Just another Day on the Farm

Rabbit Stew in a creamy mustard sauce.

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Ok, I did need two pots and one fry pan to pull this dish together the way I wanted it and I am unsure how to get it to less and get the same dish…

This meal was made out of the my most favorite part of the rabbit the back saddles, they are without a doubt the “tenderloin” of the rabbit to me, love! love this cut.. I had boned the meat out and then aged it for a full three days in the coldest part of the fridge. I then cut them into little cubes, remember to take off the white skin on these so they stay amazing tender morsels.

In one pot a cooked up a number of med diced potato’s and in another I just heated back a pot filled with a bag of frozen green beans..

In a bowl, I mixed one cup of thick greek yogurt (could use sour cream in a pinch but you want the yogurt tang if you can get it) with two heaping spoons of seedy mustart, one was dandilion and the other was a mixed seed honey mustart, a pinch of salt was added and mixed in.

I sliced a large onion, and put in some good quality olive oil in the cast iron and heated it till med hot, then added in the rabbit cubes and the onion and let the first side get browned before flipping, I drained both veggies, for three servings (there was enough meat to increase the veggies to make it a four person serving if wanted), I used the saddlebacks for two rabbits, two large potato’s diced, 2 cups of green beans, and one large onion.

Once the meat is cooked though a matter of a few minutes, I added the hot pototat and green beans, gentley folding them into together to heat though, at this point and put my cup of mustard sauce over top and mixed in.. allowed to just get back to simmer point and removed to serve.. you could serve this with a side salad or a fresh bun.

Working on a Rabbit Hide..Part one..

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Now I know that you can buy or even make homemade chemical tanning solutions and with time and practise you will get very good results indeed..

My hide is not going to come out looking like that, I am curing with salt/alum and will be doing a light smoking with summac for the tannins.. none the less it will work very well for what I have in mind..

So in the photos, you have a chilled in a snow bank rabbit hide, from start to mostly cleaned up and salted down and chilling waiting for the next step.. From start to finish in the photo, it took me a good three hours of careful detailed work on scraping down the hide, and it could still use some more work yet.

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged rabbit hides | 4 Comments

One of those super simple meals, Salmon and Pea’s

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Can you honestly call something so simple a recipe? None the less, what a great breakfast this was but of course it could be a lovely lunch or even a nice light supper..

One 5 oz peice of thawed salmon, 3 cups of frozen green pea’s, and a bit of olive oil and a small pat of butter.. Heat your cast iron with the olive oil, cut your salmon in half and place in the pan to start cooking, let the one side get good and browned before flipping, then take the one peice out to rest when done, and chop up the other, throw in your pea’s (that have pulled and are sitting out for the last ten to twenty mins as you prep and cook etc, and then throw them in that wonderful hot fishy oil and heat though mixed with the half peice of salmon, add a touch of salt and a pat of butter if you which.

To serve, dish up and then place the whole peice on top.. Yum!, Just flat out yum!

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged SALMON and peas | Leave a comment

Carrying a Boar between breedings.. Angelo

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Well, we had planned on breeding Miss Piggy and the butchering Angelo after he had a rest from breeding and I had confirmed Piglets, then we went back and forth a bit on this one, as there were pro’s and con’s to getting a new male pig once a year as that is the most litters I really want from Miss Piggy..

So just a heads up that Angelo is heading off with Marty and Ten of our biggest lambs to the butcher on Monday..

I have read it a number of times that carrying a boar requires three females to make it successful in terms of profit on the little ones, and I have figured a few things out.. first being that given that I am going to do most of the piglets for myself, I am not so worried about if the offspring are purebred or not..

Miss Piggy is purebred but not papered, so I can’t sell the babies as purebred, so why worry about if I am breeding a pure black to a pure black, I could in fact keep my wonderful Miss Piggy and take her to a regular old pig, or a half heritage pig of a different breed, so that I get colorful wee ones, don’t you think red spotted would just be so much fun!, getting a much better growth rate on her offspring, because let me tell you.. right now, I have to say that my growth weight in the three, almost four month old piglets are not impressing me..

While the piglets are growing and are super healthy, they are going to take two or three months longer to reach the same weight as some of the half hertiage/half meat pig weaners I have raised up, and dare I say this, I want some of that growth rate back in her offspring.. now I see why those I got my weaner pigs from had heritage breed pasture mothers, crossbreed back to a regular or half regular meat pig.

