How should I deal with blood released while thawing meat in the refrigerator? Saturday I pulled a package of venison from my freezer to thaw and hope to make stroganoff with it tonight. However, this morning I noticed that the package (in a bowl) had really released a lot of blood. I have a few questions here: 


It hasn't been above 40° F (4.4° C) much, but am I going to run into a moisture or consistency problem? If so, can I do anything in the stroganoff to balance this out?
Also, assuming the meat is safe, and still worth cooking, should I attempt to utilize the blood in building up the sauce; if so how? (I will likely be preparing the sauce using [drippings/blood(?)], a pound or so of mushrooms, and cream/sour cream.)
To start with, the red, or dark, juice from red meat is not, in fact, blood, which is a common misconception. Most blood is drained from red meat when it is butchered. It is, rather, a protein (myoglobin) and a lot of water.

It is an animal's levels (or lack of) myoglobin, that determine whether it is a 'red' meat or white.

As for its safety after being frozen, this is discussed further here.


  Beef stored in the refrigerator for more than 5 days will start to turn brown due to chemical changes in the myoglobin.  This doesn’t necessarily mean it has gone bad, though with this length of unfrozen storage, it may have.  Best to use your nose to tell for sure, not your eyes


As your venison was frozen, rather than just refrigerated, as mentioned above, I would say you are more than safe to do a nose test, as recommended above.