How to cook Critter's

My life must be pretty dull (or maybe too exciting...depending on how you look at it) if my blog posts and tweets have become me talking about the dead hairy squirrel in my fridge that I'm fixin' to cook for supper!   I gross MYSELF out...I am so sorry!  

But alas, I must finish the story....this post is not for the squeamish!  

I slapped on the ol' rubber gloves (held my breath) and carefully took that pink watered bowl out of the refrigerator.   In taking a closer look...the (ahem) cleaned squirrel was still covered in hair.  I about lost it!   I scrubbed it under hot hot water...but I couldn't get it all off.  (I about didn't make it though...if you know what I mean)

So my thoughts are to make the squirrel just like I would make BBQ Ribs!  Everything is better with BBQ right?!  So I placed it in a deep casserole dish that would fit it's squirrelly shape and baked it for two hours.  Then I drained off the water (and more squirrel hair) and slathered it in some Sweet Baby Rays!  Things were a little better from that point!  =)

Grandma gave us some pumpkin blossoms so along those lines, I thought I would cook the mushrooms the same way!  Pumkin blossoms are the flowers that grow on pumpkin vines.  I have never even thought to eat blossoms off of pumpkins until after I was married.  I thought they had *lost their mind* but they are very good!  And everything is good dipped in egg then cracker and fried in oil right?! 

Problem was...I only had a half pack of crackers left so I stopped up at our Village Market/Gas Station. (I put that in there for you Laura!  It cracks her up that we can buy groceries and deli meat at our gas station -and it's good!) Unfortunately they were out of crackers.  =(  I flew into panic mode because I really didn't have a plan B so I simply used the whole wheat Ritz crackers I had on hand instead.

So with that problem solved...and my oldest girl dropped off at riding lessions...my man walked in the door!  I didn't tell him what we where having and he assumed ribs because Sweet Baby was filling the house with an awesome BBQ aroma!  But SURPRISE!!  (You know...this is where I was hoping to be crowned Wife of the Year) He looked at it and said "You should have quarted it"   Really?! YUCK!  I could hardly wash it and get it in the pot let alone cut it up!  Ha ha! 

He smiled big and couldn't wait for all of us to try it!  (um -I don't think so!)

He also thought it was funny that I was taking pictures while I was cooking so he grabbed the camera and took a few himself.  He was teasing me...see how he turns the angle of the camera and took pictures of funny things? Here are a few in his collection:

Didn't he do a great job capturing the *REALNESS* of things! 

When taking pictures I always arrange things just so to try and capture a new view making things look it's prettiest...but this was the truth behind the camera!  I loved it!

So here is the (carfully posed) finished product!

Actually the picture of the blossoms and mushrooms was one of Keith's! 

-Great Job Honey!

 Two out of four of the kids tried the squirrel...I couldn't bring myself to.  Honestly, I couldn't even watch the kids take a bite out of it.  (gives me the heebie jeebies)  But I don't want to discourage them trying things like that -they knew what they were eating.  It's not like when my sister and I grew up and ate "little chickens" for supper -aka RABBIT!!  (I think I was scarred for life.  I KNOW Michelle was when Grandpa finally fessed up  -with a giggle- that we were eating Blackie!)

On the upside! 

The puff ball mushroom was SO GOOD!!  They were awesome! (I WAS SHOCKED) I kept asking Keith "Your SURE they are safe to eat?" because you just can't eat any ol' mushroom growing out of the ground. 

 *a little disclosure *  {smile}

But they are completely safe and ended up being oh, so good!  We will for sure have them again! 

With two hunters now in the house, I'm sure it won't be our last wild-life adventure in the kitchen. 

Maybe I should ask for a "How to cook Critter's" cookbook for Christmas. =)