Clockwise from top left: beef and cheese fire hydrants, peanut butter bones, beef and cheese shoes, frosted peanut butter bonesSay it with me: meat slurry. Roll that one around for a minute.
My family has dogs. Lots of dogs. Somewhere along the way, it became a Christmas tradition for the dogs from each household to give gifts to the other dogs - cookies and treats are the standard fare. I had a big pile of scraps from some beef soup bones I'd cooked up, so it looked like some homemade biscuits were in order. I ground the scraps into a paste in my food processor, along with some oil, grated cheese, an egg or two and some whey I had leftover from a batch of cheese. This mixture was unspeakably disgusting, and it was at this moment that I pondered whether they really appreciate the things I do for them. I added wheat flour and cornmeal until I had a workable dough. I rolled it out (ewww) and cut it into fire hydrant and shoe shapes with cutters I had from a homemade dog treat kit. I really thought they'd smell awful while they baked, but they just smelled like cornbread with a hint of parmesan. Oh, and beef. ;-)
Those went fairly easily, and I have many dogs to give to, so peanut butter cookies were up next. What dog doesn't love peanut butter? These consisted of more whey, peanut butter, oil, eggs, vanilla, rolled oats, wheat and white flour and a small amount of cornmeal. I rolled these out and cut into bone shapes. They looked a bit plain when they came out, so I decided since I was already at the party, I'd frost about half the batch. I used a mixture of melted white chocolate and a small amount of peanut butter.
Naturally my dogs were happy to taste test for me. I'm happy to say they were very well received. Now it's time to bag and tag!
Cheers!
I apologize for deleting my prior post, but somehow a big "chunk" was missing from the middle and it didn't make sense.
ReplyDeleteEvery year I say I am going to make puppy Christmas gifts, but every year time gets away from me. I think this year, I will make it a New Year's goal.
What kind of chocolate did you use? I know people often say dogs cannot eat chocolate, but my Blondie is a chocolaholic! She is still going strong 7 years after stealing her very first huge Hershey's Chocolate Kiss (foil and all), in a midnight raid on gifts brought home from a Valentine's Party.
I would love it if you could share your complete recipe with quantities. :)
I didn't actually use any chocolate. The beef and cheese cookies were made from of a pile of beef scrap I had leftover from cooking some soup bones. I put this in my food processor with about 1/4 cup of grated parmesan, one or two eggs, some beef bouillon just enough whey to make it into sort of a loose slurry (you could use water or broth instead, I just happened to have whey). To that I added wheat flour and cornmeal. I don't have exact quantities - I just kept adding flour and cornmeal until it looked like cookie dough. At that point, I rolled it out and cut it. I baked them at 350 for about 20 minutes or so. They should be fairly hard and crisp but not burned.
ReplyDeleteI used a peanut butter dog cookie I found on the web for the others. There are loads of them out there, so I'd say just find one that suits you. For the icing, I melted some white chocolate chips (not actually chocolate at all, and not toxic to dogs). I added about a spoonful of peanut butter to the melted white chocolate and frosted the cookies with this mixture. The dogs went crazy for the icing. :)
Thanks Tara! I did not realize that white choco chips were not actually chocolate. Cool! I am looking forward to giving this a try. I know Blondie will be happy.
ReplyDeleteOhhh dog treats! I made my first batch when we were too broke to buy the ones at the doggy bakery and I started baking. Ohhh they liked the homemade even better - dogs are our best friends, aren't they?
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year!
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to stop in to say that I made up a batch of my own yesterday. They aren't as pretty as yours, but my babies seem to like them. I had part of a ham left that I sent to the food processor, then added some of the same ingredients you suggested. No recipe, just added some milk, eggs, wheat flour and cornmeal, along with a bit of beef broth and "ham juice".
Thanks so much for posting about yours. It motivated me to get busy with my own.
Ha! I have a HUGE bag of leftover ham, too. I should try a ham batch. :)
ReplyDelete