Waste not,,,,

Smudge The Cat brought me a little present at 5am this morning.

Smudge The Cat is a mini cat. He acquired us as a stray just over a year ago. Never grew much, and according to the vet, never will. He's truly tiny.

His usual prey are Magpies. Yup, I know, Maggies are pretty, but they are predators, throw fledglings of other birds from their nests for the heck of it, and are responsible for a rapid decline in song birds in the UK. I know, because I have to clear up after them.

Problem is, when Smudge is finished with them, there's not a lot left. Not bad for the little warrior, when he's smaller than they. So I give them a decent burial.

But this morning, he dragged in an unusual prize. A fresh Grey Squirrel, about one-and-a-half Smudges long.

A post-mortem - which consisted of checking for any vital signs, response to stimuli, lividity, and a thorough feel of it's anatomical and skeletal structure showed it was indeed dead - the main clues being it had some severely displaced neck vertebrae, and tiny specks of blood in it's eyes. It had been strangled.

So I skinned it, and cooked it. I've no qualms doing that. I was brought up to have no illusions about the chain of produce between what we eat and how it gets on your plate, and have been in occupations where one has to be realistic where your nutrition comes from.

But it has been a long time, and I was curious. D'y'know, it was delicious. Supermarket Rabbit for instance, can take a lot of work to prevent it from being bland.

Nutkins wasn't. Cleaned, Baked in an honest beef stock for a couple of hours on a low heat with Butter, cream, Home made dijon mustard and salt and pepper and some bay - it was a little gamey, but I like that :)

The innards, (offal) has made a stock which will be included in my Thousand Year stock for weeks.

Warning - apparently you can't go around killing any kind of squirrel willy nilly, depending where in the UK you are. Greys are considered a pest everywhere, but even so, are still protected, as is the means they die. I took advantage of a random kill..........