November 26th, 2009 This Is For The Birds
Homemade suet, that is. Another “Found in the Freezer” recipe – while organizing it, I discovered a bag of venison fat from last year.
Melt the fat (you can use beef suet or lard or shortening, but mine was free) in a saucepan over low heat. When it’s melted, stir in a roughly equal amount of cheap peanut butter and let that melt into the suet.
Here’s where you can add all kinds of goodies to the mix. I added some bird seed, whole wheat flour and cornmeal (again, roughly equal portions of each – sorry, I didn’t measure anything). I tossed in little bits of things I was going to “save” for baking, like a few raisins, the last of a box of oatmeal, and a handful of walnuts. If you need to, add more flour or cornmeal until the suet starts to stick together like cookie dough.
While it’s still warm, dump it onto a deep cookie sheet or into small pans (you want the suet to be about an inch thick) and spread evenly.
I used some small loaf pans. Put it in the freezer to chill until very firm.
When it’s nice and hard, turn it out of the pan onto a cutting surface.
Cut the suet into cakes. These are about 4″ square.
To put it out for the birds, we just used a scrap of hardware cloth bent in half and fashioned a hook from an old wire coat hanger.
And these folks stopped by to wish everybody a Happy Thanksgiving.
