Bird Suet -- for the Birds!
"This recipe is unique and your backyard birds will flock to this winter treat. It comes from "About.com" and is very easy to make!"
- Ready In:
- 1hr
- Ingredients:
- 6
- Serves:
-
6
ingredients
- 6 pinecones
- 4 1⁄2 cups beef suet (fat)
- 1 cup dried crumpled whole wheat bread
- 1⁄2 cup shelled sunflower seeds
- 1⁄4 cup millet
- 1⁄4 cup raisins
directions
- Melt the suet (available from your butcher) over low heat.
- In a mixing bowl, mix the remaining ingredients together.
- Allow the suet to cool somewhat and then pour in the mix and stir thoroughly.
- When it thickens (cools) stuff the mixture in between the "petals" of an open pine cone. Virginia pine cones are best because they open very nicely and can be picked up all over the eastern U.S., but any open pine cone will work. The big pine cones from the western U.S. forests are great too but you'll only need a couple of those ones.
- Hang the pine cones from a string in your back yard.
- As for the other ingredients, your local farm/feed store can usually supply ingredients such as millet.
- This recipe is a good project for kids on rainy days!
Questions & Replies
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Reviews
-
Thank you for posting, Bone Man. We've had a lot of success with this! -
We like trying different recipes when it comes to suet for the birds that come to our feeders. This recipe of yours we tried and seems successful. Thanks for posting.
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
<p>I am a retired State Park Resort Manager/Ranger. <br /><br />Anyway, as to my years in the State Park System (retired now), I was responsible for 4 restaurants/dining rooms on my park and my boss at Central Headquarters said I should spend less time in my kitchens and more time tending to my park budget. I spent 25 years in those kitchens and worked with some really great chefs over those years, (and some really awful ones too!) <br /><br />I spent THOUSANDS of hours on every inch of that park and adjacent state forest (60,000 acres) and sometimes I miss it. But mostly I miss being in that big beautiful resort lodge kitchen. I miss my little marina restaurant down on the Ohio River too. I served the best Reuben Sandwich (my own recipe -- posted on 'Zaar as The Shawnee Marina Reuben Sandwich) in both the State of Ohio and the Commonwealth of Kentucky down there and sold it for $2.95. Best deal on the river! <br /><br />They (friends and neighbors) call my kitchen The Ospidillo Cafe. Don't ask me why because it takes about a case of beer, time-wise, to explain the name. Anyway, it's a small galley kitchen with a Mexican motif (until my wife catches me gone for a week or so), and it's a very BUSY kitchen as well. We cook at all hours of the day and night. You are as likely to see one of my neighbors munching down over here as you are my wife or daughter. I do a lot of recipe experimentation and development. It has become a really fun post-retirement hobby -- and, yes, I wash my own dishes. <br /><br />Also, I'm the Cincinnati Chili Emperor around here, or so they say. (Check out my Ospidillo Cafe Cincinnati Chili recipe). SKYLINE CHILI is one of my four favorite chilis, and the others include: Gold Star Chili, Empress Chili and, my VERY favorite, Dixie. All in and around Cincinnati. Great stuff for cheap and I make it at home too. <br /><br />I also collect menus and keep them in my kitchen -- I have about a hundred or so. People go through them and when they see something that they want, I make it the next day. That presents some real challenges! <br /><br />http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/parks/parks/shawnee.htm</p>
