True confession: I’m hoping that slipping in a rabbit recipe during Bambi-hunting season won’t draw as much fire as doing so, in say, the spring. The fact is that as uncomfortable as many of us are about feasting on the Easter Bunny and Peter Rabbit (Bugs, too!) we’d do well to add this lean, mild meat—that comes sans the environmental and health baggage of large-scale industrial meat farms—to our cooking lexicon. With a handful of small farms raising rabbit in Northern Michigan now (see the list below), the time is right to try a rabbit in your pot.

Credit this hearty, autumn-worthy dish to my friends Norm Wheeler (Leelanau Schools teacher and Beach Bard) and Northern Michigan–beloved vocalist Claudia Schmidt, who found the original version in a 1966 edition of Woman’s Day Encyclopedia of Cookery. –Lissa Edwards