Shearing a sheep

The weather has got warmer again and less rainy so we decided to shear the first one of the sheep, with a view to doing them all over the next couple of weeks. We also trimmed her feet and gave her some parasite treatment. We would have liked to do the little ram, but we couldn't catch him. Maybe he will be next.

Before

During

After

The left overs

Looking a bit skinnier than her friends!

It's started!

I have mentioned before that the first thing we plan to do is to build a shed in the potager. We will then move tools and loads of other junk... er useful things... out of the workshop/utility room in to the shed. We can then concrete the workshop floor and move boxes and furniture from upstairs in to there, finally giving us room upstairs to work so we can demolish some stuff, treat woodwork, get some windows done and insulate.
We have decided to build the shed from hempcrete (called chanvre chaux in French, which is a common insulation material for out houses in France, and sometimes used to build new ones) round a timber frame and on a concrete base. We are thinking perhaps a green living roof although along with most details of the shed this is not decided yet.
The ground where we are going to put the shed is not really flat, it doesn't really show in the picture, but where Doug is sitting is probablu 50cm higher than the corner nearest to the camera. The string shows the proposed edge of the concrete, the shed will be 5cm smaller than that on the outside and about 15cm on the inside.

This is the shed location after half a day removing first the luxurious grass and weeds and then some of the topsoil. So we have started - hurrah! But still plenty more work to go - boo!

Neck of lamb, Irish Stew style

I feel a bit bad claiming this as an Irish Stew recipe as I am not irish and don't know how an irish stew is made!

I made this with the neck of the first lamb we slaughtered as the neck is a tough and rather bony bit of meat.

Serves 2 or 3

1 neck of lamb

2 carrots

1 medium potato

1 onion

1 heaped table spoon of pearl barley

Sprig of rosemary or thyme

Casserole dish or tagine large enough to contain all the ingredients with a lid.

Fry the onions gently and put them in your dish. 

Add the chopped carrot and potato, seasoning and pearl barley

Put the lamb neck (not a very pretty cut of meat!) on top of the veg

Add water to cover the veg - something like a pint

Cover and cook on a very low heat for about 4 hours or until the meat is tender and falling off the bone. You may need to add some more water during cooking, there should be a reasonably amount of 'gravy' when cooking is complete.

It is very good cooked one day and then reheated the next.

Before cooking

After cooking

First harvest

Despite the slugs eating a lot of stuff in the potager the potatoes are doing well. We harvested some and they were tres yummy. We had them boiled, with pork chops and french beans from the freezer (harvested September last year).

Egg head

Poppy's nose is healing well - although it seems likely she will have a little pink spot in the middle. But she developed a bit of an 'egg head' bump on the back of her head behind the stitches. She is a 'star trek alien head' - you might have noticed that most star trek aliens often have lumpy bald heads, strangely always just a bit bigger than a human head. Anyway we took her to the vet who stuck a syringe in the bump and sooked out some gross stuff - apparently it wasn't gross though but normal-ish and we don't need to worry if it comes back, it will re-absorb. Good to know.

Pork chops with cream and lemon sauce

2 pork chops
150ml cream
Juice of half a lemon
Frying pan big enough to have a bit of space round the chops

Salt the pork chops a bit on each side
Heat a frying pan on a reasonably high heat with some olive oil
Don't heat the pan so hot that the oil smokes, but heat it reasonably hot and add the chops.
Fry until almost cooked (about 5 mins each side), the chops should be a nice dark golden brown, but not burnt!
Turn the heat down to low
Pour the lemon around the chops and then the cream, stir well
Turn off the heat and leave a couple of mins before serving the chops with the sauce poured over the top

Nice with new potatoes

Poppy is cone FREE

We have taken the cone OFF. Her nose looks better than this now, but she has a big lump on the back of her head. It doesn't feel hot so it is just normal healing (we hope!). We still have to keep an eagle eye on her to make sure she is not scratching anywhere she shouldn't.

Planting the hops

I mentioned it briefly in a previous post, we FINALLY planted the hops out in the potager. The poor things have been sitting in pots since they arrived a few months ago while we decided where they were going to go and how we were going to support them as they grew. We have four varieties: cascade, challenger, east kent goldings and fuggles. We built two 'W' shaped supports up the banks either side of the potager. The top and bottom are posts and there is string forming the 'W' shape between them. The hops are planted by the two bottom posts. Hopefully they will have survived the abuse and flourish.

