As a widower congenitally incapable of cooking (even muesli is too advanced), it's no wonder that my first foray into making my own "fat balls" ended in a fairish smattering of good old fashioned Anglo-Saxon oaths and curses.
It wasn't the making of them that caused me such heartbreak and anguish (gently heat a block of lard, when melted and clear pour into four empty yoghurt pots, add seeds, nuts and raisins and put in fridge to cool) but what to do next.
The first pot I tried to turn out, the next morning, was all soft and broke into several squishy pieces. My hands got covered in unpleasant greasy lard and the yoghurt pot was pulverised beyond recognition.
So, I put the other three pots in the freezer, surmising that this would harden them sufficiently to allow me to extract the contents without them collapsing, my hands getting covered in unpleasant greasy lard and the yoghurt pots being pulverised beyond recognition.
I should have known it would all go wrong!
I couldn't get the contents out without cutting the pots part way down and then tearing them off. This, of course (and you're ahead of me here, aren't you!) caused the contents to collapse, my hands to get covered in unpleasant greasy lard and the yoghurt pots being pulverised beyond recognition.
There has to be an easier way, so just what can an aspiring Gordon Ramsey (failed, failed, failed and failed again) do? I've matched him in profanities in this venture but not in culinary skills!
And the first person to say "season to taste and bake in a moderate oven until done" will hear from my solicitors. That's precisely what every single recipe in the world says at the end, even the saintly Delia's advice on how to boil an egg, and I just don't understand what it means, apart from the fact that I will ruin whatever I try!
Help!
iBozz, (Curious user name - is that to tell us you are in charge? MeBigBozz? ;-))
I don't heat my lard but chop it into big lumps and drop it in a large mixing bowl. Add a good tablespoon of peanut butter to give a better taste, then pile in two or three beakers of mixed seed. Also chop some peanuts and dried sultanas. Then gripping the grease-free rim of the bowl I mix it with a strong short knife, slowly breaking down the lumps of fat and adding enough seed until it sticks together in one cake. Then use the knife to scoop out lumps to partly fill half coconuts and any other small containers. Also being a lazy old widower I buy these Saupiquet small tins of tuna salads - which make healthy, workfree supers - that I recycle as bird feeders.