Taste A Legend Review

With folks out putting critters in the freezer and all of the talk about hitting the grill I got lucky to be asked to try some marinades made for game. Melissa at Taste A Legend got in touch with me an asked if I would like to review what she makes which I was glad to do.

When it arrived I found several different bottles of marinade each formulated for a different type of meat along with a package of wild rice and a dry rub/seasoning mix. The first thing you notice is the packaging looks good, better than a lot of what you find at the store. I checked the ingredients list along with the cooking instructions to see how they suggested I use each type. The only problem I ran into, this was just before I took a deer so I didn’t have any venison for the first test. I did have some squirrels so decided to start with that using the marinade for chicken, pork, beef and lamb.

I marinated the meat for several hours only to realize I couldn’t grill that night. Great, since it says to grill. I baked it instead which is not the way I would do it again. My fault not theirs’. When I tasted it for the first time I will say it is not subtle, this is made for game which tends to be stronger than squirrel. The seasoning is so different from what we have here it took a couple of bites to be able to really taste what was going on. To me it has a strong influence of the Southwest, spices with lime and lemon, not spicy just bold. This blend has two of my favorites, basil and rosemary, which I grow to use on game. Despite my cooking it in the oven rather than on the grill it had a good taste. The smoke and texture from grilling would have made a huge difference which I found out later.

I managed to get a deer so next up was some Tennessee surf and turf. I had a channel catfish fillet ready to go along with a cut from the deer. The fillet was from a larger cat which tends to have a strong flavor which I am not a fan of. I normally spice these heavily to kill the fishy taste this time I put it into the fish marinade for 4 hours. For the venison I used the dry spices which I put on about 45 minutes before going on the grill.

I have to say it sure smelled good while cooking. The fish came off with a nice crust, the venison like a good steak. I didn’t add anything, no salt, oil, anything to change the taste. The fish marinade reminded me of one of my favorite things I use to cook fish, a friend from Japan introduced me to a Japanese BBQ sauce which is soy sauce based. Taste A Legend has a nice mild flavor but managed to tame the strong taste of the channel cat. Now this is saying a lot for a southern boy. While I love food from all over the world we have two ways to cook here, fried and on special occasions deep fried. Grilled fish has to be good for me to enjoy it and this was. I will use a higher heat next time to get a bit more crunch but the taste was good just as it was.

For the venison using the dry mix I grilled it to medium rare. I used a cut that wasn’t the best to see how the spices held up, I really liked this. Not salty or too strong and with smoke from the grill it sure made that venison taste good. I am a fan of using dry rubs, over the years I have used many commercial and custom blends, this one worked right out of the bottle. Again to me it tends to the Southwest tastes which I don’t get much here and was a nice change from what we use. Nothing hot or too spicy for the folks that can’t take the heat but a good well rounded flavor when grilled. I want to try it again with some vegetables on the grill to see how that works.

The first three flavors I tried from Taste A Legend were good and I can’t wait to try them again since now I know what to expect and how to use them. The first that I put on squirrel had a bold intense flavor and next time I will use it on meat that can take the strength. I can see on something like lamb or goat it would be the thing to use, I bet chicken grilled with it then used for tacos would be great. The dry rub was just plain good, I think I will stick to using it for when I have something to grill, it just seems to get better with the smoke added. The fish marinade is going to go fast here. I need to grill more fish but don’t like most of it no matter what is on it but this makes it into something I enjoyed. I have a lot of strong catfish that will be visiting the grill in the near future thanks to this sauce plus keep me from frying it.

I still have more marinades and their rice blend to try, I will get some cooking done so I can let you know how they do. Taste A Legend is a company that has the hunter and fisherman in mind with their flavors. They understand that wild game can take and at times needs flavors that can stand up to the strength of the meat. If you want some new bold tastes for your cooking I think you will enjoy what Taste A Legend has done.

Cajun Seasoning Pt Duex

It is time for another review. This time a quick look at more from my friend and now my first sponsor, lets have a round of applause for Mr. Camp Dog himself, Papa Scott!!

I am happy to say that my little bit of getting the word out seems to have helped many folks find out about Cajun Seasoning. Now I want you to take a look at the other goodies Papa Scott turns out down there in the great state of Louisiana.