All weather gardening

We have had very varied weather here. Some days have been lovely and sunny, but there has also been SO much rain. Nearby Lourdes has been dramatically flooded, and several bits of road between Lourdes and Barège (part of the ski resort) have been washed clean away!

We haven't had anything like such dramatic effects from all the rain, although a small tree has slid down the bank behind the house and is resting on the roof. No damage done.
When it is sunny it is a bit too hot for gardening so we decided to brave the rain and get a number of things in to the potager.

Doug directing where the hops should go

The strawberries (others from seed are still tiny)

Doug rode past bareback on Owen while I was planting courgettes out!

We have had some lovely sunny days too and done a bit of gardening and moving sheep etc on them.

(Allegedly) Fail Proof Mead Recipe

This is a recipe from the 'Got Mead' website, hopefully they won't mind me reproducing it below.
I mentioned that we have tried to make mead before and failed to make anything drinkable. Hopefully this one will come out more drinkable. I am intrigued by fruit and country wines, but our experience so far is not good. I can't quite give up yet though! They are much less satisfying than beer to make though as the turn around is so slow.

Ingredients

3 1/2 lbs Clover or your choice honey or blend (will finish sweet)
1 Large orange (later cut in eights or smaller rind and all)
1 small handful of raisins (25 if you count but more or less ok)
1 stick of cinnamon
1 whole clove (or 2 if you like - these are potent critters)
optional (a pinch of nutmeg and allspice)(very small)
1 teaspoon of Fleismanns bread yeast (now don't get holy on me--- after all this
is an ancient mead and that's all we had back then)
Balance water to one gallon

Methods/steps

This is one I have shared before but it may have got lost in the rebuild. It is so simple to make and you can make it without much equipment and with a multitude of variations. This could be a first Mead for the novice as it is almost fool proof. It is a bit unorthodox but it has never failed me or the friends I have shared it with.Process:
Use a clean 1 gallon carboy
Dissolve honey in some warm water and put in carboy
Wash orange well to remove any pesticides and slice in eights --add orange (you can push em through opening big boy -- rinds included -- its ok for this mead -- take my word for it -- ignore the experts)
Put in raisins, clove, cinnamon stick, any optional ingredients and fill to 3 inches from the top with cold water (need room for some foam -- you can top off with more water after the first few day frenzy)
Shake the heck out of the jug with top on, of course. This is your sophisticated aeration process.
When at room temperature in your kitchen. Put in 1 teaspoon of bread yeast. (No you don't have to rehydrate it first-- the ancients didn't even have that word in their vocabulary-- just put it in and give it a gentle swirl or not)(The yeast can fight for their own territory)
Install water airlock. Put in dark place. It will start working immediately or in an hour. (Don't use grandma's bread yeast she bought years before she passed away in the 90's)(Wait 3 hours before you panic or call me) After major foaming stops in a few days add some water and then keep your hands off of it. (Don't shake it! Don't mess with them yeastees! Let them alone except its okay to open your cabinet to smell every once in a while.
Racking --- Don't you dare
additional feeding --- NO NO
More stirring or shaking -- Your not listening, don't touch
After 2 months and maybe a few days it will slow down to a stop and clear all by itself. (How about that) (You are not so important after all) Then you can put a hose in with a small cloth filter on the end into the clear part and siphon off the golden nectar. If you wait long enough even the oranges will sink to the bottom but I never waited that long. If it is clear it is ready. You don't need a cold basement. It does better in a kitchen in the dark. (like in a cabinet) likes a little heat (70-80).
If it didn't work out... you screwed up and didn't read my instructions (or used grandma's bread yeast she bought years before she passed away). If it didn't work out then take up another hobby. Mead is not for you. It is too complicated.
If you were successful, which I am 99% certain you will be, then enjoy your mead. When you get ready to make a different mead you will probably have to unlearn some of these practices I have taught you, but hey--- This recipe and procedure works with these ingredients so don't knock it. It was your first mead. It was my tenth. Sometimes, even the experts can forget all they know and make a good ancient mead.
Enjoy, Joe
-- submitted by Joe Mattioli

Curing a rabbit skin (bit gross pics)

1 rabbit skin
1 liter of cold water
30ml salt
30ml alum

You need to flatten the skin out as it probably has a neck and little legs where it was removed from the rabbit like a jumper. Just cut through each place. You can neaten it up later. You don't need to try to clean it up at this stage either.

