December 14, 2013 / Leslie

Virtual Advent: A Holiday Treat for the Birds

Virtual Advent is a blog tour that runs from December 1st through 24th. On each of these days one or more blogs will post about a Christmas tradition, memory, or anything Christmas that they want to share.

For My Feathered Friends

An annual tradition at my house, along with baking Spumoni Cookies for Christmas Day, is making peanut butter suet, a tasty treat for the birds that visit my backyard.

In colder weather birds need to burn more energy to stay warm during the night and this year is already harsher than usual. This means birds need to eat more food to replenish their fat supply. Suet is a high energy food and a favorite meal for many birds, especially the woodpeckers, nuthatches and chickadees.

Sure, you can buy suet in the store, but I’m sure this tastes better and it’s my Christmas gift to my feathered friends who bring me joy all year.

Peanut Butter Suet Recipe

The recipe is simple and only takes a few minutes to make. I’d like to take credit for it, but years ago I found the basic recipe in Bird Watcher’s Digest. I made a few changes by substituting vegetable shortening when I don’t have lard and adding some seeds and nuts.

Ingredients

• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup lard or vegetable shortening
• 2 cups plain yellow corn meal
• 2 cups quick oats
• 1 cup flour
• ⅓ cup sugar
• raisins (optional)
• chopped nuts
• sunflower seeds(optional)

Preparation
Melt peanut putter and shortening or lard in large pan on low heat. Add remainder of ingredients and mix well. Pour into a pan and allow to harden at room temperature. Instead of a pan, I re-use the plastic molds that the store bought suet comes in. This recipe will make four or five suet cakes.

After cooling the suet can be chopped into chunks or squares or served crumbled in a shallow dish. Another option is to press chunks into holes drilled in a piece of dead branch and hung in a tree. Warning: Squirrels also like suet.

Store in refrigerator or at room temperature.