If you think that my latest culinary efforts don’t look very yummy then that’s because you’re not in the target audience. It’s been very cold here for a few days, and the birds in the garden are hungry and need calorie-rich food to keep them going. We’ve been feeding them ad hoc as and when we have leftovers – Christmas cake and grated cheese, with the occasional bread crust. The day before yesterday I put out some fresh water – it had frozen solid in a matter of hours.
(I covered feeding leftovers to birds in episode 80 of the Alternative Kitchen Garden show; if you want to read the edited highlights, have a look at how to make bird cake instead.)
This piece in the Guardian reminded me to get my act together and turn the lard in the fridge into a birdcake. It’s a simple matter of mixing melted fat with other foods and leaving it to cool. This one is a bread crust, an apple and some dried mealworms and poultry corn donated by the chickens from their stash. Once it has firmed up, I will put it out on the bird table. The water dish is currently defrosting, and I will put out fresh water at the same time.
Top Tip: If you have problems turning your finished bird cake out of its container, pop it in the freezer for an hour or so and it will slide out without any trouble :)
Gary wrote:
...on Tue, Jan 6 '09 (1227 days ago)