Photo by Capt. Nate Skinner

Venison sausage and dove kick up this pasta dish

The Christmas season is a great time to incorporate some recently harvested wild game into a delicious, home-cooked meal. Combining two kinds of meat is an excellent way to provide your family and friends with a wildly scrumptious experience. That’s exactly what they’ll get with this pasta dish, which includes dove breasts and venison sausage.

Paired with sautéed mushrooms, the two types of wild game turn an ordinary bowl of pasta into a flavorful concoction worth serving at just about any holiday gathering. Garlic Alfredo sauce is the perfect finishing touch for this entrée, which soon will become a new, household favorite.

Serve it with a side of baked zucchini and yellow squash, along with a glass of wine, and get ready for the rave reviews that are sure to follow.

Dove and Venison Sausage Farfalle

15-20 deboned dove breasts

2 links smoked venison sausage

1 (16-ounce) box of Farfalle (bow-tie) pasta

8 ounces sliced mushrooms

30 ounces garlic Alfredo sauce

Season dove breasts to taste. Cook the dove breasts with a dash of olive oil in a skillet on medium to high heat until all sides of each breast are brown.

Boil sausage links in a large pot of water on high heat for 20-25 minutes. Remove from the pot and slice.

Sauté sliced mushrooms in a skillet on medium heat with olive oil until they’re tender.

Cook the farfalle or bow-tie pasta on a stovetop according to package directions.

Pour garlic Alfredo sauce into a large pot and simmer on the stove.

Place a generous helping of the pasta on a plate. Add a mixture of dove breasts, slices of venison sausage and sautéed mushrooms to the pasta. Top with garlic Alfredo sauce. Serve with baked zucchini and yellow squash.

Baked Zucchini and Yellow Squash

3 yellow squash

3 zucchini squash

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

Slice yellow and zucchini squash and place on a large baking pan. Salt and pepper to taste. Drizzle olive oil over the zucchini and yellow squash. Bake in the oven at 350 F for 25-30 minutes, or until the slices of squash become tender.