Chickadee Pudding

"Wow, Mom! What's cooking?"

Will walked into the kitchen and looked into the big metal bowl on the counter. I had just poured melted bacon fat over a mixture of chopped suet, bird seed, bread crumbs, and peanut butter.

"It looks good enough to eat," he said, looking at the melting mess. He reached a finger in tentatively.

Well, it is good to eat, I answered, but not for humans. This mix is for the birds. Literally.

I found the recipe for chickadee pudding in Evelyn Birge Vitz's cookbook A Continual Feast and made it years ago when the girls were small. I pulled out the recipe again this Christmas when the wild birds refused to eat the millet-filled birdseed we put out in the feeders. Chickadee pudding was the answer to what would have been a woeful waste of seed. The birds love it, and we have had a lot of activity at the feeders especially from downy and hairy woodpeckers, who happily swing on the suet cages. I'm now making a second batch to carry the birds through the remainder of the winter. Whatever is left will freeze well until next November.

The recipe is straight forward and is good for using up kitchen seeds (pumpkin, apple, etc.), saved bacon fat, and old dried bread. Chop suet until fine in the food processor. Add seeds, crumbs, dried fruit, and whatever else the birds might find interesting. I like adding peanut butter. Melt the bacon fat and pour over the mix, stirring as the suet melts and the mix becomes a thick pourable mass. You may have to gently heat the bowl if the suet doesn't readily melt. Pour into a cake pan and chill. Cut into cakes and let the birds enjoy!

January Bird Count

Black Capped Chickadee
Hairy Woodpecker
Tufted Titmouse
Cedar Waxwing
Downy Woodpecker
Common Red Poll
White Breasted Nuthatch


Black-capped Chickadee


White-breasted Nuthatch

A Look Back at 2010

Oh, the Comfort of Soup

If you love mushrooms as much as we do, then try this delicious alternative to cream of mushroom soup. The recipe comes from Molly Katzen's book The New Moosewood Cookbook. You might want to double the recipe since one bowl is never enough!

Hungarian Mushroom Soup

2 tbs. butter
2 c. chopped onion
1-1/2 to 2 c. sliced mushrooms
1 tsp. salt
2-3 tsp. dried dill
1 tbs. mild paprika
2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
3 tbs. flour
2 c. water
1 c. milk
black pepper, to taste
1/2 c. sour cream
minced parsley for garnish

Saute onions in butter for 5. min. Add mushrooms, salt, dill, and paprika. Cover, and cook for 15 min. stirring occasionally. Stir in lemon juice. Sprinkle in flour; cook 5 min. Add water; cook for 10 min. Stir in milk and pepper. Whisk in sour cream, and heat very gently. Don't boil. Serve hot garnished with parsley. Serves 4.

Peanut Butter Cake

This is a favorite in our family. Papa has it every birthday. It makes a great dessert for pot luck suppers too. Over the years I've experimented by adding chopped peanuts to the reserved crumbs, used dark chocolate chips, and added a glaze. Mix things up a bit and have fun!

Peanut Butter Cake

2-1/4 c. flour
2 c. brown sugar
1 c. peanut butter
1/2 c. butter

1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 c. milk
1 tsp. vanilla
3 eggs

1 c. chocolate chips

Grease and flour a 9x13 in. pan or bundt pan. Blend first four ingredients until crumbly; reserve 1 cup. Add remaining ingredients to mixture and blend at low speed. Beat for 3 min. at medium speed. Pour into prepared pan; sprinkle with reserved crumb mixture. Sprinkle 1 c. chocolate chips over the top. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 min. Cool. Pour peanut butter glaze over top of cooled cake. Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Glaze

4 tsp. water
1 tbs. peanut butter
2/3 c. confectioner's sugar

Green Pumpkin Pie

This is for my cousin, Monica, who also hates to see anything go to waste.

I came across this recipe in The Little House Cookbook years ago when the girls were very young. I had always wanted to try it, but never got to the pumpkins until they were too ripe. It wasn't until this year, however, that Edmund's gentle pleas and Will's reading the recipe over and over at the kitchen table motivated me to stop canning for an afternoon and turn to the few green pumpkins we had left. I made a few modifications in the spices, but the results were a delightful surprise. I found that the leftover pie was even better since the flavors had a chance to meld. Enjoy!

Green Pumpkin Pie

1 pastry crust recipe
Green pumpkin, about 4 lbs., or enough to fill a pie shell
1 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
Pinch of salt
1/3 c. cider, the harder, the better
1 tsp. butter

Pare and seed pumpkin. Slice thinly, and put in bottom of pie shell. Mix brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt together. (You may want to add a tablespoon or two of flour if you want the syrup thicker.) Cover the pumpkin with the sugar mixture. Pour the cider over everything, add the butter, and cover with the top crust. Bake at 425 for 15 min. and then at 350 for 45 min.

Sustitutions

Yesterday I made barbecue sauce to add to leftover rice and chicken. I found I was missing brown sugar, and so I made my own by adding a tablespoon of molasses to one cup of sugar. No one knew the difference except the cook.

Easy and good in a pinch, substitutions are the emergency backup plan in every busy kitchen. And thanks to the internet, substitutions are listed everywhere. No more the mad dash to the grocery store for a missing ingredient. (And let's face it, for those of us who live well outside of town, those trips are not in the true Yankee spirit of thrift.)

Many good cookbooks have sections full of substitutions. My Joy of Cooking has a nice section, but this requires pulling out and thumbing through the cookbook with food covered fingers, which as Joey might say, is not cool. Since I am inherently lazy, the small list I bought from Current years ago and taped to my baking cupboard door works well in a pinch, but unfortunately it is not a complete list. Here is a nice site for those who might need to have a more complete list for your cupboard. http://www.millennium-ark.net/News_Files/Food/ingred_subs.html. Some of the dry substitution mixes, such as Italian seasoning and pie spice, I make up in large amounts and store in a tightly covered jar for use. I am a Yankee with my time, too.

Enjoy cooking!