Chocolate Covered Critters

I am a big fan of educational projects, and boy, did we come up with a good one today. Weston and I were talking about cicadas, and I remembered that I had just read an article about a shop that made cicada ice cream. This reminded Weston that I once promised him that he could try chocolate covered grasshoppers some time, and upon recalling this, he wanted to have them immediately. Since it's not grasshopper season here yet, I told him he would have to wait, and we spent some time speculating on what the best method of dispatching them would be. I favor putting them in the freezer, but Weston prefers poking them with a pin until they bleed to death. He also liked the idea of pinching their heads off, because that way he wouldn't have to eat the eyes.

Then, he spied some ants on the driveway and asked if we could eat chocolate covered ants. DEFINITELY, I said, and the boys set about capturing unsuspecting victims. This occupied them for quite some time, and they ended up with a small handful of black ants and a daddy long legs. Surprisingly, internet recipes for chocolate covered bugs are not super numerous, but I did find this one. It was a little elaborate for my level of ambition, so instead of all the dreary vanilla pod scraping and egg beating, I just melted some chocolate chips with a little butter and let them use that. They gently folded their critters into the chocolate, and then dropped spoonfuls of the mix onto waxed paper. We cooled them in the refrigerator, and voila! Chocolate covered ants, just like the fancy folks eat! They gobbled them right up, too, and said they were delicious.

Next time maybe I'll broaden their horizons and fix up some bugs sans chocolate. You can stir fry, deep fry, roast and shishkebab; did you know that? This is information that will come in super handy after the earthquake, when I have to sleep on the trampoline and drink my own pee. I'm not a girl to miss a meal, so I need to plan ahead. I even got to thinking, maybe we could eat slugs! There is a cornucopia of them around here for sure, but the only recipe I could find was this one for fritters, and I don't like fritters. Too eggy. Plus, after the earthquake, the eggs will probably all be smashed. I'm also not a girl to give up too easily, though. I'm thinking I could slice them open and get all those gross innards out, then stuff them with ants and roast them over an open fire. I'm open to suggestions, though, let me know if you have any ideas! Or if you want to come over for dinner anytime soon.