Dixie Delight Nachos

by Frank Richardson

The green and white fletchings stopped just short of disappearing into the doe’s rib cage, and the Magnus Stinger broadhead stuck nearly a foot out the other side. She ran towards a large cedar bush and looked like she was about to go down as we lost sight of her behind it.

I looked to my left to see the mile-wide smile of my 14-year-old son, Frank, who knew he had just made a perfect shot on what would be his first bow kill.

Our outfitter for the hunt, Colton Bolf, had talked Frank into trying a mid-afternoon hunt with his bow before heading to another area for our evening hunt. Colton knew that Frank had not yet been successful with his bow and really wanted to help him get his first bow kill.

The past hour or so we had been sitting in a ground blind built out of some old sections of wood fence that were held together with baling wire. We had deer in front of us fairly quickly after getting in the blind, but none had presented a close shot at a good angle.

As a large doe fed our way, she turned and started to quarter away. As she took the next step forward, bringing her front leg up to expose her vitals, Frank came to full draw and sent his arrow on its way.

After a short wait (which I am sure felt like an eternity to him), we took up the blood trail. The dry Texas soil sucked the moisture out of the blood, making it difficult to follow. Luckily, the ground was also very rocky in places, and the red stood out quite well against the white limestone.

As we neared the cedar bush the doe had disappeared behind, I really expected to find her piled up right there. I was a little surprised when we came around the cedar and she was nowhere to be found.

Frank and Colton found a faint blood trail that led up the side of the hill into some thicker cover. As we worked our way up the slope, the blood trail began to get thicker, and a few yards later Frank let out a yell.

He handed his bow to Colton before inspecting his first doe taken with a bow. She had run less than 100 yards after the shot, which had been placed perfectly behind her shoulder and exited just into the shoulder on the other side. I was proud to hear Frank immediately thank Colton for talking him into the mid-afternoon archery hunt.

Frank’s doe was one of several deer we brought back from Texas, each quartered frozen immediately. For the drive home, we placed the frozen meat in ice chests, and filled any voids with ice. The meat was still mostly frozen when we got back home to Florida.

Before making it to the house, we dropped the meat off at Concord Processing in Havana. A few days later, we got a call from Dennis at Concord telling us our meat was ready for pick up.

One of our first meals cooked with the meat from our Texas trip was ground venison nachos. We used Paul Lambert’s Dixie Delight Hot Sauce for an extra kick in flavoring. Here’s how we did it:

Dixie Delight Nachos

Ingredients:

• Ground venison (I prefer venison only, with no fat added)

• Taco seasoning

• Tortilla chips

• Veggies if desired

• Monterey Jack or Mexican blend shredded cheese

• Dixie Delight Hot Sauce (or Dixie Heat if you want it a little hotter!)

Instructions:

Brown ground venison in a skillet and add one packet of taco seasoning. Add water as necessary to prevent meat from burning (with no fat added, there is no grease to drain out).

Place spoonfuls of cooked meat onto tortilla chips. Next add 1/4 teaspoon of Dixie Delight to each tortilla, and top with shredded cheese and optional veggies. Place in oven on low heat or in microwave, just long enough to melt the cheese.

You can try some of Dixie Delight or Dixie Heat Hot Sauces from Paul by visiting www.dixieheat.biz (see ad on previous page).

We originally discovered Dixie Heat products while attending this year’s Big Buck Expo in Lakeland. I kept “losing” Frank as we were walking through the show, and after filing a few “missing persons” reports, I discovered I could always find him talking with Paul and “sampling” the Dixie Heat products.

Each time I found him at the Dixie Heat booth, I also had no choice but to “sample” Paul’s products. I am typically not a big hot sauce fan, but their products are so much different from what you normally think of when you hear of or think of “hot sauce.”

I would almost describe it as very tasty salsa in a bottle. We bought a couple of bottles at the show and they quickly disappeared at my house, along with several bags of chips.

Since that time, I have used their ad in Woods ‘n Water to re-order some extra bottles, which we used to make the venison nachos described above.