I have really only one way to adjust out the feed costs of raising this litter up, and that is butchering out a piglet every six weeks or so, this allows me to gain fresh meat for us on the farm and it allows that feed portion from that piglet to go to the remaining piglets in the grow out pen, thus keeping the feed cost at a level rate, instead of growing with the piglets per month.. It is being effective in that way and the meat is excellent and I certainly have enough piglets that its not going to effect the end result of having lots of pork in the freezer or canned up in the pantry etc..

Having said that, it does effect the overall amount of return we are getting, clearly if I am butchering out a piglet at 3 months, 4 months and 5 months and most likely at 6 months of age in order to carry the rest to the eight/nine month stage for proper butcher weights, that is a problem in the sense of I am giving up a fifty to six pds of meat per pig I butcher out early in the long run.

By being willing to crossbred, I still control the raising and lifestyle of the male pig, and I control the pregancy of the female and her babies, while gaining the faster growth rates, I don’t lose mother ability because that is miss piggies domain, and she is very good at it.

As much as I hate to admit it, letting Angelo go to be replaced in the future with Kermit the Hog makes alot of sense at this time. What breed Kermit will be, only time will tell..

Posted in Life moves on daily | 2 Comments

Houdini and Training..

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

How can a little tiny mini horse throw my training right back to square one, cuz that is pretty darn near how I feel about it this week..

I will admit that while I did spend a good amount of time in my younger years around horses, I have had a good gap inbetween, I have always been the type that either liked the horse or not.. If I like a horse, I will go the extra mile and then some and if I don’t feel that connect, I tend to typically walk away.

When Brandy came along, and I meet her, I knew! the first time we looked each other in the eye and spent time together that she set my heart and mind on fire.. she was THERE!

My instinct was that I wanted to spend time with her and create a working bond between us, sure we have ups and downs, always will, but just to see her can lift my mood..

Houdini however is a different matter, and I am struggling to find that connect, that melding, he is pretty in his color and marking, he is cute with his little horse face and his ewak ears, but he didn’t choose me and I didn’t choose him.. he is at this time indifferent to me.. and if I am being truly honest, my heart belongs to another..

I bring food, and water and time outside and he will walk nicely getting to and from where he wants to go and if I work with him, he can be lead into and or pressured to do things but there is no willingness, no trust and no partnership between us at this time..

Some of it could be my own fault, I took one look into Brandy’s face, we breathed each others air and I asked her both out loud and heart to heart.. want to come home and be my horse, and I swear I felt she said yes..

I have spent the past month telling “pony” that he is just on a temp pass, I was by no means not caring for him but I was not connected and when he tried in the first week to ten days to make that eye connect, and come to the front to see me, I would pet him and tell him.. I will keep you safe but your not mine..

Just like I think Brandy heard me, so did pony.. and just as I turned that offer down, this past week he has made it clear that he is turning my friendship down.. he will let me lead but he is not a happy, content or willing follower.

I finally had to step back yesterday and just think on it.. the only thing I asked from him was to let me give him a rub and pat.. and what I came out of that thinking is this..

I need to stop thinking of him as a burden, as a “What am I going to do with a mini! horse” with a focus on “getting him ready to find his home”.. Its just not going to work for him or me..

I need to have a turn around, a fresh look and approuch on this..

Houdini came into my life and that is a blessing!

Houdini is who he is and I am who I am, we will find a way!

Houdini is a horse and needs to be trained as such but before and while we do that, we need to build back his trust in peaple and in me.

Houdini is NOT Brandy and can not be compared to her!

Houdini will teach me things if only I let him, and learning is the name of the game in life.. this old heart has lots of room still, I just need to open up and let it happen.

Ok, so this post has turned out to be pretty personal to me, and I could go back and rewrite it but I going to leave at as is.. Have you ever had a animal come into your world that was unplanned and/or badly timed, that in the end turned out to be a blessing? If so, would love to hear your own stories on this..

Posted in Life moves on daily | 4 Comments

Fried Rabbits Livers on a bed of colorful veggies Recipe

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

This is a super simple recipe and makes a wonderful lunch or a lighter supper.. one rabbit liver per person is ideal, increase the veggies based on the number of folks to serve.

I soaked the rabbit livers in whole milk for about an hour before preparing them, I dipped them into thick yogurt and then into spiced cornmeal and into the cast iron they went, lots of hot fat, don’t crowd your pan, cook a few min on each side, ideally flipping only once.

In a second pan, put in a splash of olive oil or any other healthy fat, slice up a onion, half a cup of finely sliced cabbage, red and green pepper, I would have for sure added mushrooms had I had any in the house fresh to use in this, just do a quick stirfry with your veggies, with whatever your favorite spices for stirfry. As long as everything was cut up and ready to go, they should take about the same amount of time, and be ready to plate up.

