Showing posts with label red wine rabbit stew. Show all posts
Showing posts with label red wine rabbit stew. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Rabbit Hunter!



Unlike Satan, I try to take Monday "off". This means get up, drink lots of tea and coffee, say Morning Prayer on the porch, then think of something meaningful to do, like go for a shoot or a ride. Apparently there was a small pack of wild dogs loose on a parishioner's farm, so I opted for the shoot and my plan was simple. Look out for the dogs and shoot them with a shotgun and if they were sensibly in hiding, go after squirrels or rabbits.

Kit, note the Cloak of Invisibility, aka old Brit combat jacket...

First things first, get your kit together, namely a shotgun, a .22, and a scoped .243 in case there's a need for a longish range shot against the dogs. Then inspect your porch arsenal and wonder why you're strangely over-armed for this expedition -- why not take a .45 and a semi-auto, just in case, for goodness sake -- and drive out.

No Dogs

No sooner was I at the farm and out of the truck than there's a rabbit, at about 40 yards silhouetted between two gateposts. I quickly loaded the .22 and squeezed off a shot; one rabbit for the pot. The next step was scouting about for dogs, shotgun in hand, but they weren't in evidence, so that part of the escapade turned into a armed ramble about the countryside. There's nothing wrong with that, it's important, I think, to get out in the tree lines and fields and if you're in hunting mode you see and hear more because the senses are heightened. Still, no dogs, so I went back to the truck and there's another rabbit! Great excitement, as I swapped out guns, went into the brush and shot it. Two rabbits for the pot.

Two for the pot

That was plenty of action for me -- time to head off home to skin and gut then soak the meat in brine. I made the rabbits into a red wine based stew and served up over polenta, Italian style. Next time I think something to do with a grill might be in order, or maybe a curry.

Clean

Tasty, and all the better for being something I made for myself, from kill to clean to pot. A quantity of red wine didn't hurt anything either.

Simmer

Moral? Don't be a slacker, get out and hunt.

God bless,

LSP