Murph's Mash

   A recipe for our Fids by William Murphy

(Lovingly called Murph on the Macaw Talk Message Forum)

Shopping List:

4-5 medium to large sweet potatoes
1 can of low sodium Pumpkin (optional)
2 eggs
1 cup chopped Pecans
1 cup chopped Walnuts
1 small can crushed pineapple (no sugar)
1 cup Raisins
1 small bag frozen chopped greens (or any other veggies, fresh or frozen, you want your bird to eat)
cinnamon to taste
vanilla extract to taste

    Take four or five medium to large sweet potatoes, peel them, and cut into quarter inch slices. Put the slices into a large pan with a TIGHT fitting lid with one to one and a half cups of water. {The taters are going to be steamed and not boiled. This prevents the water soluble beta carotene from being wasted. The beta carotene is essential to our fildred and this is the primary reason for feeding this concoction.}

    Add cinnamon to taste (one or two teaspoons), vanilla extract to taste (again, one or two teaspoons) and if you desire a can of pumpkin. (Make the pumpkin is low in sodium.) Bring to a slow boil and place the lid on the pan. Continue to steam for about 45 minutes. Don’t get hung up on the time element. Simply continue to steam until the top slices are fork tender. Remove the taters from the burner and allow to cool to room temperature (more or less). This will prevent the eggs from cooking prematurely when you add them.

    Soak your raisins.  Raisins are coated with a sulfur compound as an anti fungicide when they are produced. It is easily removed by putting the raisins in a pan of boiling water for about an hour. You need not continue to boil the water, just add the raisins and remove from the burner.

    When the taters are cooled, put into a food processor (taters and steaming fluid) and process until a smooth consistency is reached. I’m to lazy to use a processor because I have to clean it, so I use an old timey potato masher.

   Drain the raisins and add to the taters.  Add two eggs, a cup of chopped pecans, a cup of chopped walnuts, a small can of crushed pineapple (juice and all), and mix well. Cara (my good buddy from MT)  goes nuts at this point and it’s a good practice. She adds chopped greens and other alien food (alien food is defined as stuff that’s good for them). I’ve started adding a small bag of frozen chopped mixed veggies with good success.

    Turn the mixture into a large baking pan that’s been coated with Pam, or vegetable oil, or peanut oil, or butter, etc. I use Pam as it adds less fat/oil to the stuff. Again, at this point Cara gets creative and puts pumpkin seeds on top of the mixture, again, a very good practice. Bake for 45 minutes in a 350 F oven. This makes a lot but it freezes well. Simply put one or two days supply in a baggie and freeze it.

To meet the fildren (feathered children) who love Murph's mash visit them at Macaw Talk a message board on the Birds-n-Ways website.  http://www.birdsnway.com/boards/mt/mt.cgi