Our Marvelous Mutt Gets His Treats

On last Friday, National Mutt Day, I shared this recipe which I said I’d be making for Luke on the weekend. I did come through for him, and I thought I’d share his enjoyment of them, and a couple modifications I made to the recipe too.

I used to follow recipes to the letter, but now I enjoy improvising a little bit! I was picking some kale that day to make a salad for the humans (note to humans: if you’re not sure if you will like a certain veggie, add it to a pasta salad that also has bacon in it, everything tastes good with bacon, right?). I’ve heard that kale is good for dogs as well, so I thought why not add some to this recipe? I threw about 3 leaves in the food processor with the carrot to chop it all up.

One thing I LOVE about summer in New England is the access to fresh garden vegetables! We eat so many more veggies in the summer. Not only do I grow a few of our own, but what I don’t have I can usually find at one of the local farm stands. We have our own patch of carrots this year, but since they’re not ready to pull up yet, I got carrots at a farm stand.

 

Now I worry that ground beef can be kind of high in fat for dogs. We are lucky that my hubby and I both work at a general store, and that’s where we get almost all of our meat. My hubby is the deli manager and a meat cutter, so I know that the ground beef he makes us is as lean as possible. Also, this recipe doesn’t make a huge batch and the dogs will only get one per day most of the time (I made them small – about 1 inch in diameter). If you only have one dog you could also freeze some for just occasional treats. I also put them on napkins and sponged off the excess fat after cooking….the same thing I would do for myself!

I like to make my own bread crumbs. Have you ever looked at the ingredient list on a can of bread crumbs? There is sometimes high fructose corn syrup in there, and to me, just way too long of an ingredient list (of course many breads have mile long ingredient lists too!). I have a local bread I like with a shorter ingredient list. I just dry it a bit and then break it into the food processor to make my own crumbs, and freeze what I don’t need right away.

I think you can use any cheese, I had a monterey jack/cheddar blend, and that’s what I used. This recipe is so easy….just mix all of the ingredients together, and look how colorful and pretty! 🙂 Then roll them into balls and put on the cookie sheet. I used coconut oil to grease it. I actually found spray coconut oil (Pam brand), but I don’t recommend it….it doesn’t spray well and really just makes a mess, I won’t buy it again. I had to use a brush to spread it around anyway, because it just kind of leaked out of the can in huge drops!

The clean up crew was ready and willing to lick the bowl!

Here’s the finished product, and of course “the mutt” got to be first taste tester, and then generously shared with his sisters afterwards.

Again, this not really a low fat treat, but I think it’s perfect for occasional special celebrations like National Mutt Day. I’m pretty sure Luke agrees!

 

We are joining the Tasty Tuesday blog hop hosted by Sugar the Golden Retriever and Kol’s Notes.  Please visit our hosts along with the other blogs through the links below for more tasty treats.