When last we met we looked at Original Camp Dog, this time I have a three part treat for you. First is Non Typical spice mix. Comes packaged like the Original but with a different flavor. In this one it isn’t quite as warm and the celery is gone. As much as I like the first one I really use more of this now. It goes on just about everything and my friends are using it on even more than I am. From eggs to mule deer tenderloins to fries it works. I love it on squash, either fried or on the grill, oh and green onions grilled and….umm ok you get the picture, this stuff is good.

Next is something near and dear to me, Fish Fry Batter. Being from the south fried fish done right is a tradition and we know when it is wrong. I got some of Papa Scott’s recipe and tried it several ways to see how it would do. Since it has a bit of spice I tried it on some fairly strong catfish I had, it tamed it down so that you could eat it without tasting river. I found out because of the spices you have to cook at a lower temp than you do if you are using cornmeal. If you aren’t careful you wind up with charred fillet rather than tasty fillet. Don’t ask how I know this. I tried it out on my favorite bluegill fillets but just lightly dusted since they are so mild. They came out crisp with just enough zip without overpowering the fish.

I also used a couple of different dips to see if it would work with them. I dried catfish fillets, dusted them with batter mix, dropped them into an egg wash for one batch and a buttermilk wash for another then dredged them in the batter mix. A couple of each batch were dipped into the liquid again and dredged a second time to create a thick crust. All were cooked in an iron skillet using vegetable oil until golden brown. Again each and every way I tried it worked. Light crust, thick crust, egg or milk, all tasted great. I haven’t tried this trick yet but a little bird told me to use it on vegetables like eggplant (I am thinking squash, I love me some squash) to have another way to add flavor to them.

And finally Hush Puppy Mix. I will admit this is nothing like what I think of as hush puppies. Here it is cornmeal, a bit of sugar, a tad of minced onion, mixed with buttermilk and an egg. Papa Scott’s has some tasty stuff in it that reminds me of the spices and tastes in crab boil. One pound of hush puppy mix will make around 60 tasty little balls of goodness. Add a cup of milk and one egg, let sit for 30 minutes and cook in a deep fryer at 300 degrees, let them drain on a paper towel and cool a bit, consume.

The first time I tried these Scott told me he made a meal from them, I thought “Yeah right.”. Well I will tell you this, I was eating on the couch watching TV and had to get up and take them back in the kitchen to stop eating them. They are worse than potato chips. They aren’t your normal hush puppy which shouldn’t surprise anyone that has tried his other products. Scott hit another one out of the park with these. I try not to cook them often to be honest about it because I tend to eat far too many no matter how much I promise not to.

For those of you that have tried the spice rubs here is a list of things you will want to order, Scott really has these down. If you haven’t tried any and especially if you like fish and hush puppies, give those a try for a Cajun twist for your table.

Here is a link to get your order in from Papa Scott's Cajun Seasoning

Camp Dog, Review

When you are a famous internet and social media personality such as myself hardly a day goes by when something doesn’t darken your door from companies wanting you to try, wear, taste, endorse some product or other…..oh crap. Sorry I was ghost writing this for someone else.

Let me start over. Only a couple of times have I ever gotten anything from a company to try as far as our outdoor community goes. I know people that get everything from shirts and hats to rods, reels, guns, you name it, they just seem to attract merchandise like some weird freebie magnet. I am not one of those people. I have on rare occasions, by that I mean a total of 2, been offered something. In both cases I told them they didn’t have to send anything since I know they get hit up for samples a lot. Both sent something saying they wanted me to try it and give an honest opinion. That I can do, actually, the only thing I will do. No shill here. If it is good I tell you, if not you get that, too. If you send me something and it sucks don’t get mad when I tell people. Hmm, maybe that’s why I don’t get stuff. Anyway.

Now that the explanation/disclaimer/warning is out of the way let me tell you what I got. I opened the mailbox to find a manila envelope inside. I was only expecting one thing other than bills and the return address confirmed it. Straight out of the great state of Louisiana I had my first container of Papa Scott’s Original Camp Dog Cajun Seasoning. I love me some spicy and couldn’t wait to try it. I read the cool/funny back story on the container then headed to the kitchen.

It was just about supper time and according to the label it works on anything that “flies, walks, crawls, swims or jumps”. I happened to have some bluegill fillets waiting so they won the “Wonder what to try it on first” contest. To be fair I didn’t read the ingredients, wanting the taste to stand on its’ own. The other thing I did was to make two piles of fillets, one got just Camp Dog Seasoning while the other was coated in Camp Dog then breaded with self rising cornmeal. Hey, sue me I’m southern, we bread everything in cornmeal and fry it.

