Duck Season...Rabbit Season

Well, let's see - where to start.  My 10 year old, Jordan, is in 5th grade and he rides the bus after school from his school to my school.  Last Tuesday after he got to my school, he told me that he needed to go to the computer lab to work on his Colonial Research Project (1st I had heard about it).  He tells me that he has to research a topic from the Colonial times, write about it and do a presentation.  Since he is in GT, he also has to make his topic, and that it is due on Friday.  He had been working on it in class a little bit.  Some of the topic categories were games, crafts & hobbies, food, & clothing.  So Jordan had picked a food because he figured it would be easy for us to make it and chose Beefsteak Pie.  He said that he thought it sounded like something easy and so his teacher found a recipe for Beefsteak Pie, printed or copied it and gave it to him.  He handed it to me on Tuesday and told me that we had to make it by Friday.  Before I go any further, I thought I would share this recipe that he placed in my unsuspecting hands (the red parts are the ones that cracked me up the most) so you could see what he thought I was going to do:

Colonial Beefsteak Pie Recipe

• 16 servings
• Prep:  30 min.  Cook:  2 hours

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound sliced bacon, diced
• 2-1/2 pounds beef stew meat, cubed
• 2 cans (14-1/2 ounces each) beef broth
• 1/2 cup red currant jelly
• 2 dressed rabbit (about 3 pounds each), cut up
• 1 can (14-1/2 ounces) chicken broth
• 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/4 pound pearl onions
• 2 medium carrots, diced
• 2 medium potatoes, diced
• 1/2 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
• 1 dressed duck (4-1/2 pounds), cut up
• 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup cold water
• 1 package (17.3 ounces) frozen puff pastry, thawed

Directions

• In a kettle, cook bacon until crisp; drain, reserving bacon and 1/4 cup drippings in pan.  Brown beef in drippings.  Add beef broth and jelly; cover and simmer 45 minutes.  Cover rabbits with water in a pot; simmer for 1 hour or until meat falls from bones.
• Remove meat; set aside (discard bones).  To beef mixture, add chicken broth, bay leaf, salt, pepper and cayenne; simmer 20 minutes.  Add onions, carrots, potatoes and mushrooms; simmer 20 minutes or until tender.  Remove bay leaf.
• In another pot, cover duck with water; simmer until the meat nearly falls from bones.  Remove meat; set aside.  Mix flour and water; stir into beef mixture.  Cook until thickened.  Add rabbit and duck meat.  Cut puff pastry into 3-in. squares and place on a greased baking sheet.  Bake at 400 degrees for 10-12 minutes; place on individual servings of meat mixture.  Yield:  16 servings.

I about fainted when Jordan handed this recipe to me and I told him that he was crazy!  Or his teacher was crazy!  First of all I'm no chef - I couldn't cook this.  Second, I work all day and would not have time between Tuesday and Friday to make this.  Third, at the highschool we had end-of-six-weeks grades due on Friday so I would be busy with that.  And last, we can't afford to buy all those ingredients for a school project!  I went straight to the computer to email his teacher to ask if we could switch topics.  As I'm typing this email and sharing all the reasons I gave above for not being able to do this, I all of a sudden got an image of myself in my head roasting rabbit and duck in a pot until the meat was falling off the bones (and thinking of Looney Tunes cartoons) and I started cracking up laughing.  Jordan and I got so tickled.  I couldn't hardly breathe I was laughing so hard.  I had a couple of students in my room taking a test.  They were getting a kick out of listening to me tell Jordan he was crazy and laughing so hard I was crying.  At least I could find the humor in the situation.

His teacher emailed me back and the beginning of her response was, "Oh, My!"  Apparently, her student teacher had organized this project so she had the student teacher email me back.  And the student teacher told me that she had encouraged the students, especially the GT students, to take home their top 5 choices of topics for approval by their parents so that we would be aware of any necessary food items or construction that would be required for this project.  Ahh, so now the real story comes out.  Of course, Jordan did not do this.  He just says, "Here's my topic and here's what we have to make."  He also tells me (after I emailed the teacher) that the teacher said if we couldn't get some of the ingredients, then we could leave things out or substitute ingredients.  Oh, good to know, Jordan.  Luckily the teacher allowed him to switch topics and so we made shrub instead.  It is a drink consisting of cranberry juice, sherbet, and a slice of lime.  Much better!  So, duck season...rabbit season...fire!...didn't have to happen. :)