Rinse the skin in cold water as soon as it is off the rabbit to cool it quickly and get any blood off the fur.
Mix the water, salt and alum in a bowl or bucket that is a bit over a liter in size (ie big enough for the water and the skin).
Gently squeeze water out of the skin and put it in the curing liquid. Mix it all around to make sure the whole skin is soaked in the liquid. Put a plate or something on top to keep the skin under the surface.
Leave like this for 48 hours stirring occasionally to make sure the skin is evenly processed.
After 48 hours remove the skin - let as much of the liquid drain back in to the container as possible as you still need it.
You should now be able to peel off the membrane from the skin relatively easily. Do this from all over the skin. You can use a knife as required but the skin is quite fragile so be careful.
Add an additional 30ml of alum and of salt to the liquid. Stir until dissolved and return the skin to the container for further 7 days.
After 7 days check to see whether the curing is complete by boiling a small piece of the skin. If it goes hard and curls up then return the skin to the solution for another few days. The piece of skin should not change much when boiled if it is fully cured.
When it is done remove drain as much liquid as you can from the skin. Then wash it in cold water and wash the fur side with a mild soap. Rinse thoroughly and put on a rack to dry (or peg to clothesline or whatever).
When it is almost dry rub some oil (I use sunflower oil - thinking about adding some essential oil one time) in to the skin and start stretching it until the leather goes soft. If it dries out to much spray it with a plant mister and continue stretching. Each piece you stretch should turn from a translucent off white to an opaque white. Keep doing this until the skin is soft and dry. Brush the fur with a gentle brush and you are finished!

The skin side (with interested dog)

The fur side

Now you need to decide what you are going to do with the skin. One skin won't make much of a hat!

Cherries and cherry sorbet

We thought the sheep had killed a number of trees in the orchard by eating their bark. Mostly we didn't mind because they did not have fruit last year or the fruit wasn't very good.
We noticed the other day lots of red things in one of the trees. They were cherries. The tree seemed to have survived despite a bit less bark (it looks like maybe the sheep just had a thin layer of the surface, not anything important) and decided to fruit this year. The fruit were lovely and juicy although not very strong flavoured, it has been a very very very very wet spring so we are not sure if that has perhaps adversely affected their flavour - we have giving it another chance anyway and will see how it turns out next year.
I picked a lot of fruit in the pouring rain and made cherry sorbet. The weather has been very variable, I am sure we will appreciate it sometime during the summer.

I stoned them with a cherry destoner - bought to help with the mini plums last year - haven't had a change to try it. Possible the plum will turn out to be too well attached to the flesh and too bit - but it worked very well for cherries
Then heated them gently in a pan until soft. I put them through the mouli (sieve would do too) then added juice of a lemon, and enough sugar to taste like sorbet and put in the sorbet maker.

Honey Ale/Mead

The nettle beer bubbling away on the table inspired me to wonder what other fruit/plant 'beers' we could try. I haven't found and other ideas to try yet, but I came upon mead several times during my search. We tried mead a couple of years ago. We still have it (out of scientific interest) although it was frankly one of the most unpleasant tasting things I have ever tried. It felt like it was ripping the inside of your throat out as cheap whisky does, but then left a much more unpleasant after taste. After two and a half years it has 'mellowed' so that some of the throat ripping sensation is gone, but there is still a little burning and an unpleasant taste that isn't at all remenicent of honey as mead is meant to be.
I am thinking of giving another batch a go as so many people seem to find it a very pleasant drink. 

However before that I fancied trying a honey ale (or maybe it is a mead as it doesn't have any grain in it...) which being lower alcohol should be ready to drink sooner and perhaps has less scope to go wrong... perhaps... we shall see.

Makes approx 4.5 litres

1 gallon fermenting container (with airlock preferably)
400g honey
20g hops (I am using Willamette - they are a bit old)
1 lemon (zest and juice)
1tsp yeast (i used Safale us-05 dry ale yeast as that is what we happened to have - but some people use bread yeast)

25g of sugar for priming (adding the fizz)

Approx 1.5 litres boiled and cooled water

3 litres of boiling water

Boil 1 litre if water and let it cool down somewhat (maybe below 70C), dissolve the honey in it and put in fermenting vessel. The boiling it before hand is to sterilise it.
Boil 3 litres of water and add the lemon zest and 15g of hops, boil for 30 mins

Turn off the heat and add the remaining hops, stir and leave for 1 min
Strain (through a sieve is fine - or a cloth) in to the fermenting container and discard hops and lemon zest
Top up container to to 1 gallon (4.5 litres) with water you have boiled and cooled (should be a few inches from the top of the container)
When cool add the lemon juice and yeast
Leave until fermentation is complete 

Syphon in to a clean container and add 25g of sugar dissolved in a little boiling water

Bottle and leave for a few days for fizz to develop before sampling. 

