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

So, fall has been very kind to us in Nebraska so far. It hasn't been until today, that the weather reminded us that winter is just around the corner. The wind has been howling all day and the temperature finally dropped before 40*.  But luckily I was ahead of the game, and had the perfect meal to warm me up today... Bison & Vegetable Soup made with a Bison Chuck Roast and Bison Bone Broth. (If you don't have the patience or desire to make your own bone broth, you can of course substitute a beef broth instead.) Although this recipe took a little bit of time (mostly just waiting for the bone broth), it was quite easy to make and a recipe that I'm definitely going to hold on to! Bison Bone Broth Instructions Again, if you prefer to skip this step and use beef broth instead, that is totally acceptable. If you prefer to use the homemade bison broth, here are my steps; and here's a link to get the bones you need. I placed 4 bones in my crockpot...

Holy cow! It's August! The summer is just flying by... before you know it, we'll be making chili and watching football. But we're not quite there yet. We still have one glorious month of summer left. And every August I celebrate Bison Burger Month. While I may have made that designation up, it's a great time, because my company, NebraskaBison.com, spends each August celebrating the most popular and common cut of bison meat... Bison Burger! We do that by having month long sales on our Ground Bison and Bison Burger Patties at the best prices that we offer all year. In addition, we post all kinds of recipes and cooking tips on our social media sites and blogs to help introduce people to bison meat or inspire others to branch out in their bison cooking. So... 1. Check out the awesome deals on Ground Bison and Bison Burgers on my site . 2. Check out our Instagram or Facebook feeds to follow along with all the ground bison inspiration we post throughout the month. ...

So, my appetite for meatballs seems to only continue to grow, as you can probably tell from my Instagram feed . And bison just works so great for meatballs. The meat is tasty and it really kicks up any pasta dish. So, despite the fact, that I'm planning a pasta and meatballs lunch with my grandma and cousins this weekend, I decided to try a new meatball concoction for lunch today! I've been thinking about this for awhile, but just hadn't put it into action until now, but I wanted to try out making cheesy meatballs with a bit of a kick - and I really liked how these turned out! As usual, this recipe is super easy, and really doesn't take much... just a little time. And, although I usually bake my meatballs, in the spirit of trying new things, I decided to cook these in my cast iron skillet.

Did you know how very easy it is to have your own fresh noodles the next time you want pasta? I sure didn't! I've thought about getting a pasta maker for a long time, but only recently (when I had a Bed Bath & Beyond Gift Card) did I take the plunge. I bought a decent, $35 hand crank pasta roller and cutter which comes included with a spaghetti and linguine attachment.  Let's start with the finished product. I sure do love spaghetti and meatballs! I did a little research, and over the weekend decided I was ready to give it a try! Since I was going to be using homemade noodles, it didn't feel right putting from-the-jar red sauce over my hard work, so I decided to make a homemade sauce as well. Spoiler alert: I have never been able to make a proper red sauce. I don't know why. I have tried many different recipes and I never like them. It must be my lack of Italian blood. But! I did make delicious noodles (for a first try!) as well as awesome B...

So this was kind of a weird meal... definitely protein packed, as you can tell from the title! The story is it snowed all night and all day. It was cold and icy and since I work from home most days, there was nothing forcing me to leave the house all day. So, I was resolved to stay inside and NOT scrape off my car just to go to the grocery store. So I made this meal using ingredients I already had in my house. The awesome thing is it doesn't take much: Eggs, Flour, Water, Onions, Butter & Steak! Egg dumplings are one of the meals my dad would make when I was growing up. I don't make them often, but I like to have them every once in awhile. They're not hard to make, they're incredibly cheap and I like the way the taste. My biggest complaint is just that I can never think of anything to really  go with them. But I've been thinking for awhile, that steak might be an interesting way to complement them, so I decided to give it a try!

Bison Meat is becoming increasingly popular -- and it's easy to see why. Doing the majority of my business online, I don't always get the opportunity to speak directly with my customers, however, I do have Farmers Market customers and those who call my customer service line to place their orders via telephone. In speaking with those customers, I have found myself in several instances where they are telling me all the reasons they like bison meat, or have converted entirely to bison instead of beef, and I find myself smiling, nodding along, and saying the same thing: "Yup! Bison really is an easy product to sell. There's just not really a downside."  In case you haven't properly been introduced to bison yet... let me fill you in on the secret: Bison is a lean meat. It's low in calories, cholesterol and fat compared to other meats. Bison is raised free-range, on grass for most of its life. Most ranchers take pride in raising their herd humanely and h...

