Muskox on a buzz

The sun came back this weekend for like 7 minutes before plopping back below the horizon. It's been snowing and cloudy for the last few days. I'll just take Environment Canada's word that the sun is somewhere behind those clouds.

The town celebrated the Sunrise Festival on Saturday with a pancake breakfast, games and a huge fireworks show. It was -30C that night and so we enjoyed the fireworks from the comfort of our kitchen. The girls were all excited because they thought all the booming was gunfire and they were eager to retrieve the fallen game. So cute.

We celebrated with nice chunk of muskox tenderloin. Yum nom nom nom

It gave me an excuse to use my NEW Crockpot:

Hubba hubba. Hey you sexy thing, where have you been all my life?

It was a Christmas present from myself. It has a metal non-stick insert that allows you to sear and saute on the stove top which means less dishes for me to clean! WooHoo!
I have been pining all year for this but it was just a touch too $$ for me to justify buying since I already had a perfectly good crockpot. Then it went on sale!

Muskox is a pretty mild meat in relation to other game meats but it is a tad gamey.  I figured instead of doing the usual drunken beast treatment, I would experiment with a spice rub.  I opened up the my spice drawer and basically pulled out stuff randomly and dumping whatever felt right into a bowl. I wanted something earthy and just a touch spicy.
I used coffee grounds as a base for the spice rub. I know, it sounds strange but it's sooooo good.

Here's my unrecipe for a Coffee Spice Rub:

Base
2-3 scoops of finely ground coffee
good dose of sea salt
good dose of black pepper

If you want it spicy add:
chili powder (regular or chipolte or ancho)
smidge of cayenne powder
ground ginger

If you want earthy add:
ground cumin
ground corriander
tumeric
ground mustard
paprika

If you want sweet add:
cocoa powder
cinnamon
nutmeg
dried orange peel
ground allspice

Other stuff you can add:
garlic powder
dried herbs
onion powder

Of course, this is not an exhaustive list of what you can dump into your spice rub.  Of course, you could just buy a ready made spice rub but you miss out on the fun of playing mad alchemist dumping random spices into your cauldron of rubbing goodness. 

Mix your spice rub thoroughly and give your chunk a meat a good, dirty massage with it.

After I finished giving the muskox roast a good shiatsu rub down, I melted a dollop of coconut oil in the pan/insert over medium high heat and seared each side for about 3 minutes until I got a nice brown crust. I threw in a chopped onion. I also did the same treatment to a sirloin roast and cooked them both up at the same time since there's so much freaking room in my new crockpot!

I cooked it for 8 hours on low. We had it with oven baked sweet potato fries and spaghetti squash and chimichurri sauce. YUM!

Have a great week!