According to mead buffs 3oz of honey in 1 gallon gives 1% alcohol, so 400g (14oz) should be between 4 and 5%. 

My original gravity reading was 1022 which seems quite low - it is hard to get the liquid out of the demi john to try the reading again so I will just leave and see what happens.

I will update shortly...

Pork Chops with Juniper and Thyme

We had our first BBQ of the year yesterday. We couldn't remember if we have had one since we killed the pigs. I don't remember BBQing our own pork anyway.
This could be fried or grilled as well.

2 pork chops
1 tbl sp juniper berries
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbl sp chopped thyme
Salt and pepper

Squish the juniper berries in a pestle and then add everything else except the chops and smoosh around more until you have an oily pulp
Smear the pulp on both sides of each chop and leave to marinade for a few hours

BBQ, grill or fry until well browned. Nice served with apple slices.

Nettle Beer

We have so many nettles it sounded like an interesting thing to try... it is raining today, so it was something we could do mostly indoors (Doug and Poppy braved the elements to collect the nettles and I made the brew)

1 large bag stuffed with nettles (some recipes say 1kg)

5 litres if water

430g of sugar for brewing

20g of sugar for secondary fermentation in the bottles

Juice of 2 lemons

50g cream of tartar

1/2 sachet of beer or cider yeast

Large pan (approx 10 litres or more)

Cram the nettles in to a pan with the 5 litres of water. It might be a tight squeeze, but as soon as they start cooking they pack down a lot.

Bring to the boil (can take some time) and boil for 15 mins

Strain the liquid in to another pan or bowl

Mix in the 430g of sugar and stir until dissolved

Add the cream of tartar and lemon juice then leave to cool

Pour in to a demi john and when the liquid is cool enough add the yeast (follow yeast packet instructions for starting and pitching temperature)

Add an airlock and leave until fermentation completes (3-5 days or possibly more depending on temperature)

Syphon out of the demi john (leaving the yeast residue behind) in to a container (pan, bowl etc)

Melt the 20g of sugar in a little boiling water and add to the liquid.

Bottle and cap as you would for beer.

Ready to drink in a few days.

I was thinking it might be a bit greener - I suspect it might be if the nettles were boiled less... apparently boiling damages the chlorophyll. I will let you know how it tastes in a while. Initial indications aren't too great :)

Peach Sorbet Recipe

This is a good way to use up peaches that aren't very ripe. Better if they are tasty though.

3 peaches chopped in to pieces

100-200g sugar (depending on sweetness of peaches)

Juice of one lemon

Put the peaches in a pan and heat gently until they are soft. You need to start on a low heat until some juice comes out

Add sugar until you are happy with the sweetness

Liquidise the mixture. You can leave some lumps or blast until really smooth

Put in ice cream maker until done

Poppy update

She is getting on well and has managed not to bump her nose on anything yet - despite a number of attempts to do so.

She spends quite a bit of time resting

And some running around like a nutter - with us saying 'mind the... SMASH... oh never mind' as she runs in to the wall, the door, our legs, the rabbit cages, bits of wood, the seedlings etc.

A friend gave her a snazzy pink harness that you will see in some of the photos. She can't wear her lead at the moment because of the stitches on her neck so it is useful as well as stylish!

Quiche Recipe

25cm quiche or tart dish (easier with removable bottom, or use a disposible foil one)

For the filling
4 eggs
150ml cream (or crème fraîse, fromage fraîse, sour cream etc)
1 onion chopped
The flavours eg lardons and mushrooms, salmon and cream cheese, leek and cheese, whatever you have in the fridge)

For the pastry (you can use normal shortcrust or a more traditional french version below)
250g flour
125g butter
1 egg
Approx 1 tsp crème fraîche
Salt (unless the butter was salted)

Make the pastry by rubbing the butter in to the flour.
Then create a well in the center of the crumbs and add the egg and crème fraîche, mix gently with a fork (in the well) to break the egg, then gently but quickly incorporate the flour/butter crumbs from the side of the well. You can add a little more crème if required to get a normal pasty consistancy.
Allow to restin the fridge for an hour before rolling.

