Venison Tenderloin with Mushrooms

So my boyfriend cooked dinner for me and his mom on Saturday. He's an awesome cook, and it was a wonderful evening. It was really fun to share a delicious and thoughtful meal with the two of them.

Now I know a lot of you are probably wondering what a venison dish is doing on a flexitarian's blog, so let me explain. I don't usually eat red meat due to the high environmental impact that it has, but since I'm a flexitarian and there are sometimes exceptions to this. In this case, sustainably hunted deer has a very low environmental impact, especially comparatively to factory farm raised beef and pork. This is because there is not the system of fossil fuels that goes into raising this type of meat. Also deer hunting in the midwest states is actually a necessity to keep the population down. Since humans have killed off all the other natural predators of deer in the area (mainly wolves) their population grows unchecked. This leads to disease, starvation, and environmental degradation. That means that regulated deer hunting is a good to thing, needed to maintain the forest ecosystems in the midwest. It was really nice to be able to have a meal with meat in it that was consistent with my values.

As I said my boyfriend made this. It was my first time tasting venison, so we were both a little nervous about whether or not I would like it. And I did! I very much enjoyed it. It tasted like a very good, very lean beef tenderloin. I only really like very lean meat, so I liked that a lot about the dish. My boyfriend grilled it so it had a nice smoky flavor, and he marinated it in a wonderful sauce. We ate it with delicious sautéed mushrooms and onions. The combination of flavors was very complex and wonderful, and I very much enjoyed this meal! We also had corn on the cob on the side (see above). A treat I usually associate with summer, so it was a nice surprise to have it in the fall. We also had a wonderful italian salad (see below) with the meal. It had artichoke hearts, peppers, tomatoes, and red onions in it. And it was yummy.

A wonderful meal with wonderful company. It was so nice of him to cook for me :)