I love birds, and parrots in particular. They are, to me, the perfect pet. There is a perfect companion for every person; from sweet, low-maintenance budgies and cockatiels, to feisty parrotlets and lovebirds, to cuddly cockatoos of varying sorts, or to the stunningly intelligent and sensitive African greys and Amazons. They are easier to clean up after than dogs or cats, and smell much less as well. And even the simpler parrots still put most dogs or cats to shame with their intelligence. And of course, they are beautiful!
However, they do take a lot of care to be truly happy and healthy. Almost all of them do significantly better if around half of their diet is fresh foods, like vegetables (especially leafy green veggies), fruit, grains, and legumes (beans). Basically, the same things that make a healthy diet for people!
Unfortunately, I have a lot of medical issues that can make preparing fresh food for my fids (feather-kids) a challenge most days, and impossible on no few days. That's where pre-prepared frozen single-servings of chop can come in super handy! It allows me to just grab one cube and defrost it, and have almost-as-good-as-fresh chop for my babies with almost no effort for my bad days.
So, here's what I put in these batches of chop:
- Riced cauliflower & sweet potato (fully cooked)
- Riced butternut squash (fully cooked)
- Riced broccoli (uncooked)
- Riced beets (partially cooked)
- Pomegranate seeds
- Chopped kale (partially cooked)
- Carrots (slightly cooked, finely chopped)
- Tricolor quinoa (cooked)
- 15 bean blend (cooked, not pictured)
- Chia/Hemp/Milled Flax blend
- Applesauce
- Peach 'applesauce'
It's important to make sure that none of them are seasoned or packed with fillers, sweeteners, or preservatives. All of them are only the fruits or vegetables on the label (the 'peachsauce' is peach, apple, and sweet potato with a bit of lemon juice). Check the ingredients!
I have three silicone mini-icecube trays (here's a 2-pack if the 3-pack is still sold out), each of which holds one plastic cup's worth almost perfectly, so I made three slightly different blends.
The first, had the beets and a lot of the pomegranate - it's very obvious which one that is! It also has only applesauce for the liquidy portion. The middle one has about twice the amount of broccoli and kale as the others; they are among the most important ingredients. It has some each of the applesauce and 'peachsauce', and it is also a little lighter on the legumes, and has a single spoonful of the pomegranate seeds. And the final one has more of the 'orange' veggies: sweet potato, butternut squash, and carrot, and uses only the peachsauce.
Each one has at least two spoonfulls of all the ingredients aside from the beets and pomegranate.
Once portioned out, I used a second cup to make a shaker, and mixed up all the ingredients.
I then distributed them into the ice trays. This ended up being the most time-intensive step of the entire process, as I ended up having to use my fingers to squish the blends into each compartment in the icecube trays, in order to get them properly compacted so they would freeze solid, and to make sure they were all roughly even.
And that's it! Aside from preparing and cooking the beans (which took all day), the whole process took about an hour and a half. That's 108 single servings, and I have enough veggies to make another full set once these freeze, so about $30 and a few hours of work provides chop for about six months (longer, really, since I will provide actual fresh chop when I am up to it.) Of course, that's for a very small bird. A larger bird would need 2-3 cubes this size (or, more realistically, larger cubes with more roughly-chopped ingredients instead of riced.) However, it's still very time and money efficient, however you look at it.
Bonus! Here's a video of my 10 week old parrotlet, Tyrallon, enjoying his first cube from this batch of chop (one of the 'orange' ones)! 20 seconds in our microwave had it defrosted enough to break apart and mostly no longer cold (but not yet warm, either.)
In response to a couple of questions on FB...
ReplyDeleteThe 15 bean blend is "15 Bean Soup", it comes pre-packaged in the dry beans section. It comes with a flavoring packet to turn it into soup, and I just don't use that, just the beans. :) (For a teeny parrotlet, I also picked out the largest beans, but that's probably not necessary; he was delighted to attack the larger ones still there as you can see in the video lol.) I just prepared it according to the package directions, sans adding flavoring; I think it was soak 8 hours, boil 15 mins, simmer low for an hour.
In regards to chopping the ingredients, all the others except the carrots were already finely chopped (that's what 'riced' means); the carrots came in 'strings' and I just chopped them down some with a knife. But even if I was adding stuff from whole, I would use a knife; it's less destructive and gives better control than a food processor, to me. But a food processor on grate or pulsed chop would probably do if you aren't confident in your knife skills.
I also realized today that I had intended to include raw bell pepper and completely forgot. Next time! I may even get one or two and chop them up really fine and freeze them separately and add a pinch on top of the cubes every couple of days.