Roll out and place in your quiche dish, cover in foil and prick with a fork in a few places, then weigh down with beans before baking at approx 200°C for 10 mins until it is very lightly browned.

To make the filling fry the onions gently and cook any other fillings as appropriate. For example fry lardons, leeks, mushrooms, salmon etc gently.

Drain any water off after cooking and add to the pie dish

Mix together the egg, cream and crème fraîse and pour over the filling until the pastry is full to the top (you might want to do this in or close to the oven to avoid spillage!)

Cook at 180°C for 25 mins or until the filling is firm but still a little wobbly.

Social life

I don't write much about our social life, as the blog is more about what we get up to and it is hard to know what people will mind having written about them. In London a lot of our social contact was with people at work, although of course we met friends evenings and weekends, but as we got older that was far from every day. We were a bit worried coming here that we might go mad with only each other for company, however we have been lucky enough to meet quite a number of english (speaking) people here who are equally as mad as us and even a few French ones. Far more people just drop in to see us than ever did in London - where it probably took hours to get from where they live 2 miles away and it wasn't worth the risk we might not be in. We go out to lunch and dinner quite often - and have people round here. I bump in to someone I know (French and English) almost every time I go to the supermarket which only rarely happened in London. So thankfully, although we spend much more time together than we did when we had full time jobs, we also spend plenty of time with other people and are unlikely to go cabin fever mad.

Mint Sorbet Recipe

Make mint cordial
Dilute 1 part cordial to 1 part water
Put in ice-cream maker

Poppy is home safe

She has silver spray on her face and neck (antiseptic and numbing I think) and a lampshade thing that she is not at all impressed with.

Apparently we should keep her quiet for 10 days. Not a problem at the moment as the anesthetic wears off, but a bit of a challenge for the rest of the time I imagine.
The vet says that if we can stop her scraping back the bit of skin on her nose again then there won't be too much of a scar (and she will still find a nice husband he says!)

Poor Poppy is at the vet

The horses have been in the barn for 36 hours having been wormed (you don't want the poisoned poo all over the field where the dog and other animals can eat it)
We took them back to the field this morning where they got a bit frisky. Poppy got quite over excited playing with them and one of them kicked her.
She was just out of sight when it happened and afterwards (after making some heart rending yelps the like of which we had never heard before) she disappeared off the face of the earth. We spent the next two (rather traumatic) hours searching for her. Under all the trees and bushes and increasingly further afield. There was neither sight nor sound of her. Just as I was about to give up and retire inside (to cry) she appeared, coming up the path towards me. I could see she had a cut on her face, but that she was trotting along fine.
On closer inspection she also had a nasty deep hole/cut in the back of her head. We bundled her in the car and took her to the vet. He has knocked her out and is going to stitch the cut on the back of her head. He said the one on her nose can't be stitched as the stitches would pull out through the skin and make it worse but he is going to do what he can to keep her prettyness intact. Of course we will just be happy if she comes out of the whole thing OK! Fingers crossed.
We can pick her up at 6.30. Perhaps this will teach her that 'playing' with the horses is not the best thing to do!

Before the accident

Hurrah! Sun at last

Some spring like weather has finally arrived!
We have been having breakfast and lunch outside...

...but not dinner, as the sun on the wet ground is making impressive thunder and lightening storms with some rain by later afternoon.

Annoyingly the weeds seem to have enjoyed the cold wet weather but the 'proper' plants less so. We have been trying to get the potager back under control. Doug has strimmed all round the beds and spent several days making and laying wood chips made from the huge pile of branches that have been building up for months. I have been weeding, mounding up potatoes and planting replacements for slug losses as well as potting things on. Stuff is growing, but it is not growing very fast, I imagine we will see a leap forward now the weather is warmer - if the slugs allow.

We are thinking that for next year some sort of mini poly tunnel that fitted over the raised beds would be good to get some things started earlier. Particularly tomatoes and cucumber and perhaps melons - all of which struggle to ripen here apparently (!) Although it is hot the season isn't hugely long it seems.

Slow Roast Pork Belly

A slice of pork belly per person (200g perhaps)

1 garlic clover per portion

Some sage

String and salt

Cut slices across the skin all the way along the pork belly to help it crackle

Crush the garlic and cut up the sage and mix with a little olive oil and salt (I just mush it all together in a pestle and mortar)

Spread the mixture on the meat side of the bellies

Roll with the skin on the outside and tie with string

Rub salt in to the skin and put on a baking tray

Cook at 220°C for 30 mins at which point the skin should have started to crackle, then turn down to 150°C and cook for a further 2 hours (if you think it is browning too fast turn the temp down a bit more). Rest for a few mins before serving.

