Waxworm breakfast wrap
Part of my interest in foraging, survival skills and food in general has included insects as food. When I was a "kid" I used to spend hours while camping harvesting ant eggs and adults from ant colonies, grasshoppers from fields, certain water insects and a few grub-type critters. At that time I wasn't much of a cook and so my culinary experiments mostly consisted of simply sauteing things in a little oil or butter with onion. That's still a great and simple way to approach entomophagy, the eating of insects as food (although I didn't know there even was a word for it back then, and just looked at it as something that was in line with the technology-scarce lifestyle I was attracted to at the time).
Anyway, I'd kind of let that part of my foraging/self-sufficiency interests dwindle over the years, as I guess I came to look at it as something borne more of occasional curiosity than of any truly practical application. I've recently come to change my mind on the subject, and realize that there is indeed much genuine practical, ethical and culinarily satisfying reward to be got from entomophagy. I thank Daniella Martin's new book Edible: An Adventure into the World of Eating Insects and the Last Great Hope to Save the Planet for recharging my batteries on the subject of insects as food.
I decided to get my feet wet again with a simple breakfast wrap using a common and easily acquired little beast known as a waxworm.
Waxworms are the caterpillar larvae of wax moths. You may acquire waxworms from just about any place that sells live bait for fishing, which is where I got mine and is how I've always used them up to now. They are a great panfish bait and are a staple during the ice fishing season especially.
Wax moths also happen to be one of the unwelcome insects that give beekeepers fits, as they feed on the comb in hives and generally make a mess of things once they get into a hive. As a small time beekeeper this aspect of their behavior made their attendance on the menu even more satisfying.
By themselves waxworms have an almost bland and uninteresting flavor. They remind me of potatoes in that regard, in that they are good vehicles for the flavors of whatever they may be prepared with. Some describe their flavor as slightly nutty, and I suppose that's fair, but it's a very mild nuttiness if at all. The biggest hurdle you might have to overcome, if you're at all squeamish about eating insects like this, is their texture, which is soft and juicy prior to cooking. But cooking does indeed address that issue; as the larvae saute they stiffen up, gain some nice firmness and even get a little crispy if you saute them long enough.
Here's all you do:
Rinse the waxworms and gently dry them. Toss them into the freezer for a while to kill them if you're averse to putting them into the pan while they're still alive. Saute a bit of onion and/or garlic (I used ramp bulbs and onion) in a tablespoon of olive oil. Add a couple tablespoons of chopped greens such as kale. Once those things soften and mellow add the waxworms. Periodically flip the worms and saute until they become firm, gain some color and get well acquainted with the other ingredients. They'll stretch out and stiffen up as they cook, whether you put them in dead or alive, but their tiny screams will be minimal (I'm kidding!). Pull one or two of the waxworms as you cook and give them a try; that'll not only help you discern whether they're done or not but will also give you a good idea of their flavor and texture.
I then scrambled up a duck egg with a little cheese, set the egg and cheese onto a tortilla, added some radish sprouts and topped it all with the waxworm/ramp/onion medley. Mighty tasty in every respect.
So, you can expect more posts and maybe even a video or two on the subject as I dust off the old butterfly net and make space in the freezer for new, albeit smaller packages of "meat."
Getting the garden in bit by bit
Got a few more things planted yesterday, but still have two full beds and the long side fence bed yet to plant. I've got grand plans this spring and summer for the garden and yard but fear the time I actually have to accomplish them may argue otherwise. So, sleep less and work longer, that'll do. Still, I wonder if I've bitten off a little more than I can chew for the summer.
The compost bins are full to the brim, so I think I'll put together a vermiculture bin or two to take some of the succeeding organic matter we produce. A vermiculture bin is just a $5 word for worm bin, where a whole lot of red worms eat the organic matter you give them, in a hopefully faster and more efficient manner than a compost pile sitting in the corner of the yard just doing its thing naturally.
It feels good to get dirt under the fingernails again. It even feels good to pull a few weeds (the ones I don't purposefully let grow for the table) and pick a few stones from the garden beds (I keep hoping to find an old coin or ring or other small treasure, although I suppose stones and weeds are treasures in their own right). My day job offers me the chance to occasionally get some good fish slime on my hands too, as I weigh and measure salmon, trout and other fish anglers bring in from the big lake. Dirty fingernails mixed with a little fish blood and slime, that's how a man's hands ought to look and smell if you ask me.
