Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

I Have a Crap-load of Pumpkin

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Sampson and Delilah are fed a raw diet.  To help keep their tummies full I give them a scoop of pumpkin every morning.  I also use it to frost their treat bones.  Typically we go through a large can of pumpkin about every 5 or 6 days.

I don’t know how much pumpkin is where you live, but here in CT the large can of plain pumpkin is close to $4.  Luckily for me, the local warehouses carry the large cans of pumpkin in a three pack, which saves me over a dollar a can.

The bad news is the pumpkin is only in the warehouses at this time of year.  So I’ve been buying a case (or two) every weekend.

I have a crap-load of pumpkin.

Don’t believe me?  Take a look.

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I knew when I went looking for a recipe for today’s Tasty Tuesday, I wanted to use pumpkin, but I also wanted to use some coconut flour because it’s just so darn tasty!

I searched and searched, but I had trouble finding a decent recipe.  I finally found one that called for two cups of oatmeal and 8 ounces of baby food.  I decided it was something I could work with.  Here’s where it gets impressive.

I invented my own recipe!!  Someone pick Jodi Chick up off the floor please.

Here’s what I used.

1 cup quick cooking oats
1/2 cup oat flour
1/4 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
2 eggs
 

In a medium-sized bowl, mix the dry ingredients together just to incorporate them.  Then add the eggs and pumpkin, bring your muscles cause this dough is stiff.

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Once it was mixed together, I just took small handfuls and formed balls with my hands, pressing them down onto a baking stone.

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Bake in a pre-heated 350° oven.  Mine took about 22 minutes, but yours could take a little less or a little longer.

Cool and store.

So let’s see how the dogs liked the cookies.

Hey Sampson, how did you like the cookies I made for you last night?

Nom, nom Mama, this cookie is pawsome! Nom, nom Mama, this cookie is pawsome!!

Delilah, what did you think of the cookies that The Mama made last night?

WOOOOOOOSHHHH. Cookie? What cookie? Did you give me a cookie? IN…….HALE.   Cookie?  What Cookie?  Did you give me a cookie?  If you did, I didn’t taste it. You may want to give me another a cookie, just to try it like.

I’d say that’s a four paw rating.

So you know my rule right?  It has to be a treat that I can make that I will be able to eat as well.  Since there is no sugar involved, it’s not a sweet treat.  Here’s what I did.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA I added a few M&M’s and a small amount of chopped walnuts to the tops of each cookie.  Still a little on the bland side, but not too bad.  I think this is a recipe I can play with and find the right combination, that will satisfy both the dogs and the humans in our house.

I can’t believe I’m actually typing this right now, but what I love about baking for my dogs is I know exactly what ingredients, as well as the quality of the ingredients in their treats.

Besides, my dogs love them and that makes me happy.  Have you tried baking for your pups yet? If you haven’t, what’s stopping you?

 

Pumpkin Plumpies

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My last set of Pumpkin Patties were such a big hit with my pups, I decided to try the entire recipe.  This time it’s called Pumpkin Plumpies because…..well because I didn’t change anything, and it’s not my recipe at all, it came from a woman named Pam.  That’s all I know, is her first name, Pam.  And that she has a chocolate lab named Amelia and a Corgi named Morgan and she makes her own Irish Cream whiskey (why oh why didn’t I get THAT recipe instead of this one?)

With my last set of cookies I indicated they were all different sizes and Jodi Chick reminded me about the cookie scoop, which as it turns out, made these cookies a little too big.  But neither of the dogs in my house complained.

I tried using a potato masher to give the cookies a little design, (siriusly, have you seen Jodi’s cookies?  She has a way better presentation than I do.) But there was so much dough that the masher stuck to it.

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I finished off the cookies using the scoop, but I reverted to using my hands to flatten them out.

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This worked out very nicely as the thinner cookie baked really crisp.  In fact, to me they seemed more like crackers.

Pumpkin Plumpies:

1 1/2 cups of oat flour
1 1/2 cups of brown rice flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 egg
3/4 cup pumpkin (I used canned.)
1/2 cup water
3 tablespoons of applesauce
 

Mix all ingredients together to form a stiff dough.  Form by teaspoon drop or cookie scoop and place on ungreased baking sheet.  They do not spread, so if you want to flatten them, go for it!  (I think they might even be crispier and crunchier if you rolled them.)

Bake at 350º for 18 to 22 minutes.  My recipe says until they are golden brown, but mine never browned. Store in the refrigerator.

Of course I had to humanize it, so I added some M&M’s to a couple.

