I'm in a rather large extended family where all the men (and some of the women too) hunt deer. I've taken one and it's mostly still in the freezer 'cause I don't know how to fix it.....
My husband and I just got back from our annual hunting trip in Michigan. We brought home 8 for the freezer.
We hardly ever eat beef anymore. The main thing to remember is that it is a LEAN meat. If you like your steaks rare, you will have no problem. If you like them well done, I would probably use a swiss steak method to keep the meat moist. With roasts, again I only cook them to the rare stage and add bacon to the top to keep the meat from drying out. Venison is great in any caserole, stew or chili recipe. Burgers are fine rare as is. If you like them well done, you need to add some fat from some other source - pork or beef.
Another thing, a bad butcher can really mess up good venison. I have had several bad experiences with butchers and now cut up my own. It's a lot of work but well worth it. I make sure to remove all the fat along the rump and ribs as it has a very greasy taste. It is leaf fat (suet) and is best removed.
Thanks for the tips. My family does it's own butchery. In fact, I spent most of yesterday hooking up our cooler. My in-laws have just sold their house and had to move everything. Now that we've got the cooler up and running we can settle down to some serious hunting. We passed on a couple of shots this weekend because we didn't have a place to hang the meat.
We're lucky. In this part of Alabama, deer season lasts from mid-october to the end of january.
Tuesday, I close on my own small piece of hunting property. Only fifteen acres but it's mostly wooded with a lot of deer. It's also only about three miles from my in-laws place. He has 400 acres.