Sidenote: Gave some small assistance to a fellow yesterday as he landed the biggest fish he'd ever caught, a 27 lb. carp. Sure, it wasn't a big salmon or some other glamour sport fish, but it was big and beautiful and a helluva lot of fun to watch as he battled it. He was very happy, and after we weighted and measured it he released it back into the water. I congratulated him as we shook slimy hands. It was a fun moment.
It was raining pretty good just a little while ago and I was thinking it'd be nice to take a brief nap after posting this entry. Long day already as my work shift started at 5:00am...could use a cat nap. But now the rain has suddenly stopped and I feel like I should take advantage of it. So, back out to work on those garden beds and set some onions.
Just a few images from this morning
Took a quick walk through the woods this morning (still waiting for morels to appear). No mushrooms yet, but did grab a few other edibles for today.
(left to right) Ostrich fern fiddleheads, ramps, trout lilies, virginia waterleaf and one garlic mustard plant (with root for photo purposes, otherwise I'd have got more).
Ostrich ferns, ramps in background.
Trout lilies and virginia waterleaf. Trout lily bulbs go into a salad; I've always used the waterleaf as a sandwich green...that'll be today's lunch.
Ostrich fern fiddleheads. Image a little grainy, as I enlarged the top pic.
Garlic mustard with its peculiar angled root (at the base of the leaf cluster), an identifying characteristic (they don't always angle like this, but often enough).
Garlic mustard. Note the difference in leaf shapes: roundish or kidney-shaped near the bottom of the plant, pointed or arrowhead-shaped near the top.
Lunch. Steelhead sandwich with waterleaf and ramp greens (and Carr Valley cranberry chipotle cheese), salad with added trout lilies, garlic mustard, ramp greens, and chaga tea.
Thunder and lightning are a beautiful thing
I'm lying in bed at 5:00am on Monday morning, catching the flashes of light from lightning and counting the seconds until the thunder that follows. 4-mississippi equals 4 miles away, that's how it works, yes? How many sounds are cooler than than the sounds of thunder and rain in the dawning light of morning? Well, maybe the sounds of thunder and rain on the roof of a tent, while your snuggled deep into a heavy, warm sleeping bag are cooler, but I'm in the house this morning and it'll do.
It's been three months since my last post on the blogsite here. Three months that went by in a blink it seems. It's been a busy spring, if you could reasonably call it spring. It's only been in the last week that it's felt like spring, with the trees budding and ramps popping up in the woods in the last five or six days. Everything is late. Don't even have the garden in yet, because it's been too cold. And now suddenly that it's warmed up in the last week I'm behind already.
We've been editing videos from last year, which has taken longer than I thought it would. But we've got some great footage. I'm even more impressed with Josh's film skills than I was before, if that's possible. I'm excited to get this stuff out there and to get rolling on more new stuff this year. Soon.
Big news, and the biggest reason I haven't stayed on top of the blog lately...started a new job. Working with the Wisconsin DNR right now as a Fisheries Technician for the county. That means I do creel surveys of fishermen (is it ok to call women anglers fishermen? "Fisherwomen" seems cumbersome. I think fishermen should be a gender-neutral term, so that's what I'm going with).
GIANT, cracking thunder! That one was closer than 4 miles.
Nice catch of steelhead and browns recorded while on the job.
I do angler counts at specific times along specific routes, interview anglers to see what they're fishing for, what they're catching, how long they've been out, what they're using, and so on; weigh and measure catches, look for tags and fin clips; write reports on each week's conditions and angler success. It's a great gig for me. I get to be outside and on the water. I work alone all day, and get to meet a lot of people, some of whom are pretty hardcore fishermen and have good tips and techniques that have proven successful for them, so I'm also able to increase my own knowledge base and mental tackle box, so to speak.
Daughter Cheyenne with one of the steelhead we caught last week.
I'm well into the groove of the job now, and now that spring seems to be really here at last, I'll get back to regular blog updates. In addition to ramps, several other wild edibles are starting to pop. I picked a small bunch of stinging nettles while fishing a few days ago, just enough for breakfast, and noticed that the ostrich ferns were beginning to make their appearance as well, so we should have fiddleheads soon. Trout lilies and Virginia waterleaf are up in force. Burdock and evening primrose rosettes are everywhere, and dandelions are almost thick in some spots...all in just the last few days. For as many years as I've been doing this, the wild edible thing, since I was a kid, I am still amazed, each and every year, at how quickly new green life bursts forth each spring. One day everything is brown and gray, the next day, boom! there's green poking through the earth! It always seems surprising.
