Resilient Squirrels and Delicious Chicken

If you think these things have nothing to do with each other, you are dead on. It just so happens that they are in my head at the same time. First the delicious chicken.

Below is a picture of my garden gnome, Jim. He stands guard over my recently planted herb garden. If you look closely you can see the basil and some parsley.

I love Jim.



Now that I have fresh herbs in the backyard I have become very inventive with my cooking. I add fresh parsley to my rice and I throw sage leaves in homemade white beans. Deee licious. But I think my roasted chicken has benefited the most from the herbs. I'll tell you my secret.
You'll need:
1 Roaster Chicken
Fresh herbs
Sea Salt
Olive Oil
Freshly ground black pepper
1 Stalk Celery
4 Cloves Garlic
1 Small onion or Shallot

Buy yourself a chicken of the roaster variety. Clean out the guts and cook 'em up for your kitties. Pick some (or buy some if you are not lucky enough to have an herb garden) fresh herbs. I use a few sprigs of oregano, thyme, rosemary and sage. Reserve half of the herbs aside and chop the other half finely, mix with 2 cloves of chopped garlic, salt and pepper and 2 tablespoons or so of olive oil. Set aside.
Crush the remaining garlic with the handle of a knife and grab the remaining fresh herbs and stuff it in the chicken cavity. cut the celery in 3 or 4 pieces and stuff that in too. Cut the onion in half and stuff that in (as much as you can) you can get creative here. I have stuffed in mushrooms and peppers. Close cavity with a toothpick. This is not stuffing you'll eat it just provides flavor.
Take the herb mixture and rub above and beneath (this is KEY) the skin of the chicken. Roast chicken as you normally would till the juices run clear.

This chicken is delicious.

Now on to the damn squirrels.

We are not fond of these squirrels because they scare away the birds and threaten to topple our feeder. Some friends of ours told us that putting red pepper flakes in our bird feeder would keep the squirrels away. Thus far, the squirrels have not even noticed it's there. In fact the squirrels have become more aggressive and actually sit on the sidelines in wait and rush through the crowd of unsuspecting birdies, then claiming the seed for themselves. They work in pairs sometimes.

If anyone has a better solution (short of shooting them. I'll admit it may be fun but discharging firearms within the Suffolk county lines is discouraged) let me know. For now I'll be taking the red pepper flakes out of the basement and back to the kitchen to use next time I make my chicken.