Instructions

1. Round up your favorite fresh tomatoes or put a large can of whole tomatoes in a bowl. Add some diced tomatoes, tomato sauce and tomato paste to the mix, too, just as you might do to make a thick marinara sauce. Keep a little extra of these ingredients in the refrigerator; you might add them later if you choose to make any adjustments to the sauce. Or, add them after you cook the meal and before you store the leftovers in the refrigerator.

2. Season the tomato sauce with salt and pepper as well as your favorite herbs, which might include basil, oregano or thyme. Or add some Italian seasoning. Taste the sauce; if the tomatoes are too bitter, counterbalance the flavor by adding a little sugar.

3. Heat some olive oil in a skillet and brown some aromatics, like celery and onion. As the vegetables begin to soften, add your venison stew meat, beef cubes or ground meat to the skillet—just as you might do with cuts of beef, chicken or pork that also cannot brown in a slow cooker. Add some minced garlic to the skillet, if you like.

4. Place the venison in the slow cooker and pour the rich tomato sauce on top. Add a little robust red wine, too, if you like. Mix the ingredients thoroughly. If the sauce looks thick, resist the urge to thin it with a little water at this stage. The sauce will become thinner as it cooks along with the venison. Better to make any adjustments to the sauce after the halfway point in the cooking time to give the dish time to reach its true consistency.

5. Cook for about eight hours on the low. Stir and tweak the sauce toward the end of the cooking cycle. Serve the venison over mostaccioli or rigatoni noodles and top it with a little mozzarella or ricotta cheese.