More Bird Gourmet

There's more to gourmet bird cooking than mixing up long grain rice or cooking different kinds of pasta. Birds enjoy breads, cakes, and cookies, just like their human counterparts, and thankfully, they're as easy to cook, even if there aren't any box mixes. Thankfully, Betty Crocker and her counterparts created mixes for human consumption, which can be easily modified for birds.

To me, the most basic of baked goods to feed birds is cornbread. This easy to make mix contains the favorite food of most birds, corn, and can be purchased in inexpensive box mixes made by the Jiffy company. For the inexperienced cooks or the unadventurous, the mix can be made "as is" for birds.

To modify the Jiffy mix for avian palates, the bird owner may do several things. First of all, when the mix calls for eggs, include the entire egg. Birds love eggshells. Secondly, several additions can be made to the mix. Blending greens, broccoli, carrots, sweet potato or other vegetable matter adds vital nutrients to the mix. Toppings for bird bread include pellets, more vegetables, dehydrated fruit, or the bird's favorite nuts.

Cookies can be made in much the same way, with a basic peanut butter or oatmeal cookie recipe modified to include bits of carrot, corn, and pellets. With cookies, like any sweets, the important thing to remember is that chocolate is deadly to birds. Just because people like chocolate chocolate chip cookies doesn't mean that their birds will too.

Other gourmet dishes can be made out of tortilla shells and vegetables microwaved for a few minutes or served raw. Since birds cannot digest cheese, it is best not to add that delicacy to the dish; however, a tortilla shell with vegetables makes a great dish. The birdy burrito is fun for larger birds that may wish to hold the food in their feet.

Smaller birds, such as parrotlets or parakeets, may enjoy a corn chip with vegetables on it, like their own mini nachos without cheese. Bird bread is always a hit with the smaller birds. Gourmet cooking doesn't take a lot of work, but it does take some imagination.

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