I got this recipe off, http://www.shootingtimes.co.uk, and I must say it was really good, and really simple. It doesn't take long so next time you bag some woodies, try it!

IngredientsI

• olive oil • butter
• garlic • small onion
• small potato • pepper
• vegetable stock cube
• broccoli • pigeon breast
• Stilton cheese • thyme
• double cream

Method

1. Finely chop the onion and garlic and gently sauté them for a few minutes in butter and olive oil.
2. Wash, but don’t peel, the potato and grate it into the onion and garlic, stir well and season with pepper.
3. Dissolve a vegetable stock cube in 1⁄2pint boiling water. Empty the potato and onion mix into a saucepan, add the stock and the broccoli (finely chopped) and simmer for 6 to 8 minutes.
4. Skin and finely chop the pigeon breast and brown it by frying quickly on a high heat. When the pigeon is nearly cooked add it to the saucepan with a chicken-egg-sized piece of Stilton cheese and a good helping of dried thyme. Stir well until the cheese has melted then increase the heat, add a small tub of double cream and continue stirring until the soup bubbles.
5. Serve with crusty bread.

Tips

This recipe takes 10 minutes from start to finish. There is no need to add salt as the cheese contains enough. You can blend the soup in a food processor but I like the rustic quality of larger pieces of vegetable and pigeon. Use fresh thyme if you can and keep a few florets of the cooked broccoli as a garnish. If it seems too thick or if you need to stretch it, add more stock or cream.

Hi all, This is a new segment of this page, im going to upload recipies that you can try from when you've been out in the field, some food, some drink, I've started with Hugh Fernley-Wittingstalls recipie for nettle beer! Try it! its simple!

Ingredients:

12 litres/ 2 ½ gallons water
1 carrier-bagful of young nettle tops
juice of 1 lemon and 1 orange
1.5kg / 3lb sugar
55g / 2oz cream of tartar
yeast

Bring the water to the boil, and pour over the nettles. Mix well, then leave to infuse for at least an hour, until cooled down to blood temperature.

Strain into a pan. Add the lemon and orange juice, the sugar and the cream of tartar. Heat gently, stirring, until the sugar has dissolved.

Leave the mixture until it is tepid and stir in the yeast (started in a little warm water and sugar). Cover and leave for 2-3 days.

Remove any scum which has risen to the top in fermentation. Decant, or rack* as for wine, to get the liquid off the sediment. Put into beer bottles, and leave for just 2 more days (but up to a month, if you have the patience).

Drink cold with a sprig of mint.

The location- West Midlands
The kit- B.S.A lightning Xl (times 2)
The pellets- Bisly super dome
Conditions- westerly wind, strong at times, mild, drizzly.
Number of people-2

The wood we started out on is located at the far end of the shoot, a stile surround by tall conifers masks the surrounding fields. The wood is small; a release pen can be seen from the stile. We arrive in the early hours, both at this stile, its not long before the woods begins to move, a distinct woodpecker can be heard in the distance as we look into the wood from the stile.
The hoppers in the pen are fairly full; this soon attracts our first target, the grey squirrel. We hear two moving over head, well hidden from sight they do not sense our presence and come to feed in the pen twenty yards ahead of us, they both settle to feed. One soon comes into place. I offer my guest the shot, he lines it carefully, 'mind the wire, I whisper', he squeezes the trigger, the squirrel stutters forward and rolls, a clean kill.
The other squirrel soon meets a similar fate from my gun, and things go quiet for a while. Soon some pigeons land nearby, we manage to bag one of those.

We move away later with nothing else added and attack from a different angle, this time a rabbit comes into view. We wait patiently for it to move into a reasonable range, we are laid down in a cover crop, i whisper to my guest, 'on three, 1..2..3!' we pull the triggers of the guns simultaneously, the rabbit roles and a nice pot sized buck is added to the bag.

We break again this time we feed the pen as part of the arrangement, although it is small there where a few birds in there, we worked quietly as not to disturb them. The feeding finishes and we grab some lunch.
A passer by from a near public footpath comes and has a chat, congratulating us on our control methods.

After lunch we split up, tackling each end of the wood. The top end is predominantly larch, where as the bottom is beech. Drizzle starts and this does not help the quietness of the afternoon, by three o’clock I here my guests gun fire quietly n the distance, I wonder down to see what he had seen. ‘Rat he says missed him’. After hanging the squirrels we have a quick word with the farm manager we drive home.

FINAL BAG- 2 Grey squirrels, a woodpigeon and a rabbit

Paul Holloway (Moderater)