Bugs @ MindSay

You annoy me, mother.  Or: why call my name if you aren't going to feed me?



I have successfully rescued you from the killer straw.  Feed me.

Fine, if you won't feed me.  I'll get my protein the old-fashioned way: by eating bugs.

The hunter, contented after a long day of mewing.

The puppies were having great fun running around with this in their mouths and chasing each other. Took me several turns to get a hold of them and see what it was. BLEH.Shiversssss...Now it looked JUST like this...apparently now as I am reading about the locust/ cicada  this is how they look before they lose their exoskeleton:

 

 

It seems that these cicadas have a pretty interesting life cycle. Quoting from: The Cicadas are coming!

 

"Now, these so-called “17 year locusts” really did burrow underground as widdle bitty babies all the way back in 1991.  But their common name is wrong! These are NOT locusts or grasshoppers of any kind; they will not devour your landscape and turn your raised beds into a Dust Bowl. But there ARE a few plants that COULD be harmed, especially at egg-laying time, so stay tuned…

The Periodical Cicadas Amazing Life Cycle

The imminent emergence of this Brood, the largest of all the ‘clans’ of 17-year cicadas, has entomologists all a-ga-ga. Yeah, some of them researchers probably don’t get out much, but this is big. When this Brood emerges from the ground there may be as many as a million and a half bugs in a single acre of earth!

Almost pure white when they emerge, each one will climb up on a shrub, tree, or screen door and then split their outside shell open. Like a great magic act (their scientific name is “Magicicada”!), a giant, red-eyed bug will emerge from this exoskeleton, and after a few days, take flight. The males sing their song, the females come along, and later they’ll lay their eggs in the branches of trees and shrubs. Those eggs will quickly hatch, the rice-sized babies will drop and burrow deep, feed slowly on roots, and won’t emerge to finally see the sun again until 2025!"

 

 

I guess I could have let them have a pre breakfast appetizer as they are not poisonous or harmful to eat. Anyone care to join me for breakfast?

 

 

Adult Cicada Recipe

Adult Cicadas can be eaten as well as Cicada Larvae. You should pick mature femalesyou’re your dish. Adult Cicada males have hollow abdomens and not much of a meat, but the female Cicadas are filled with lots of fat. Before you start your cooking you need to remove all the hard parts: wings, legs and head. These parts don’t contain much of the meat either but may be very sharp, so its best to get rid of them. You will need: two tablespoons butter or peanut oil, one and a half pound of cicadas, two serrano chilies, raw, finely chopped, one tomato, finely chopped, one onion, finely chopped, one and a half table spoon ground pepper, one and a half table spoon cumin, three table spoon taco seasoning mix, one handful cilantro, chopped, Taco shells, Sour cream, Shredded cheddar cheese, Shredded lettuce. All you need to do now is: 1. Heat the butter or oil in a frying pan and fry the cicadas for 10 minuts, or until cooked through. 2. Remove from pan and roughly chop into 1/4-inch cubes/ Place back in pan. 3. Add the chopped onions, chilies and tomato, season with salt, and fry for another 5 minutes on medium-low heat. 4. Sprinkle with ground pepper, cumin and oregano to taste. 5. Serve in taco shells and garnish with cilantro, sour cream, lettuce and cheddar cheese.

 

 

 Here are some more actual cicada recipes starting with a quiche :)

 

Love and Laughter,

Dawn

 

 

 

 

 

I generally don't have a problem with bugs. Just ask lldangerous, or Anne, or Alli. I was the resident bug exterminator while we lived together senior year in college. Many times I'd come home from work to find an upturned cup in the middle of the hallway, only to be told that there was a "MONSTER" spider underneath. More often than not, I'd lift the cup, squash the spider with my shoe, and then dispose of the carcass down the toilet.

 

Even the creepy-looking house centipedes that co-habitated with Alli and I two years ago never survived long once I found them. Of course their demise occurred with a shoe (or other heavy object) thrown at the wall from a distance of at least four feet.

 

HOWEVER, the line has to be drawn somewhere.

 

Case in point this morning when I found this fucker hanging out on the floor between my dresser and the doorway to the living room:

 

 

I don't know how he got in, or where he came from, but that thing was not spending one more nanosecond in my place. Chloe and Oliver didn't even want to tango with it. Hell, I couldn't blame them... thing looked like it crawled straight from the depths of Hell and into my bedroom.

 

Thoroughly creeped out, I ran (wasn't taking chances of that thing chasing after me) out of the room and into the kitchen to grab two paper cups. I didn't want to squish it 'cause big bugs make big messes when squished and I didn't want to deal with cleaning up bug juice at 7:30 a.m. So I scooped up Devil Bug into one of the paper cups, covered him with the second cup, and ran, again, out of the room to the balcony door with the thing scooting all around inside the bottom cup (ew ew ew I could feel it ew ew). I set both cups down on the dining table, flung open the balcony door, grabbed the cups, and flung the bastard (and the bottom cup he was in) over the balcony and onto the blacktop below. I even heard the little smack when he hit. BLECH.

 

And, of course, all during the "scoop-and-throw" plan I was tripping over both Chloe and Oliver who were excited because Mommy opened the balcony door, which usually means they get to go outside and chew on the plants and chase flies. And I'm sure I looked very dignified this morning to passersby, what with my pajamas, hair resembling a bird's nest, tripping over cats, clutching two bright orange paper cups and throwing one off of the balcony and onto the parking lot.

 

UGH. What a morning.

The first three pictures are of the Forrest Mushrooms my mom bought for us (I paid her back:P).  They are smaller then the other type of shrooms we normally eat from the wild and aren't as buttery tasting but still GOOOOOOOOD! 

 

The first picture is of them soaking all day in salt water.  Salt water kills all the lil bugs and such off of them.  The second picture is of them nice and cleaned off (part of them anyway) and ready to be dipped in batter!

The third picture is of them deep fried and yummy tasting.

 

I used crackers for this go around of breading.  The kids perfer that over flour.  But I perfer the flour breading mixed with a lil corn meal myself!:D

 

The next round of pictures if of the tree that came down in that big thunder storm that rolled through our area of NE in the middle of May.  We had no clue that it came down!  And our bedroom window is on that side of the house! The top window showing is Colt's window.  Our window on that side of the house isn't showing.  Colt didn't even hear the tree coming down.  And it had to hit hard!  Randy had to hook the big truck up with his chains to pull out some of the bigger branches from my yard, they were embedded into the ground! The lil dog kept waking us up that night and we kept getting after the poor thing for barking!  She was just trying to warn us the tree was falling was all!

For absolutely no good reason, I decided to check this out before work.

And yes, I watched the videos.

I have one absolutely gorgeous girlfriend who really gets into this sort of thing. She has this inexplicable fascination with some of nature's most bizarre and terrifying creatures.

Then there's me. After that first one, my desire to visit Japan has just about vanished.

After all five, I don't think I'll be eating today.