to share them with you now. I promise, I will do my best not to be too sales pitchy. After all, a blog with the title "The Bison Girl" probably needs a post talking about why I eat bison, as this awesome meat still hasn't gone "mainstream" quite yet.

Enchiladas are probably one of the first foods I learned how to make. My mother loves Mexican food, and that is something I definitely inherited. And luckily, I found a partner in crime who loves Mexican food as well. I'm going to start by telling you, the enchilada recipe I'm about to share with you is nothing like the enchiladas you'll get if you go to the local Mexican restaurant... or at least it's nothing like the enchiladas I've ordered at Mexican restaurants here in Nebraska... I know, I know... Nebraska is not known for our quality Mexican food. And to be honest, I've been to Mexico City once back in high school and I didn't get the chance to order an enchilada  (although I will say I had a few homemade tamales that I still dream about and salivate over... but that's another story)  but I'm sure these enchiladas aren't super authentic either. But what these enchiladas are is delicious. And that's what truly counts, right? At least tha...

When food is involved, I hate buying things when I can make them myself. When you make food yourself, you know and control exactly what goes into it, it's likely healthier and it's probably cheaper. All of the following are the case for the meal I'm about to show you. And fair warning, after seeing these pictures, you're probably going to drop whatever it is you're supposed to be doing and make way for either your kitchen or the grocery store! This was a good dinner! The make it instead of buy it rule particularly applies to pizza... but not just that. I make my crust from scratch. I don't like to buy the pizza crust mix where you just add water, and I don't like to buy pre-made crusts. To tell you the truth, I can make a pretty kick ass pizza crust. Growing up, homemade pizza was a go-to favorite in our house. Sure, we ordered our fair share of delivery and carry-out pizza, but we also have plenty of memories (and photos) from making homemade pizzas...

Salsa disappears so fast in my home. I feel like every time I go to the grocery store, I have to pick up another jar of salsa. And to tell you the truth, I never feel particularly good about shoveling store bought salsa into my body like it's water–with its preservatives and excess salt... I know that salsa can be and should be a healthy dish... after all, it can pretty much be made entirely from a garden! We've been making fresh pico de gallo for a long time... and I LOVE it. In fact, I've had meals that are just chips and homemade pico de gallo. However, it's always a lot of work, and for it to have the freshest taste, you have to make it the same day you are wanting to eat it... so it just doesn't work for those times, when you just want to sit down for some chips and salsa. I wanted to make some salsa in bulk, that I could can and leave on the shelf, so we can enjoy one of our favorite snacks with less guilt. After all, that's what this new cooking lifes...