I cooked both piles the same, dropped into vegetable oil in an iron skillet. I used the vegetable oil since it doesn’t add flavor. Once they were a nice toasty brown I was ready for the tasting. I only added a bit of chow chow to cut the oil some between bites, again to keep from adding other tastes from slaw, fries, hush puppies, a slice of onion, dang I should have fixed all that it sounds good. But I digress. To be honest I am not a big fan of fish that isn’t breaded but wanted to see how Camp Dog held up without help. I started with the unbreaded and it worked, good flavor, not too salty and a bit of heat at the end. Next was the breaded batch. These really worked for me. The added crunch with Camp Dog flavoring the cornmeal was what I was hoping for. It was good, really good, just the taste and texture I like. I found out later that I had used too much oil on the unbreaded fish which should have been more blackened than what I did so anything wrong there was on me.

First batch in.

One of my favorite sights.

According to the package you can also use this on critters that walk and fly, not just swim. Since I had already fried something I decided to grab a chunk of bovine, fire up the grill and see what we had. Finding a likely looking bit of cow critter ( I grabbed a small pack of chicken thighs ,too) I headed back to get it ready. I got a chuck roast because it isn’t the most tender cut. Camp Dog is supposed to work as a tenderizer, we’ll see. I added seasoning to the chicken the night before to let it have time to work. For the beef I put it on about 7 hours ahead of cooking to see if it will tenderize the meat as per Papa Scott‘s instructions when we talked. I only added Camp Dog, no salt, pepper, Worcestershire, beer, nothing else to season the meat. Again we are testing here. Kick ‘em out of the nest, fly or die, no help.  I know the smoke will add some but that was part of my test, too. At times seasonings can turn bitter when grilled. I’ve heard other people besides me like to grill, who knew, so thought I should see what that did to the taste.

I use a charcoal grill not one of those gas thingies (sorry to get so technical). I had some hickory chips and decided to add some during cooking, that would be the only help besides regular smoke from the coals, besides I like hickory smoke. When they were ready I got the meat on, top closed and let the smoke roll. The worst part, the wind kicked up and blew all that good smell away while it was cooking. 45 minutes later we were ready to go. Both meats had taken beautiful color and smelled great, the chicken was done through, beef was at medium, let the eating begin.

Note the green onions right out of the garden on the top shelf. Pic is in focus that is smoke you see.

I started with the chicken. Many times when I season chicken the spices will just sit on top, once the skin is gone so is most of the taste. Not this time. It was flavored all the way through with a nice even taste. Nothing bitter from grilling, the seasoning held up great to the smoke. Luckily I had done my part by not over cooking the chicken which I am prone to do. This was just plain old good. Flavored but not too hot or spicy and with the smoke….well good thing there was only a couple of pieces since I still had the beef to try and couldn’t keep eating chicken.

My other side was sweet potato, boiled then finished on the grill for a few minutes.

The beef could have come off a couple of minutes earlier but wasn't past medium. Chuck roast can turn tough on the grill but not this one. I let it rest for maybe 10 minutes before cutting and when I did it was perfectly tender. The seasoning had made a light crust, taken good color and just like the chicken, tasted great. The difference, to me, with the beef the little heat from the seasoning wasn’t as pronounced which makes sense with the heavier beef taste. Now when I say heat don’t panic if you don’t like hot, this isn’t hot just a bit of spice that you taste near the end of a bite.

A good thing with Camp Dog is the fact that it isn’t salt based which helps the other flavors come through and allows people to use it on low salt diets. They have another flavor that takes the celery and heat out for those that might not care for them. There are several products I think you will want to try from Original like I have to Fish Fry Batter, Hush Puppy Mix and more. Click their link here Camp Dog Cajun Seasoning and take a look, nice looking site with all types of goodies even gift baskets for the hard to buy for cook in the family.

Well, there it is a quick look at Papa Scott’s. Not only is it as good as it says, works like it should but the folks that make it are some of the best around. I tried to find a way that it wouldn’t work as advertised but it came through. I can't wait to try it on other critters and I hope you give them a try rather than just more off the shelf stuff from the grocery store you won‘t be disappointed.