Heart Like a Dog

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

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.

What’s ‘taters’ precious?

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“What’s ‘taters’ precious?” Gollum asked.

What’s ‘taters’, eh?”, Sam responded, “PO-TA-TOES!  Boil em’, mash em’, stick em’ in a stew.” (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers.)

Poor Samwise, his mind is limited.  There are SO many more things you can do with potatoes!

Since Sampson was diagnosed with another lick granuloma, he’s been on a mess of pills.  Two antibiotics twice a day, two nerve blockers twice a day and a pro-biotic twice a day.   Getting him to take the pills in the evening is easy, he gets ground food and the pills get mixed in.  99 out of 100 times he eats them, on the rare occasions that he doesn’t, I put a bit of yogurt or a raw egg in his bowl on top of the pill and problem solved.

His breakfast is another story entirely.

In the mornings he gets chicken necks and no matter how I arrange them, there’s just no way to hide his pills.  Typically I use peanut butter, to shove the pills in, but I ran out.  So I used sun butter instead, but yesterday morning after one set of pills I ran out of that too.  I had quite a dilemma on my hands.

I dug frantically in the refrigerator, but couldn’t find anything to hide some pills in….until my eyes fell upon the left over boiled salt potatoes.

Why not, I thought.

I took about 1/2 a cup and fork mashed them.

I took about 1/2 a cup and fork mashed them.

To that I added about 1 1/2 tablespoons of sour cream.

To that I added about 1 1/2 tablespoons of sour cream.

I mixed it just well enough to incorporate the sour cream.

I mixed it just well enough to incorporate the sour cream.

It was a bit on the thick side, which was exactly how I wanted it.

I placed a small bit on a spoon and added the pills.

I placed a small bit on a spoon and added the pills.

I added a bit more potatoes and rolled it into a ball.

I added a bit more potatoes and rolled it into a ball.

It ended up being about the size of a small cocktail meatball.

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I offered it to Mr. Picky who had been sitting there watching me diligently.

Nom, nom all gone.

Nom, nom all gone.

To sum it up, here’s what I did.

1/2 cup boiled salt potatoes

1 to 2 tablespoons of sour cream

Fork mash the potatoes and add sour cream to the required consistency.  It’s that easy. 🙂

WHAT?  Are you saying you don’t know what boiled salt potatoes are?   Holy snap!  They are so easy and so yummy that I normally want to lick my plate.

Okay, okay here’s how you make boiled salt potatoes.

What you need, red potatoes (leave the skin on) salt, butter.

Quarter the potatoes (unless they’re huge, then cut them into decent sized chunks.  I’d say about an inch if you can manage it.)  Cover with cold water and add about 1/4 cup of salt for every 3 or 4 medium sized potatoes.  Cook until they are tender, but not too much, you don’t want these babies disintegrating.

Once they’re tender, drain the potatoes and place them back in the pan, with about 1/2 a stick of butter for every 3 or 4 medium sized potatoes  (this is key, you will not get the same results if you use margarine or Brummel or any other type of butter replacement.)  Once the butter has melted, give them a stir and then shove those suckers into your mouth as fast as you can.

You may want to wear some loose clothes too, because if they’re anywhere near as popular at your house as they are at mine, you might have to wrestle someone for seconds and that’s hard to do in tight pants.

Have you ever had to be creative in getting pills into your pet?  What are your secrets?

If you’d like some great recipe ideas for dog treats, head on over to Kol’s Notes, Koly’s Mama always has something tasty on the menu, today it’s Autumn Gold Gluten Free Dog Treats.  And this is the Tasty Tuesday blog hop hosted by Kol’s Notes and Sugar the Golden Retriever.

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