This morning I got up early so I could prepare tonights supper. Well, that was the intent anyways. I woke up with my normal alarm at 4:35. I have enough time built into my morning routine that I wasn't even close to being late to work. So I got damn near nine hours of sleep.
The best start to a good day is a good night's rest.
Ingredients
So besides the whole rabbit itself, cut into the six cuts on a rabbit, I put in an onion, a Mexican squash grown by my friend, organic black beans, some Himalayan salt, cayenne pepper, no salt seasoning (think Mrs. Dash, but way better), and the hearts, lungs, livers, and kidneys of six other rabbits.
That's a whole lot of organ meats, and I halfway expect this dish to last me through the weekend.
Since it's going to cook for so long, I decided at the advice of my friend to make it a soup. So I added water. It'll cook for eleven hours on 170°F in our cast iron Dutch oven. Low and slow.
Rabbit, beans, onions
I ended up going with more of a soup because the rabbit will be a total pulp after eleven hours. That's a whole long time. The bones may even be edible at that point, which would be awesome. Even less waste and even more nutrition.
Full pot
In that pic, the bright red places that almost look like tomatoes are lungs. The lungs all have the hearts still attached. The livers are the big brownish shiny parts. The kidneys, probably the most distinctly flavored meat I've had, have a good deal of excellent white fat on them. Cooking low and slow, this will render into the soup like a lard. I wonder if there's a word for rabbit fat? Probably not, since there's not a whole lot of fat on rabbits. I know rabbit meat is called coney though. Just like a pig's meat is pork and a cow's meat is beef.
I'm actually really surprised and pleased with how much organ meat is in one rabbit. As breeding season approaches, I'm getting more excited at the possibility of having a sustainable source of clean ethical meat on the homestead. Rabbits are really cool for that. They're not nearly as fun to have around as chickens though. They lack the personality of a chicken and are much higher maintenance since they have to be penned. Rabbits will run away if you let them free range, unlike chickens who will stick around as long as you feed them.
Fast forward eleven hours
Woah mama! That's goooood!
It came out a bit more of a stew. I didn't soak the beans like I should have, so they soaked up a good bit of the juice. The livers melted into the stew, and there's liver in every bite. The kidneys, that usually have more of a meat texture, have more of a usual liver texture. The hearts and lungs are excellent. The meat is so tender and soft. The bones aren't comfortably edible, but none of the meat sticks to them. The onions are mostly flavorless, meaning that all the onion-y goodness is in the stew. And squash goes great in this kind of thing, it just soaks in more flavor and gives more food in the pot. I love it. Helluva celebration of good, ethical, local food.
I want mushrooms in it. And I should have added some butter and bacon grease. I like a creamy stew too, so maybe I could add some sour cream to my next bowl. And maybe garlic. Things to try next time :)
I'm off to the garden! Got more to do, and I'd like to get to bed early again. That was awesome last night.
See y'all later! Love from Texas
Nate💚
I appreciate the sentiment behind this post, but... 🤢🤮 ... I'm not a fan of organs or bunnies. Just my taste. I am still debating about killing a chicken.
I wrestled with culling my chooks for so long. It just wasn't time, so I let them be until we all came to peace with it. It sounds weird to say, but I just woke up one day and was like "yeah, it's time." But every day before then, it definitely wasn't time.
If there's hesitance, I say don't do it. Whatever it is that says "don't kill or eat animals," there's a reason for it.
Wow! That came out beautifully! Sour cream or just thick raw milk cream sounds good....
Yeah, I hadn't thought to just add some cream! I'll do that. Headed to the dairy probably tomorrow afternoon. Today I'm meeting a guy about our crawlspace and going to get the fam from my mother in law's, and tomorrow morning is church :) which leaves tomorrow afternoon for the dairy.
Curated for #naturalmedicine by @neyxirncn.
This is impressive. I wonder, how does a rabbit taste? Is it similar to chicken? Similar to beef? I think I could eat it but the killing would be the hard part for me. I am in peace with the cycle of life though - hence why I admire you so much for your homesteading content!!!
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Wow, that's an honoring comment, thank you! Yes, it's still a little hard to harvest the animals. Sharing their entire life process is a special connection.
As for the taste, it is exactly like chicken. In fact, if you gave me a bite of chicken breast and a bite of rabbit meat that were both cooked the same, I doubt I'd be able to tell the difference. But in production, rabbits far outpace chickens. Commercial meat chickens are ready for harvest in as little as seven weeks (after they've been packed full of GMOs and kept in unhealthy conditions). Rabbits take a little longer, at twelve weeks harvesting age, but they produce more meat per volume of food they eat. And, that food can be supplemented with most green leafy plants around your home/parks/living area. Also, those chickens that product in eight weeks are usually a breed that you can't breed at the house yourself. It takes a specialized hybrid of chickens that only a few (very wealthy) companies have access to. Rabbits can be grown by anyone easily. So I do consider them a better option for meat than chickens.
For eggs on the other hand, chickens are far better. Rabbit eggs just aren't the same.
😂😂😂😂 I can imagine.
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ENGAGEtokens.