I've had this recipe stewing in my brain for quite awhile – just waiting for the right mood, the right time and the right combination of ingredients to pop into my mind. Finally, yesterday I decided to take the plunge and try it. I'm calling it the "Spicy Island Bison Burger" -- and it's quite a bit different from what I'm usually into making. For one, I don't generally go for pineapple. But for some reason, lately, I've really been feeling like grilled pineapple on a burger just might be a fun thing to try. So... here it comes: a Grilled Bison Burger with Grilled Pineapple and a jalapeño cream cheese "sauce".

I moved into my first apartment nearly 8 years ago now. Can that really be right?! The point of me bringing this up is to say that in 8 years of living in a home with my own kitchen, providing for myself, and cooking for myself, I can honestly say I never had the urge to make sloppy joes until just a couple months ago. I've always been of the mindset: "Why would you make a sloppy joe, when it's the same ingredients as a burger... and then you could just have a burger?!" But for some reason, just a few months ago, I really just wanted a sloppy joe. So I went against all my instincts and started browning up some bison burger instead of forming it into patties and throwing them on the grill. And to tell you the truth... I REALLY liked it! So, here I am yesterday, going back through old instagram pictures and came across my sloppy joe image and I thought: "Yup... I'm hungry for that again." So, I thawed out another pound of ground bison and got to work...

Awhile back, I started a tradition where, when I leave town, I leave a pot pie behind in the fridge for while I'm gone. Last year, when I was off to the Missouri bison ranch for a few days, I suggested leaving a pan of enchiladas instead (as it was the dead of summer, and I thought it would be more appropriate). Instead I got an interesting suggestion... what about both in one dish... An Enchilada Pot Pie?  I was a little hesitant, but went forward with it anyway... making it up as I went along. This past week, I made another trip down to the Missouri bison ranch (and in addition to the usual Chicken Pot Pie), I also thought I'd give another go round to the Enchilada Pot Pie so that I could document it and blog it as the last time I made it, it was pretty well received.

Today was one of those days where an idea just hit me. I've been spending the last couple of days really thinking and reflecting about new ideas for my job and how to finish out the year strong. Part of that includes coming up with new content and ideas to share with my followers and customers to keep them engaged and interested. But having been doing this for 4 years, sometimes I feel like I get into a rut, or the ideas are all dried up. So that led to a lot of bison meat reflecting the past two days. :)  Which luckily... inspired this creation that I'm sharing with you today: Bison Cheeseburger Crescent Rolls.

Earlier this week, I inundated my  NebraskaBison.com Instagram feed  with several braggy pictures about what I was cooking that night. I was trying something new - and was so excited about it... I couldn't help but show off a little bit. Meatball subs honestly aren't something I eat on a regular basis–or ever–but for some reason the other day I got it in my head that I wanted a meatball sub, and darn it, I was going to make one! You see, I've been on a meatball kick lately. I've made a couple batches of  really good bison meatballs  and just continue to be hungry for them. So naturally, a bison meatball sub seemed like a great idea!

Every once in awhile, I just get a hankering for spaghetti and meatballs, really kind of randomly. I've tried making bison meatballs a few times before, and they've always been just OK. This time, however... I found a keeper! These meatballs were awesome and went so well with my spaghetti dinner and just hit the spot on a cold night. This meatball recipe is pretty simple, and only uses a few basic ingredients which you probably already have. 

I LOVE Bison Burgers. Have I said that before? Probably. I'm usually pretty plain with my burgers. I put on a slice of cheese, add some ketchup... maybe onions, and I'm good to go. But there are so so so many other {delicious} ways to prepare burgers. This year on the blog, I am resolving to post at least one new Bison Burger recipe each month in 2015. I'm calling it "A Year of Burgers".   To kick off this series, we've got simple Blue Cheese Bison Burgers with buttered onions and a blue cheese dressing. See the delicious finished burgers below:

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'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...

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 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...

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.