Sunday, February 13, 2011

Warning: Hunter photos ahead.

If you are the type of person who wants her meat to look like it came from the Acme (on a foam tray covered with plastic wrap), you might want to go read somewhere else for a few minutes.

Man-boy is a hunter. Living in suburbia hasn't been easy for him, but he's learned to make do. We do have plenty of deer and the occasional black bear, but since we live in a subdivision, you can't really shoot at them.

On a side note, this morning I picked up a piece of wood to put in the woodstove and a spider the size of an orange crawled over the top of it. So naturally I did the mature thing and screamed. Man-boy rescued me and threw it in the fire.

But back to the hunting. Friday he got a squirrel. Cranked open one of the sunroom windows and shot it with a pellet gun. Through the ear.

Do you know how small a squirrel's ear is?

Anyway, I feel sure the squirrel never knew what hit it.

And then commenced the skinning and gutting. Thankfully, that was all done outside and the hide is now stretched on a board and covered with salt in the garage. The rest was brought inside and washed.


I wasn't sure how much meat was on a squirrel, but Man-boy didn't care. It was his and he was determined to eat it.

So just in case you ever have an extra squirrel in the freezer and don't know how to cook it, I'll share my made-up-on-the-spot recipe.

Place the squirrel in a very small crock pot (mine might be 6 or 8 cups). Sprinkle with kosher salt and pepper, add some thyme and about 1/2 cup of beef broth. Cook on low about 6 hours.

We were amazed at how tender it was, but full of tiny bones.


You'll never get fat eating squirrel—it's a lot of work picking the little shreds of meat off all those bones.

And do you see who's staring intently? It's the closest he's ever been to one.


Man-boy says he's ready to be the next Man vs. Wild star.

Be thankful ~

Karen

1 comment:

Chel's Leaving a Legacy said...

Can't say I've eaten squirrel, but bravo for finding a way to make it edible! I think I would have made my Man cook it on the grill or something. And that wouldn't have been as good, I'm sure. :-)