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | Tagged Fried Rabbit Liver, Fried Rabbit Livers Recipe, Fried Rabbit Livers served with fried onion and cabbage, Rabbit Liver Recipes | 5 Comments

Rabbit Barley Stew Recipe

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

As I have shared in a past post, I tend to cook off the neck, back and rib cages in a pot of water with a bit of vinager added to help draw out the best in the bone broth, and when the meat is fall of the bone tender, I take it out, pull the meat off the bones, toss the bones back in and simmer again for a bit on the bone broth, then strain and use it for any white meat dish. The amount of meat from these parts from one water is enough to make you one good size (ten full size portions in stew, more like 16 or so in soup) per rabbit.

I combined the pulled meat from one rabbit with the 20 cups of rabbit bone stock in this dish, you can use chicken broth if needed to make this, but clearly rabbit bone stock is going to help keep that light rabbit flavour much better in the dish.

Rabbit Barley Stew Recipe.

20 cups of Stock (ideally rabbit bone stock)
The pulled and diced or ripped meat from the neck, ribs and boned out back or about a cup to a cup and half of rabbit meat, (could also be made from the two back legs worth of meat)
1 cup of pearl barley (if you want it soupish) if you want a heavy stew, add a extra half cup, just remember that it will continue to swell afterwards and you will need to add more water when reheating the dish itself.
4 cups of mixed diced veggies – your choice but carrots, celergy, pea’s, turnip, cabbage
Ideally one cup of leftover cooked mashed sweet root veggies or squash, it can be sweet potoato or yam, or turnip or any of the sqaushes.. (this is the extra that melts in the stew that really adds to it but is not clearly visable)
Salt, pepper, turmerac, garlic powder (or add some diced garlic to the dish), Rabbit is a easily overpowered meat/flavour, so go light on the spice to allow it to come though.

So take your pot of simmering bone stock and add your barley and let is simmer for a good while till just done, check your package for how long as it will depend on the size of the barley you used, then add in cooked diced meat, your veggies and simmer for 20 to 40 min as required for the veggies you used, then add in the cooked sweet mashed veggie and stir it in and allow it to melt into the broth and add a bit of thickness to it. Simmer for another five or ten min and then serve piping hot.

It is a meal in and of itself but if you must add to it, then buns or baking powder would work well, or start with a salad.. This is not a like soup, this is a meal in a bowl..

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | Tagged Rabbit Barley Stew, Rabbit Barley Stew Recipe, Rabbit bone broth, rabbit recipes, Rabbits | 4 Comments

Reader Questions- Rabbit Info.

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Can I ask about the bit that comes before eating them though? What kind of hutches do you have for them and what do you feed them (pellets/mixed feed/hay/fresh cut greens/kitchen scraps?). Do you have any experience with Morant hutches (moveable runs on grass, with sleeping/nesting quarters)?

We have three kinds of hutches, one is a big homemade one that was the first DH made, its coming on eight years now and has needed the bottom rewired once to date, its a double hutch that is about the length of what would typically hold eight rabbits, so it works really well for a mom with kits, or as a two or three same sex grow out cages.

The second hutches we made are move like my Grandfathers, you take a sheet of plywood and cut it in half, so the base is 4 by 4 and they have a foot at the back as the shelter with 3 feet, the top is solid for protection and the rest is wired, for some reason the bottoms on these have needed more rewiring, having been done twice now.. Again these could easily be split in two and still give lots of room for a single rabbit but again then work wonderful for does and litters as there is lots of room.

Last but not least I was able to pick up proper hanging wire indoor hutches, they are rarely used, mainly as a sick pen that can be easily cleaned down and scrubbed and or as grow out pens if I need the romove, or if a chicken or a chick or duckling needs a recoop place etc. So they are worth having around but I like to give my rabbits more room.

At one time I did try to do the loose floor breeding trio’s with lots of bedding, and box’s and they produced little ones like there was no tomorrow but they had more losses of kits, and slower weight gains then the hutched one’s did and while I can’t say that the female ever looked bad, I felt that they were overbreeding, typically I like to breed no more then six litters per doe and sometimes depending on the size of the litter more like four (I only need so many young rabbits) and they were breeding back to back to back..

As for the outside on the ground hutches, we have tried it a few different ways and its so much more work then I want, I perfer to just take a five gallon bucket with me while I weed or gather wild greens and take them to the hutches and the rabbits from spring to late fall, then deal with hauling the hutches around the yard, but I am in a fairly heavy wild preditors area so that plays a parts as well.