Mayapples bursting forth!
Simple breakfast: stinging nettles & egg on toast.
My wife and I went for a long walk through a wood several days ago, ostensibly to look for morels, although I knew that it was still a little early for them in our area, given the late spring we've had. Maybe this week, if we can get a couple warm days to light a fire under their little mushroom behinds. Until then, there are more fish to be caught, plenty of other greens to make room in the fridge for, and a garden to plant.
Going to shut my eyes and listen to the rain and thunder now.
quince apple blueberry pie with chocolate acorn crust
Here's another recipe I've been sitting on for the last couple months. I made this for a dinner we held for some of the supporters of my wife's place, Drift Coffee Club. We collected the acorns, quince and apples during our autumn foraging, but as we had gone through our blueberry stores we ended up purchasing those, which you can probably tell by their larger size in the photo. I'd not used quince much before (made some chutney once) , so was eager to see how it played here. I think what really made this pie extra special though, was the acorn flour crust. Acorns are a terribly underused and underappreciated resource; they have much to offer the forager cook, and I plan to spotlight their use in the kitchen with greater emphasis this year. You can see how we process acorn flour by clicking here.
Let's make the crust first (one 9" pie).
Acorn & Chocolate Pie Crust
- Acorn flour, approx. 2 cups
- All-purpose flour, approx. 1 cup
- Sea salt, ½ tsp
- Brown sugar, 1 heaping tbl
- Butter, unsalted, approx. 1½ sticks, cut into ½" chilled pats
- Water, cold
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips, approx. ¾ cup
1. Mix dry ingredients together well. I used the acorn flour here in the same way you would use all-purpose flour when making a simple pie crust. But you'll find that it does not behave like a regular floured pie crust. Acorn flour does not, by itself, make for a pliable dough as does regular flour. It's more crumbly in nature.
2. Add chilled butter squares and work into the flour mixture until well incorporated. Add cold water, about a tablespoon at a time, until you get a workable ball of dough. Refrigerate for about 30 minutes.
3. Lightly flour your work surface with either acorn flour or regular flour. Cut the dough into 2 pieces, approximately 2/3 and 1/3 the size of the whole. Place the larger ball of dough onto the work surface and gently roll it out into a circle larger than the pie pan. The dough will be less pliable and will have the urge to break apart, so be gentle when you lift it up and place it into the pie pan. If pieces do break off, no worries, just fill in the spots with more dough where needed. Take a fork and pepper the bottom and sides of the pie pan with holes.
4. Bake at 350° for 10-12 minutes. Keep your eye on it while it's in the oven, as it will want to bubble up, and I didn't use the foil and beans method to weight it down. When you see it start to bubble open the oven door and give it a poke with a fork to deflate the bubbles. Be careful to watch the browning too much as well, because it seems to brown more quickly than a regular flour crust...remove it from the oven when it looks good. Set aside to cool.
5. Melt the chocolate chips (microwave or stove-top) and pour into the bottom of the cooled pie crust. Set aside to cool and harden.
note: After you add the filling you'll roll out the smaller dough ball and use as the top crust. I didn't take a photo of the completed pie because we were having such a good time eating and talking that I just forgot about it.
Filling
- Quince, 1 or 2 medium sized, peeled, cored, sliced thickly
- Apples, 1 or 2, GrannySmith or similar, peeled, cored, sliced thickly
- Honey, ½ cup
- Water, 1 cup
- Ground cinnamon, ½ tsp
- Ground nutmeg, ¼ tsp
- All-purpose flour, 2-3 tbl
- Sugar, ½ cup
- Salt, just a pinch!
- Blueberries, handful
1. Combine quince, water, honey, salt in large lidded saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 -10 minutes, until fruit softens a bit (but not too soft). If you need to add more water along the way, do so.
2. Spoon out the quince into a separate bowl. Add the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg to the still-hot cooking liquid and mix well into a thick syrup. Add the apple chunks and stir well. Add the quince back into the pan and stir everything gently but thoroughly. Leave the mixture sit in the pan while you roll out the other dough for the top crust.