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The M&M’s did the trick in terms of providing the right amount of sweetness, as these cookies have no sweeteners. And they were definitely good warm!

I also thought perhaps a maple icing might be nice.  So I took some confectioner’s sugar (about 1/4 cup) along with a bit of maple syrup (little drizzles at a time until the icing is the consistency you want it to be.)

I didn’t care for the icing but I think that had more to do with the brand of confectioner’s sugar I used than anything else.  So I took a jar of Monkey Butter out of the fridge and plopped a dollop of that on.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner.  It was da bomb!

Here is the recipe I used for the Monkey Butter. (Canning note:  Don’t panic if you don’t have a hot water bath, stick your jars in the dishwasher and run your cycle without detergent so the jars are hot.  Put a washcloth or another piece of material in the bottom of a large pan of water.  Get your water up to boiling and set your jars of MB on the material.  You should be able to process them for 15 minutes without them breaking.  This is what I did with my Caramel Apple jam on Sunday.)

These continue to be a HUGE hit with my dogs.  They absolutely love them! Have you baked for your dog? Are you like me, determined to make something you BOTH can eat?

Pumpkin Patties

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I love to bake.  Somehow the cooler weather of fall brings out the baker in me.

Back before I became Gluten Free, this time of year would find me baking every weekend.  But Gluten Free baking requires a lot of work as well as a variety of flours.  I guess you could say going GF sort of took the wind out of my sails.

But today is Tasty Tuesday and I needed a recipe to share, which is how I found myself in the kitchen looking for an easy, GF recipe that was both human and dog friendly.  Because those are the requirements I give Jodi Chick.  If I’m going to bake for my dogs, I want it to be something I can eat too.

Like these carob and banana cookies.

Not my cookies

Look at these luscious little biscuits? Aren’t they beautiful?

They’re not mine.  I told you they had to be easy.  Rolling out dough and cutting it into shapes does not equate to easy in my book.  No, these were made by the amazing Jodi Chick.  She brought a whole bunch of them to BlogPaws and I froze them.  And yes, I actually tasted them, they’re not bad at all.

But looking at those beauties wasn’t helping me with my task.  I had a recipe for pumpkin cookies that a friend had given to me but I was missing a few ingredients, so I set out to modify it a little.

I named these Pumpkin Patties because I was worried that Pumpkin Pasties might be copy written by J.K. Rowling.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups of oat flour
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 egg
1/3 cup pumpkin (canned or fresh)
1/4 cup water (maybe a bit more)
 

Mix everything together, this dough is stiff so bring your muscle arm.  You can add a little more water if you need to, your goal here is to get everything mixed together.

When you are finished it should look like this.

dough Thick right?

Take a teaspoon and scoop some out, then roll it between your hands to form small balls.  (I’ve already said stiff and balls in this post, and I know where Mrs. Taleteller’s mind is going.)  I got about 22 of them out of this batch.

fork These guys don’t spread at all, so you can place them fairly close together.

Press them flat with a fork.  I put a squirt of coconut oil spray on my fork, to keep it from sticking.  I had to do that once about every four cookies.

22 cookies As you can see, my ball rolling skills leave something to be desired as there is no real uniformity with these guys.

Bake in a pre-heated 350 ° oven for 18 to 22 minutes or until they are golden brown.  Remove to a wire rack and let them cool completely.  Store them in the refrigerator in an airtight container.

Now for the official taste test.

Delilah Delilah was first, and you have to be FAST with the camera with this gal.  She nommed the heck out of them.

Sampson Mr. Picky was next, and the fact he was already in the kitchen gave me a good indicator that he’d eat them.  Which you can see he did.

Sampson and Delilah both give these cookies 4 paws.

Whenever Jodi’s in the kitchen baking I always tell her to find me something easy that I can bake and share with my pets.  Humanize it, I always tell her.  So I had to Humanize this recipe as well.  After all, I can’t expect people to do things that I’m not willing to do myself.

My initial thought was to drizzle a bit of honey on top of the cookie.

Humanize I split this cookie in half.  Sampson and Delilah shared the un-honeyed half, while Hubby and I shared the honeyed half, which wasn’t bad at all.

As I was describing them to my mom, I mentioned they remind me of a scone.  My next thought to Humanize them is to make a thin drizzle from confectioner’s sugar and water or milk and drizzle along the top.

I think they’d work well with a cup of tea, don’t you?

This is the Tasty Tuesday Blog hop hosted by Kol’s Notes and Sugar the Golden Retriever.

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