Homemade Dog Biscuits for a Melancholy Day

Pets. Pets are the children you always wanted but never had. They may usually walk around on four legs and be on the hairy side of things, but they are your everything and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

My Austin, although somewhat devious and aggressive, is the light of my eye. On some days he is my own baby and on others he is the little brother I never had. His nose is the only nose I will allow to get up in my business when I am asleep on the couch. I really do not mind his kisses when I sleep even. He is my perfection.

Austin looking handsome!

Today mom and I went to a memorial for Jasmine, a doggie friend of Austin’s who had recently passed away. I wasn’t sure what to bring to such a gathering that I quickly made a batch of dog treats. I of course tested them on Austin the previous night which he thankfully enjoyed and then brought a box of them to the Dog Run to share with the recently deceased’s “brother” and other dog friends. Every four-legged friend loved the treats (as did the humans!) as the biscuits were human-friendly!

So for today’s Sweet tooth Saturday I’ve got dog treats for you all!

I got the recipe from this dog treat book that my ten second ex-boyfriend gave me for Christmas. It is a lovely book with a variety of recipes for your furry friend. The book is called ‘What a Dog’s Life!!’ and has some truly lovely recipes!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups (350g) all-purpose flour
• 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
• 1 Tablespoon nutmeg
• 1 Tablespoon cardamom
• 1 Tablespoon clove powder
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• ¾ cup (250g) honey
• 2 eggs

Instructions:

1. In a large bowl mix all ingredients with 1 egg until you have a dough. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and leave to stand in refrigerator for a half hour. Preheat oven to 160ᵒC (320ᵒF).

2. Once firm, remove dough from fridge and roll dough out on flour covered surface. Cut out shapes and cover them with egg wash (used with other egg).

3. Bake for approximately 15 minutes or until golden brown.

4. Remove from oven and serve to animals once significantly cooled down.

This was a great recipe! Honestly, pretty taste for a human too!

Not all that sweet. Though mine were less sweet because I actually ran out of honey half way in the recipe and used some agave nectar in addition to the honey! Now usually my agave nectar is on the thick side like honey, however the most recent brand of agave nectar is more like water that it made my dough very runny. I had to add a lot of extra flour to this batch to this dough. No idea how much more, but quite a decent amount!

So, after our lovely time with the dogs, Jazzie’s “mom” introduced us to what was Jazzie’s favourite treat and some dog-friendly popcorn – have you ever heard of that? Doggy popcorn? I’m thinking they have a special seasoning that dogs actually like. Though I did once try some dog popcorn that no one else would try.

I thought “what’s some dog popcorn when I used to eat dog food as a kid?” well the doggy popcorn wasn’t all that unique. Did have a dried dog food taste though.

Well this popcorn that we got for Austin looks like it does have a beef flavouring and as I do not eat beef I will not be tasting this one. It is all for Austin this time!

We also got these “inspiration cards” which were lovely notes from Jazzie. Notes that we can keep with ourselves for when we really need it. If you need some inspiration too, this is the note I got from Jazziebelle:

Anyway, if you have furballs of your own that you would like to treat to with something you know is good, then I hope you make them these lovely treats!

Give my love to your furballs for me and happy baking/eating!

One-Meal Bowl with Quinoa, Cilantro, and Chicken

What is your favourite herb? And do you pronounce the H in the word herb or pronounce it as “erb”? I guess because I was raised by my Canadian mother and speaking her English I tend to pronounce the H in herb. But although I speak Canadian English, there are a lot of American things I tend to do in English. Like I spell color without the U yet I spell a lot of other things with an RE at the end. Or I add the U to certain words like “neighbourhood”.

Anyway, what was I asking? Oh yeah, what is your favourite herb?

Mine is definitely cilantro (or coriander). The fresh stuff. Yum yum yum. Though I can tell you that it is difficult to grow. I’ve failed in Holland and in South Africa. Have any of you successfully grown cilantro?

So cilantro did feature in this evenings meal.

I made a fantastic quinoa and chicken bowls. Bowls being a meal combined in a bowl.

I got the recipe from Eat. Drink. Love. – what a lovely name for a blog! The direct link for the recipe can be found here. I didn’t really make the bowl like the photos on Eat. Drink. Love., but it all tasted grand!

Ingredients:

• 2 large chicken breasts, halved lengthwise
• 2 Tablespoons lime juice
• 2 Tablespoons honey
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup (170g) quinoa
• 2 cups (470ml) chicken broth
• 1 ½ Tablespoons lime juice
• ¼ cup (15g) cilantro, chopped
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 can (425g) black beans
• ¼ cup (59ml) water
• 1 teaspoon cumin powder
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 ½ teaspoon cayenne powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¾ cup (40g) cilantro, chopped
• ¾ cup (115g) green peas
• 1 large tomato, chopped

Instructions:

1. In a small bowl, combine lime juice, honey, garlic, and salt and pepper then add chicken breasts to honey lime mixture and allow to marinade for 30 minutes.

2. Meanwhile bring a pot of chicken broth to boil. Once boiling, add quinoa to bubbling chicken broth and cover pot. Remember to turn down heat to low to allow quinoa to simmer. Simmer for 20 minutes and do NOT remove lid until quinoa has fully absorbed broth. Then turn heat off.

