Pea Soup and Squirrel Pot Pie

With the temperatures outside the Aerie hovering just above the freezing mark, Terry made a pot of split pea soup last night for dinner. We had it with cornbread muffins then and with whole wheat toast for lunch today. It’s a real stick-to-your ribs sort of meal. The “soup” is nearly as thick as some mashed potatoes you’d get in a bad diner. You could stand your spoon up in it, go get a glass of water and sit back down before the spoon even thought of moving. Definitely good eats for a cold, overcast day where the sky is spitting sleet on occasion.

Before lunch, however, we boiled up four gray squirrels that have been in the freezer for a while and pulled the meat off the bones for tonight’s pot pie dinner. Julie, the cat, got her share of the meat. She scarfed it down as fast as we could giver pieces and if we were slow on the supply side she let us know in no uncertain terms that she wanted more—NOW! Terry will use some of the stock from the boiling process to make the veggies to go into the pot pies and top the meat/veggie/gravy pour the combo into a pie shell to bake.

While eating our pea soup for lunch, I glanced outside and there were six huge gray squirrels feeding beneath the bird feeders. I guess I won’t have much trouble replacing the stock in the freezer if the pot pies come out as good as the meat smelled this morning.