3. Once you've got the top crust ready to go, empty the contents of the pan into a colander and allow to drain for a few minutes. Pour into a large bowl. Then, add 2-3 tbl white flour and gently incorporate the flour into the quince and apples. You don't want things too wet as they goes into the pie crust, and the flour will help absorb some moisture. Preheat the oven to 375°.
4. Pour the apple quince mixture into the chocolate-lined pie crust. Add a handful of blueberries evenly to the top of the filling. Attach the top crust dough (be gentle when pressing the edge, as the lower crust will be a bit harder than the top crust and you don't want to break it...it's not imperative that there be a perfectly complete seal). Score the top crust several times to allow steam to escape. Bake for around 45 minutes, until crust is brown and done, but keep an eye on it - depending on how well you pre-baked the bottom crust and how much the quince and apples softened in the prep stage, the cooking time may vary a bit.
5. Allow to cool. Enjoy!
Domain name change
FYI: Was able to secure the creativesustenance.com domain today, so we're deleting the old .net URL and activating the .com address. You should now be able to type creativesustenance.com to access the blogsite.
The lost recipe found!
One day, more than 20 years ago, I was sitting at the kitchen table in my Grandma and Grandpa's house in northern Wisconsin, after another successful morning of squirrel hunting in the woods on their property. I was doodling on a yellow pad of paper when my grandma asked me about all of the squirrel hunting I did and why I liked it so much. Ever since I was a wee lad I'd be out squirrel hunting whenever I could and probably shot and ate more squirrels from the woods adjoining both their farm and, later, the woods that surrounded the home they built after they sold the farm, than they might have imagined could possibly inhabit those forests.
Anyway, that afternoon my grandma asked me to write up a recipe for her, for how to cook squirrel. She surely wasn't asking because she needed to know. After all, she had spent much of her life cooking for her husband and herself, and their 11 children, as well as the constant flow of friends and extended family that always seemed to be a part of their daily life. I think she just asked me to write something up for her because she knew that hunting and cooking those critters was something I enjoyed, and that's what grandmothers do.
So, not having any idea, really, of how to actually record a recipe, this is what I came up with, my first written recipe for anything. I doodled a little picture at the bottom of the page and taped the paper to the inside of one of her cupboards, where it stayed for many years. One day, years later, I opened the cupboard to get a plate and noticed that the paper wasn't there anymore. I asked Grandma what had happened to it, but she didn't know nor even realized that it was missing. I was a little saddened by its disappearance, because it was a marker of sorts, an artifact of memory, so to speak.
An hour ago my brother posted on my facebook page a photo-scan of the recipe I had written all those years ago. Apparently he was the culprit who had swiped it from Grandma's cupboard! I'm glad he saved it. It's funny, as I look at it now and see how primitively and sparingly I wrote it.
Anyway, it made my day seeing this little piece of personal history again.
Addendum: The plot thickens! I shared this post* with my brother and he replied, "Last night Mom and Dad handed me the yellowing paper and said it fell out of one of Grandmas old cookbooks. I posted it for you to see... Killer of innocent Tree Varmints."
So, it appear that my bro did not pilfer the lost recipe after all. Grandma must have taken it down and secured it in one of her cookbooks for safe-keeping, which begs the question, did she not tell me that she had done so because she simply had forgotten that she had done so, or did she feign ignorance because she valued and wanted to keep the little paper her grandson wrote. I like to think the latter.
* I felt it proper to change the title of this post from "The stolen recipe found!" to "The lost recipe found!"
Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie
Here's a pie I made for Thanksgiving dinner last month.
I fiddled with this recipe just a bit by adding the chocolate and slightly adjusting the measurements, but credit for this lovely, easy-to-make pie goes to Allison Kave of First Prize Pies and Keavy Bleuher of Kumquat Cupcakery, who together founded a dessert and cocktail bar in Brooklyn called Butter & Scotch.
- Nutter Butter cookies, 1 dozen
- Butter, ½ stick, unsalted, melted
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips, ¾ cup
- Salt
- Creamy peanut butter, ¾ cup
- Cream cheese, ½ pkg (4 oz), room temperature
- Powdered sugar, ½ cup & ¼ cup
- Heavy cream, 2 cups
- Vanilla extract, 1 tsp
- Peanuts, ¼ cup chopped
1. Pulse the cookies and a pinch or two of salt to the consistency of sand in a food processor. Empty into a mixing bowl, add and mix in enough melted butter to pull it together. Press into a 9" pie dish, including up the sides. Freeze for 15 minutes and then bake at 350° for 8-10 minutes. Cool the crust until it hardens up.