We feed a balanced pelleted rabbit food, a small amount of hay or hay cubes in the winter, in the very hard cold, I like to put a little bit of sunflower seeds on top the mix for added fats, and the rest of the year, they get their rabbit food along with fresh greens. The kitchen scrapes go to either the chickens or the pig, but a certian limited amount could do to the rabbits, just remember to start small and work their way up to different feeds, as they tend to have more issues with new foods then other critters can.

Hope that helps answer your questions! Let me know if you have any more 🙂

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged Rabbits, reader questions | 3 Comments

Buttermilk Fried Rabbit “wings” Front Legs Recipe

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Take your Rabbit front legs and cut them in half, trim them up if you have any extra silverskin and or fat on them, then take a glass dish and fit them in, cover in buttermilk, if its a young fryer a couple hours is good but if its a older rabbit, soak in the fridge overnight.

Take them out and let them drain on a papertowel, then in a dish or baggy, mix cornmeal (I wanted it gluten free but you can also use flour) with salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder in my case I used Seasoning salt as well and put each peice in and fully coat the peice, then in a good cast iron pan, melt out a good amount of lard, I went with about an inch to a inch and half as I wanted the fat to come up halfway on the peices themselves.

Make sure you oil is hot but not smoking hot and place each peice the pan as evenly as possable, cook for about eight to ten min on each side, ideally only turning once, drain on a rack or on paper towel, can be served hot or cold.. the keys here are using deep enough fat, keeping the oil hot but not smoking (nice steady heat, and you will need to learn your stove on which is the perfect number for that) and don’t overfill your pan, there should be no touching of the peices..

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Rabbit Butchery and Frugal Eating.. Getting the most of your rabbit..

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

If you are raising your own rabbits and you want to use every part of those yummy rabbits, if you are buying rabbit in the store (yikes on the price, at our local stores, you are looking at around 20 dollars per whole rabbit) you are really! going to want to get as much bang for your buck as possble.. which in my mind at least means breaking down the parts into different meals and some of those ways need to “stretch things”

So my typical breakdown is, two back legs, the back loined cut out, the two front legs, the rest of the ribs/neck and back. So each back leg is a full meal per person or if you really stretching, one full back leg would provide enough meat to use as the accent meat in a full dish. The back loins are enough to do one per person or a full stew/pan dish, the front legs will make a great fried up side dish, and or can be tossed in with the back, ribs, neck for a long slow simmer and the meat pulled off to make soup or stew or pot pie with.

On average each whole rabbit broke down will serve a min of eight meals for Dh and I and if I push it, more like ten to twelve meals for the main meats but if you are lucky enough to be self butchering, I have to remind you that there are more meals in there..

You will get a reasonable portion of blood, one very small heart, smaller lungs, 2 tiny kidneys and a lovely sized rabbit liver, you can save the heart for future use in a meat minx or dice finely and add to dishes, the lungs can be used in making a fine soup as will the blood and the kidney’s, well I don’t care for them but the old hound adores them, and the liver, o the liver.. fresh rabbit liver is one of the finest! This is my most favorite rabbit pate recipe but there are a good number of other ways to serve them up as well.

So that’s another four or five more dishes that have rabbit in them, which means that I have brought the amount of meals if you are nose to tail eating upward of 16 to 20 meals out of that single rabbit..

But I am not quite done!, don’t forget to make your rabbit belly bacon or jerky! While it can be eaten as a snack, if you want to stretch that out, make it bacon and it will be the accent for around one two person meal per side, so that’s four more dishes..

Last but not least is the Rabbit white bone broth, now I got a half stock pot of broth when the meat was fall off the bone tender and once put though the strainer, it left me with my big steel pot full, or about 20 plus cups of broth, which I am now going to simmer down by half and then either pressure can or cool and freeze for later use in those wonderful rabbit soups or stews, or it could be used to start chicken or turkey meals, anything that uses a white meat in the meal. So that would can up to about 3 to 4 pints of homemade stock broth.

The hide should not be overlooked, if its of good quality, do consider keeping it and processing it, the joy of starting with a small hide is just that.. its a small hide..

Got Chickens? Then be sure to throw the rest of the inners that you are not using out to them, as they will rip it apart and chow down, recycling that into eggs later on. In summer, they are not quite as keen as they are free roaming, they will eat the best bits and leave the rest to be picked up and composted but in winter! they go crazy for it! and there are many amuzing chicken keep away chases over the best parts.