Serve with mashed potatoes and veg.

Scone Recipe

Makes approx 8-10

225g plain flour (or self raising flour and miss the baking powder)
2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
55g butter
25g sugar
Handful of sultanas/raisins/mixed peel etc
150 ml yogurt (or milk with 1/2 tsp lemon juice in it or buttermilk or some acidic milk product - it reacts with the baking powder to make the scones light)
Egg or milk to glaze

Pre heat the oven to 220°C/425°F/Gas 7
Put the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl.
Rub in the butter (like for pastry - a pastry cutter is good)
Add the sugar and fruit and mix in
Add the yogurt bit at a time, mixing gently as you do (like pastry still - you want to mix gently until everything just sticks together, don't over work and keep it cool)
Flour the work surface and turn the mixture out on to it. Roll or squish it until it is about 2 cm thick.
Cut with a pastry cutter in to scone shapes
Put them on a greased baking tray and bake in the oven for about 15 mins (check before that, they should be a pale brown all over)

A bit of culture

St.Vincents church in Bagnère has a series of free concerts throughout the summer. Most of them involve the organ. We went to the first on on Sunday.

It was a good selection of pieces and a good length (more than an hour of organ music is too much...)
The blurb about the organ in the program made it obvious that maintaining it in working order was not too easy. It seems to have spent most of its life being restored, replaced or out of order. It was obviously quite frisky to play with some uncooperative notes. Made me think of 'this one go plunk' in Molesworth - but 'this one go PAAAAAARP'. Overall very enjoyable though.

Fried rabbit with creamy mushroom sauce

Serves 2

2 rabbit saddles
2 tbl spn flour
Salt
Pepper
Paprika
50 ml cream
25 ml red wine
Some mushrooms
2 tbl spn fat (eg lard, butter, pork fat, duck fat, olive oil)

The extra bits in the pan are pork fat - rendering to provide the fat.

Mix flour, salt, pepper and paprika
Heat the oil on high in a frying pan
Coat the rabbit with the flour mixture and put in the hot oil.
Reduce the temperature and continue to fry until the meat is cooked through (check with a meat thermometer that it is at least 65°C in the middle)
Place the meat on warm plates. Turn the temperature up to max. Add the mushrooms to the pan and stir around briefly. Add the cream and wine and boil vigorously until the mixture has reduced to a creamy sauce.
Pour over the rabbit and serve with new potatoes and veg, or just on its own as a starter.

The photo of the finished product didn't come out very well. But it is tasty I promise.

Rabbit stew recipe

1 whole rabbit cut in to approx 6 pieces
Flour
Salt (something like 5 tbl spns)
Pepper
Paprika
2 carrots
1 large onion
(other veg eg potato if you fancy)
1 cup red white
1/2 cup chicken stock (from stock cube or fresh)
3 tbl spns fat (eg rendered pig fat, lard, butter, olive oil - I used pig fat as we have a lot)
A few sprigs of rosemary or thyme.
Large casserole with lid (big enough for the rabbit and veg to fit in)

Mix together the flour, salt, pepper and paprika (to your taste) on a plate.
Heat the fat in a heavy frying pan.
Taking one piece of rabbit at a time coat in flour and put in to the frying pan.
Fry until lightly browned on both sides then put in to the casserole dish.
Fry the onion gently in the frying pan and add that with the carrots to the casserole.
Add the red wine, stock and rosemary and put in the oven (or on top of the stove) and cook at a low temperature for an hour (or longer depending on the toughness of the rabbit!). It should be simmering not boiling hard.
Serve with bread and butter.

Bye bye bunny...(pics bit gross - but not too bad)

... and hello new bunny.
The bunny girls are a breed called Fauve de Bourgogne. When we bought them we impulse bought a male of a breed called Lapin Lièvre Belgique as we couldn't find a male Fauve (who wasn't the brother of the girls). However we have now found a male Fauve so Lièvre was surplus to requirements. As we can't have slackers on the farm (apart from Poppy) we ate him.
Doug killed him (quick bash to the head), gutted and skinned him (all the difficult parts!). I chopped him up and cooked him (the skillful parts!).

You can see the recipes here and here

We are curing the skin, I will write a post about that later.