2. Melt the chocolate in the microwave and gently pour into the pie dish. Pop into the fridge and allow to cool.
3. Combine and thoroughly mix the peanut butter, cream cheese and ½ cup powdered sugar.
4. Whip 1 cup of the heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Fold completely into the peanut butter mixture. Spread the peanut butter/whipped cream mixture into the pie dish. Allow to cool and harden up in the fridge for 30 minutes.
5. Whisk the other cup of heavy cream with the vanilla extract and remaining ¼ cup of powdered sugar until stiff peaks form. Spread over the pie in a rough manner, so that you have a tall, irregular topping. Sprinkle with the chopped peanuts.
I plan on making it every Thanksgiving...because it's awesome. Make it; you'll say it's awesome too.
Christmas chocolate torte
Over the last month I've shared some pictures on facebook of a few things we made for holiday meals, and was asked to also share the recipes. So, the next three or four blogposts will spotlight those recipes from Thanksgiving and Christmas. We'll start with a chocolate torte that we made again for Christmas this year. This torte has become one of my favorite holiday desserts. It's simple, very attractive and also very delicious. (My daughter brought a piece to one of her friends, who declared it "The best thing I've ever eaten!" Of course she was being generous with her compliment, but not by much!)
I got the recipe for this lovely torte years ago from a magazine of holiday recipes. What attracted me was the photo that accompanied the recipe, as it highlighted chocolate almond "pinecones" on a decorative and rustic topping. Here's how you do it.
To make the chocolate almond pinecones you'll need:
- almond paste (comes in a tube or small can...smells wonderful too)
- sliced almonds
- semi-sweet chocolate chips, about ½ cup
- shortening, 1 tbl
1. Form the almond paste into little cones, maybe a couple inches tall and an inch or so wide at the base.
2. Stick the sliced almond pieces into the cone in a pinecone-like formation.
3. Stick a swizzle stick or toothpick into the bottom to help hold onto the pinecone. Heat the chocolate chips and shortening in the microwave until liquified. Gently and slowly drizzle the chocolate, in a thin stream, over the pinecone, and use another toothpick or small artist's paintbrush to fill in the spots that the drizzling doesn't touch. Note: If you try to dip the cone or pour the chocolate on too heavily you'll just get a big bumpy chocolate blob. Be delicate and patient.
4. Place the finished pinecones on a wire rack to harden up. I put the rack in the freezer for a while. You can reuse these if you're careful with them. Place them in a small tupperware container and pop in the freezer until you want to use them again.
For the torte itself:
- Chocolate graham crackers, about 1½ cups
- Sugar, ¼ cup
- Butter, ½ stick or more, melted
- 9-inch springform pan
1. Combine chocolate graham crackers and sugar in food processor and pulse until the consistency of sand.
2. Dump contents into a bowl, add melted butter and mix well.
3. Press the mixture into the bottom of the springform pan and bake for about 8 minutes at 375°. Set aside to cool.
- Bittersweet chocolate, 4 ounce bar
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips, 4 ounces (about ½ cup)
- Baking chocolate, 4 ounces (if you want a lighter-colored top use white chocolate. This year I changed it up a bit and wanted a darker top, so I used dark chocolate)
- Plain (flavorless) gelatin, 1 packet (¼ ounce)
- Egg yolks, 5 or 6
- Sugar, ¼ cup
- Half-&-Half, 1 cup
- Heavy whipping cream, 2 cups
1. Add gelatin to about a ¼ cup of water and let it sit.
2. Add each of the chocolates to a separate mixing bowl. You might briefly microwave them to soften the chocolate up.
3. Add the egg yolks to another mixing bowl and beat them until fluffy. Add the ¼ cup of sugar and continue beating until well mixed. Follow that by adding and mixing the half-&-half. Pour the mixture into a saucepan and heat to 160°. Remove from heat and add the gelatin. Stir to combine.
4. Pour a third of the hot egg yolk/sugar/cream mixture into each of the three bowls of chocolate. Stir to thoroughly mix and melt the chocolate. Allow everything to cool for about 15 minutes.