3. Mix in ¼ cup of cilantro and 1 ½ tablespoons into the quinoa. Add salt and pepper to quinoa for additional flavour.

4. In a small frying pan on medium heat, add can of black beans WITH liquid. Mix in spices and mix well. Fill ¼ cup water to can of beans and then place in bean mixture. Turn heat down to low and allow black beans to simmer for 15 minutes.

5. Then take chicken breasts from marinade and place in a frying pan at medium heat and begin to fry. Watch out that honey from marinade can cause chicken to burn easily.

6. Once chicken is cooked set aside. Once cooled begin to shred chicken for bowls.

7. When everything is ready begin setting up your bowls. Fill bowls in following order:

   1. Quinoa
   2. Chopped tomato
   3. Green peas
   4. Chopped cilantro
   5. Black beans
   6. Shredded chicken

8. Serve immediately and enjoy!

Now you do not need to fill your bowls as I have, but my mom isn’t all too keen on black beans so I wanted to remove the bean flavour from mixing in with the quinoa for her. Just to ensure it isn’t all too black bean-y. And if you want you could also add some dairy to your dish (cheese or sour cream), but I kept it simple.

Quinoa, Tomato, and Green Peas

Although it was simple without cheese or sour cream it came out great! I have to say cilantro is definitely the key ingredient in this masterpiece. It just adds so much flavour to the meal!

God, I love cilantro!

Well this meal turned out fantastically. Mom and I even went for seconds after setting up a plate for our housekeeper for lunch tomorrow. It was wonderful! The beans made the dish more Mexican, but the honey and lime made think of a more Asian meal. Which I find weird, but whatever.

If you end up making this I hope you love it as much as we did!

Happy eating!

Sweet Treats Without the Guilt

Why is it that when women are emotionally unbalanced they turn to sweet things as a source of strength? Honestly I do not know the answer to this, but I’ve made the perfect sweet thing to help cope with our emotional days!

That delicious thing is cookie dough. That’s right, I said it – cookie dough. No, this will not be made into cookies, but just raw cookie dough. Delicious cookie dough at that.

Frozen in a Tin Pan

I got the recipe from here.

Ingredients: 

• 1 1/2 c. chickpeas, rinsed and drained (approximately 1 can) 
• 3 Tablespoons sweetener of your choice (agave nectar, honey, or maple syrup)
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda 
• 3 Tablespoons nut butter of your choice (peanut butter, almond butter, pistachio butter. Cashew butter, etc)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ¾ bag (10 oz.) non-dairy chocolate chips 
• 3 teaspoons shortening (I used sunflower oil)

Directions: 

1. Combine all of the ingredients except the chocolate chips and 1 teaspoon shortening in a food processor or blender. Process till smooth, scraping down the bowl once or twice if needed. Transfer mixture to a medium bowl.

2. Mix in 2 Tablespoons of chocolate chips (reserve the rest for dipping). Form into balls and freeze on a baking sheet till solid.

3. Set a wire rack over a baking sheet covered with tin foil. In the top half of a double boiler set over barely simmering water, melt the remaining chocolate chips and shortening – stir till smooth and remove from heat.

4. Using a fork, dip one bite into the melted chocolate, turning till covered. Lift the bite out of the chocolate and tap gently on the side of the bowl to remove excess. Place on wire rack. Repeat with remaining bites. Return bites to freezer and freeze till solid.

The original recipe said not to combine the shortening with the recipe, but my blender sucks and needs more liquid to actually blend things. It is a pain in the rear. But if you have a powerful blender you can omit adding the shortening to your cookie dough balls.

Have you noticed though – there aren’t any eggs in this recipe. This makes it 100% vegan. Which I love. Although if you use honey the recipe will not be vegan, but if you are like me and can’t be bothered to go to the grocery store to get agave nectar then honey is the way to go! It was the only thing I had in my house so I definitely went for honey. This came out pretty good regardless of it being vegetarian rather than vegan.

So when it comes to your nut butter of choice, what are you interested in having your cookie dough ball taste like? We always have almond butter on hand as well as peanut butter, but I didn’t want to open the fresh jar of almond butter and used the peanut butter. If you are a fan of Reese’s Cups then you should like having peanut butter as your nut butter of choice. Because mine sure taste like Reese’s Cups.

Want to know a pathetic fact that occurred while I was making these cookie dough balls? Well in our garage we have two refrigerator/freezer units. One is a refrigerator with a freezer below it and the other is solely a freezer. For some odd reason while I was freezing the balls the first time around I put them into the fridge. This only hit me when I was forking the balls to put them in the chocolate. Oops.

I felt pretty dumb. But in defense in all the years we lived here we had another fridge unit where the freezer was above and the fridge was below. Only while I was in Canada was the refrigerator replaced by one that has the fridge above of the freezer. But honestly the worst part about my really dumb mistake is that I put the tin on top of two 6-packs of water. Clearly being liquid rather than a solid. I just wasn’t thinking.

At any rate, once I realized what I did I placed the balls into the freezer. Took a while but I finally did that.

I love how you can clearly see that there are chickpeas in the mix yet you cannot taste them whatsoever. They truly taste good. Honestly this is the healthiest way you can eat a Reese’s Cup and not feel guilty.

I really do suggest you make this. It is amazing. I could eat them all. But I am always on moms tail for eating poorly that it would be bad of me to do the same. Luckily though if I did think to eat them all I shouldn’t feel that bad.

So more the reason that we all should eat these!

If you make it then I hope you enjoy it!

L