So last weekend we had to have a party to say goodbye for now to our favorite Coastie Storm Trooper.  The Coast Guard is deploying her to a different city in about a week, which was delayed a week so we had arranged a get-together last weekend…

One of my good friends, and running buddies, KO, has been asking me to make rabbit for him for like two fricken years!  He has this wine called Rabbits and Spaghetti and it has historic stories about prisoners in Australia and they ate Rabbit and Spaghetti…  google it they tell the story better than I could ever.  The wine is made in South Australia and pays tribute to this history. 

Thus on this grand occasion we decided it was time.  We called about a week ahead to Groppi’s for two rabbits (WOWZERS rabbit is 9.99 per pound and each rabbit is about 3 pounds—spoiler… not worth the price – get seafood instead).  We also had to google for recipes for grilled rabbit.  Since I didn’t know what it would smell like as it cooked, and because when we have our dinner parties we like to grill so the grill master(s) can still be close to the table and thus part of the conversations, we wanted to grill the rabbit.  The Fake Hubby settled on a recipe that included olive oil, fresh garlic, lemon juice & lemon zest, and fresh thyme.

At first I was thinking of what veggies and maybe a potato to grill and… then the Fake Hubby mid week said – I thought it was Rabbit and Spaghetti, what happened to the Spaghetti.  BINGO.   Spaghetti of course was super duper easy, and incase of a rabbit failure, we would still have plenty to eat.   Spaghetti, lots of sauce, 2 loaves of garlic break and 2 rabbits… that’s what we call DINNER.   Coastie is known for her Veggie dips and is awesome enough to normally bring some Veggies.

One of my best friends, whom just crashed her BRAND NEW CAR the weekend earlier with only like 30 miles on it, is my white wine gal.  Hard to debate in calling her our WhiteWiner or the Car Wrecker… but we’ll go with WhiteWiner as I think its too early on the car channel.  The poor gal also always has to bring her own food to our dinner parties, well 90% of the time anyway… there was that fantastic vegetarian lasagna earlier this year that I made… but alas I really don’t know my vegetarian replacements and tofu.   Sorry my dear!!

El Captain had his first dinner voyage, this was his first dinner party with us but he knows us well enough by now plus he was warned about the rules of the house.  You don’t like it, don’t eat it if its food or don’t listen if its conversation, laugh often, and help yourself.   Which reminds me, we still have El Captains ice packs and cooler to return….

The Fake Hubby needed a pep talk to get the rabbit going… which basically consisted of me getting pissy and then bossing him around the kitchen like a normal meal prep…. With how expensive and ‘how important’ he was making this dinner you would think the Queen was coming. “You have a recipe hun, grill for 40 minutes over indirect heat and flip and… suck it up buttercup let’s get this show on the road. What seasonings for the marinade…” I just started… I used garlic infused oil and some Tuscan too, I took out my zester – don’t think my man has ever seen one of those… lmao….

I generously used garlic and Tuscan olive oils drizzling the rabbit.  Then sprinkled Penzey seasoning (we don’t have fresh Thyme) and used the garlic press, for 3 cloves ish per rabbit.  Half a lemon zested per rabbit, and then cut in half and half a lemon of juices squeezed onto each, and then I rubbed them down (both sides).  I used probably half the amounts of the recipe, because I don’t like my food so overpowered and would rather under season than over.   And then we put them in the fridge until it was time to grill, I would say about 2 to 2.5 hours.   This is how they turned out:

The biggest thing I read was to not let the rabbit get dry. I made a little oil blend to baste the rabbit it, and we used the Fake Hubby’s rib trick, and placed some water in the grill as well so things would kinda ‘steam’ as well. The rabbit did turn out VERY WELL. It was good and everyone (except our WhiteWiner of course) ate generous helpings. I would eat rabbit again, but between the bones to pick thru and the cost, I would prefer seafood. Get me some shrimp or salmon… yum yum good.

The nice thing about the spaghetti was that it was super quick tween that and the garlic bread that I didn’t have to be inside for long and miss getting to chill with our Fellowship of the Rabbit.   Folks started to arrive at 4:30, we do like our pre getting dinner started cocktail hour, and didn’t leave until after 10p.  It was a fantastic night of conversation, appetizers, rabbit, spaghetti, garlic bread, 4 bottles of Rabbit and Spaghetti Wine, and 5 other bottles… so fantastic of a night that a few of us that did not have to drive… were a little slow the next morning.  We probably could have done without that last bottle of wine.

Just Cook, Just Wine, Just RUNt.