5. In a mixing bowl whip the heavy cream until it achieves stiffness and peaks form. This will build endurance and strength in your forearms and wrists if you do it with a hand whisk.
6. Loosely and gently fold a third of the whipped cream into each of the bowls of chocolate. Saving the lightest colored chocolate mixture for last, pour one bowl into the springform pan, smooth it out with a rubber spatula and pop it in the freezer until it's pretty firm. Add the next bowl and do the same, freezing it until it's firm. Then do the same with the last, lightly colored chocolate mixture.
7. While the torte is in the freezer melt some semi-sweet chocolate and fill a brine syringe or something similar with the melted chocolate. Take the torte from the freezer and make some decorative leaf and branch designs on the surface with the melted chocolate. Squirt some melted chocolate on the bottom of the chocolate almond pinecones and place them on top as well.
8. Be gentle when removing the sides of the springform pan from the torte. Also, while slicing through the torte itself is very easy, you may have to use some force when you get to the graham cracker crust; be firm but gentle.
There you go, a chocolate dessert that everyone will be impressed with.
Squirrel & red wine chili
Wintertime is chili time, and my winter chili demands game meats when possible. Venison chili is of course a favorite, but any game will do, whether venison, grouse, rabbit, raccoon or, in this case, squirrel. I had a large bowl of squirrel loins and ribs in the fridge, which are every bit as tasty as the thighs and forequarters, but have a smaller meat to bone ratio, which makes them great for something like chili or making stock.
Squirrel and red wine chili
The other key ingredient to this particular chili is a wine I made from some grapes my friend Marty gave me last year. The wine itself was good, and I thought it would nicely compliment the rich, dark meat goodness of the squirrel. My Dad also gave me a giant can of red beans the other day from a dented can store he frequents near his cottage, so I didn't need to soak or cook any dried beans.
Chili lends itself to improvisation, and that's what this recipe is, but it's pretty close to the recipe I used to win a little chili competition a few years ago.
Ingredients (quantities are very loose for this, and depend on what I've got on hand and what suits my mood at the time):
- Meat - could be anything or any combination of things. I used a couple pounds of squirrel, a few pieces of thick bacon, and a bit of ground beef. Sausage, like venison sausage, also works real well.
- Beans - any kind or combination of beans. I've made this with northern beans, white beans, black beans, etc. For this batch I used a couple cups of canned dark red kidney beans, rinsed.
- Diced tomatoes - one 28 oz. can.
- Tomato sauce - one pint jar of homemade sauce.
- Tomato paste - 3 or 4 tbl.
- Green salsa - homemade, 1/2 cup.
- Sweet corn - 1 cup.
- Mushrooms - about 2 cups sliced.
- Celery - 1/2 cup, diced
- Onion - 2 or 3 medium sized, roughly chopped.
- Garlic - several cloves (maybe half-a-head), diced.
- Hot peppers - a few, sliced small
- Spices and flavorings - smoked salt, pepper, pimenton, cayenne, cumin, bay leaf, hot sauce, couple tsp fish sauce.
- Red wine - couple cups.
- Corn starch or flour to thicken.
- Cook meat in a skillet in bacon fat, low and slow until tender and seasoned with salt, pepper and cayenne. Separate meat from any bones. Chop it up to the size you prefer.
- Add meat to a large kettle. Toss the mushrooms, celery and onions into the still-hot skillet, leaving the fond from the meat in the pan, season as you see fit, and cook until they start to soften. Add the garlic and peppers and cook for a few more minutes.
- Add skillet contents to the kettle of meat and begin heating at a medium temperature.
- Add beans, sweet corn, salsa, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce and paste, fish sauce, hot sauce, red wine. Simmer until all the ingredients get friendly with one another. You can thicken the chili if you feel the need, by stirring in a bit of flour or corn starch. I'm constantly tasting and adding seasoning or heat (hot sauce) as I go along. I also made a small quantity of broth from the squirrel bones while preparing the chili, in case I felt I needed to add more liquid. I didn't need it, so I'll use it in some other manner, probably in a soup.
I turn the heat down to the lowest setting and let the pot sit on the stove for a few hours, slowly getting better and better, visiting to fill a bowl every now and again. Of course you can add cheese and/or sour cream when you dish it up. It just gets better the longer it sits.