Made my first birdy 'mash' :)

[MomtoPercy]

I was out shopping for Percy's fresh veg today and saw a packet of dried mix meant as a 'starter for soup'. One cooks this mixture and then later one adds meats and/or veg of choice. The whole concept sounds a bit icky for humans but I thought it could make a good start for a birdy mash and since I'd never made one, I thought I'd give it a shot.

The mixture contains red lentils, barley, groats (??) and split peas. Here's a pic of the uncooked mixture.

I cooked it per the package instructions and when it was almost done I added grated butternut, carrots, sweet potato and some corn kernels. In the last five minutes I added cinnamon, ginger, cayenne pepper, half a grated apple and some chopped cilantro (his current fetish, which, coincidentally is detering the fruit flies a bit).

I fed him some of a spoon once it had cooled enough and he went crazy for it! I gave him a full tablespoon of it for dinner and he polished it off in short order.

I've noticed that he doesn't seem to enjoy his 'freshies' for dinner so much lately so I will give this a try and see how it goes. If it goes well, I will add more fresh greens to it next time.

Here's a pic of it packed into an icecube tray ready to be frozen. Ignore the tub in the back, it couldn't fit into the ice cube tray

Any suggestions on how to do this better?

 

[thekarens]

Awesome! Good for Percy!

 

[Terry57]

That looks delicious! I will look for that soup starter next time I go to the store, great idea

 

[hacatta]

ìt looks really good,love the color.
My first try looked like i killed something and threw it trough the food processor.

 

[SpotsandSally]

ìt looks really good,love the color.
My first try looked like i killed something and threw it trough the food processor.

LOL. You should've seen my first 'birdy muffins' halfway through the recipe I realized it was probably mean to get birds to like their PELLETS... Had lots of honey, yogurt and jam! I added a BUNCH - a BUNCH - of other stuff though. Cucumber, broccoli, carrots.. Anything I could get tiny. And an egg. Ugh, the smell was repulsive, and for the 'base' I had grind up Kiwis pellets to a fine powder.. Imagine your birds pellet smell concentrated to like, 10, + yogurt, honey, jam, broccoli, carrots.. Ew! And to cook it properly, the outsides got burnt.

Kiwi didnt think it was half bad and I still have same - a recipe for like 10 muffins turned to a 24 recipe due to all the extra stuff I added! So he's got a while to burn through those..

 

[hacatta]

Lol thankfully you got one that eats it.
My mom and me made birdie muffins this week...it ended as cookies.
The birds like it,and i can't figure out why.
It really smelled like vomit before we baked it.
Needless to say next time we will follow the receipt.

 

[SpotsandSally]

Yup. Vomit sounds right - in both color, texture and smell!

 

[MomtoPercy]

Hey guys, I take offence at your besmirching my mash thread with your talk of :vomit-smi

What I do for birdie bread is make a health muffin recipe for the family (lots of goodies in there including grated carrot, apple, nuts) and then I just add a handful of pellets and some seed mix (sesame, flax, pumpkin) into the last little bit of batter to make up the last two muffins for Percy. When cooked, I cut the muffins into 6 pieces and freeze. It doesn't smell or look like vomit....LOL!!!

 

[SpotsandSally]

LOL, sorry. I'm sure yours didnt look like vomit, but mine sure did. Kiwi still loves it though.

 

[hacatta]

Hey guys, I take offence at your besmirching my mash thread with your talk of :vomit-smi

What I do for birdie bread is make a health muffin recipe for the family (lots of goodies in there including grated carrot, apple, nuts) and then I just add a handful of pellets and some seed mix (sesame, flax, pumpkin) into the last little bit of batter to make up the last two muffins for Percy. When cooked, I cut the muffins into 6 pieces and freeze. It doesn't smell or look like vomit....LOL!!!

Lol we just had to mention it,i'm pretty sure a lot of people will have thought that.
Please do post the muffin recept,mine was a total disaster,but edible.

 

[Freespin]

What a great idea to use the soup mix! I will have to try that =)