sunday brunch

every friday morning, during the summer season, folks can savor the local special up at ryden's border store cafe. the special on friday mornings is 'steak bites'. these marinated bites of tender beef are served up with eggs and hashbrowns, and it seems that they sell out around 9am. i haven't actually been able to make it to ryden's on a friday morning before 9am, so i have yet to get in on these delicious bites. however, my fella and his coworkers have, and i'm told weekly, about just what i've been missing.

we decided to recreate the 'steak bites' for a sunday morning brunch. (i actually didn't have any background for which to recreate from, so jeremy did most of the work with the steak bites). i wanted a well rounded sunday brunch, so the menu looked something like this: venison 'steak bites', herb roasted new potatoes, fresh fruit salad with lime juice and vanilla sugar, and mini bloody marys.

we were given a gift of venison back strap from my aunt, and decided that was a great substitute for the beef used at ryden's. we sliced the back strap into 1/2 inch thick steaks. they were sort of mini steaks -to replicate the 'bites'. we wanted to marinate them a bit too, so some tamari, garlic, toasted sesame oil, chili flakes, and herbs did the trick. i don't have a recipe for the marinade, but you should be able to wing it at home. we let the venison marinate for about 45 minutes, then fired up the grill. you could pan fry these, but i really enjoy the flavor of grilled venison, so once the grill was preheated, on went the venison. it probably didn't take more than a few minutes on each side, to make perfect medium-rare/ medium venison bites. finished with fresh cracked pepper and a little smoked sea salt, and voila'! venison steak bites.

the herb roasted potatoes, which are a personal favorite, are super easy to do. just make sure to get your hands on some great quality new potatoes, or dig up a few from your garden. the young potatoes that you could harvest from your garden now will be tender and earthy- perfect for roasting! toss with enough olive oil to coat all of the potatoes evenly. throw in whatever fresh herbs are growing in your garden, sea salt, cracked pepper, and roast in a 425 degree oven until golden brown and cooked through.

the fresh fruit salad. i was a minimalist here. depending on the fresh fruit that you use, a fresh fruit salad has a pretty short lifespan, so i only made enough for brunch. i used bananas and fresh picked blueberries-both were perfectly ripe and required very little work to make them taste fantastic. a few squeezes of fresh lime juice and a few sprinklings of some vanilla sugar i had stashed in the cupboard. it had a slightly tropical vibe, yet mid-western with the fresh picked blueberries. simple. good.

sunday brunch is one meal that i really enjoy making because it seems to bring us all together on a day which could potentially be very busy with chores and beach time. my daughter really likes to get in on the event, delegating who gets to cook what items, as she is busy picking blueberries, playing dress up with our beloved dog, and whipping up a pretend brunch of her own. i speculate that my young multi-tasker might be ready to work in a restaurant sooner than i would've thought....