Archive | Bark! RSS feed for this section

Banana Pup Cups | Let’s Celebrate!

1 Jun

ollieskate

Ollie turns five tomorrow and that’s cause to celebrate! He’s our favorite little clown, who loves to sing, still suckles his “Precious” fleece toy, bounces like a little jumping bean when he sees his favorite humans, and he always has time for a good bum scratch!

We adopted him when he was just 13 weeks old, a puppy mill rescue with a special back foot. He has been a great side kick for Stevie and keeps us all laughing!

In honor of his birthday I created a frozen dog treat recipe, which was really easy to make and only has four all-natural ingredients!

bananapupcups

Banana Pup Cakes
makes 7 frozen treats

Ingredients

2 – ripe bananas
1 – 4 oz container of unsweetened applesauce 
1/2 cup of buttermilk
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Steps

1. Mash ripe bananas in a medium size bowl with a fork.

2. Add remaining ingredients and combine using a spatula.

3. Place cupcake liners in a muffin pan.

4. Spoon the batter into the muffin pan, filling cups a generous half full. (I got 7 frosty treats out of my batter.)

5. Place in the freezer, our treats were frozen solid in 2 hours.

Notes

  • These treats are great for pups with allergies, Stevie is intolerant to all things poultry, they are vegetarian, wheat, and soy free.
  • If you have difficulty removing the frozen treats from the muffin pan, just flip the pan over and run warm water on it for a few seconds.
  • The cupcakes wrappers are easy to remove and just peel off, no need for non-stick spray.
  • If you are running out of room in your freezer, 6 of these treats fit in a loaf pan, and would save space.

Stevie & Ollie approved!

Advertisement

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Let’s Celebrate! | Pumpkin Peanut Butter Dog Treats

22 Sep

Every family has their own little traditions or occasions to celebrate, ours included. 🙂 This post is a celebration of Ollie. We found him on Petfinder and knew that we had to give this little brown Boston Terrier, a puppy mill survivor, a proper home. A home where he always has a toy to comfort him, a brother to play with, homemade treats to snack on, and someone to cuddle.
ImageMy favorite memory from the first week Ollie lived with us, happened at my parents’ house, my childhood home, in Dracut, MA. It was my Aunt’s 60th birthday and the family had decided to go out to lunch and then have cake and ice cream back at my parents’ house. After lunch, Kate and I made sure we were the first to arrive back at the house. Then Auntie came in and called out for Stevie “Where’s my Stevie?” “Come and see your Auntie!” All of a sudden, to her surprise, this tiny little white flash came running down the hallway! She had the biggest smile and greatest birthday surprise — puppy love from the newest member of our family!
In honor of Ollie’s adoption anniversary we took him to the Somerville Dog Festival in our neighborhood on a recent Sunday afternoon. A field full of games to play, prizes to win and free treats to sample… any dog’s dream. Followed up by some homemade dog treats for the boys to enjoy. Yay!

Image

Pumpkin Peanut Butter Dog Treats
Recipe credit: Adapted from an original recipe by Courtney Danyelle Georg (instagram handle: triceracourt) 

Makes 40 – 60 treats (depending on the size & shape you choose)

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour
2 eggs
1 cup 100% pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
2 TBS natural peanut butter
1 TBS ground flax
1 TBS honey
3/4 tsp cinnamon

1) Preheat the oven 350 degrees

2) Line two baking sheets with parchment

3) In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment combine all the ingredients

4) The dough should be dry and come together in a ball when mixed

5) Add a few drops of water if the dough does not form a ball while mixing

6) Remove dough from bowl and place on a floured work surface

7) Using a rolling pin roll dough out to 1/2″ thickness, cut out shapes using a cookie cutter shape of your choice

8) Bake for 20 minutes, then take the baking sheets out, flip over each treat, and then rotate trays before returning to oven

9) Total bake time: 40 mins

10) Turn oven off after 40 mins and let cool in oven on the baking sheets

Stevie and Ollie loved them — they couldn’t get enough! Also, we made a little package for our dog walker to share them with her pack 🙂

Image

Happy baking! Enjoy the recipe — I’m sure your pups will! Below is a photo of Ollie with the prize he won at the Somerville Dog Festival. He carried all around the festival and all the way home on our walk. What a character!

Image

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Beatin’ the Heat | Frosty Pup Treat Recipe

3 Jun

Ollie is 4!

It is hard to believe that Ollie turned four yesterday. It seems like only yesterday I found a post on Petfinder about a tiny special needs Red Boston Terrier, named Brass Monkey, when in all reality is was in the Fall of 2009. Truth is, if a good Samaritan hadn’t found a Craigslist ad posted in Texas, by a puppy mill breeder then he wouldn’t be with us today. We love our little guy, and he has brought tons of laughs, kisses, and joy to more than just our tiny little family

Kate and I  have little traditions we do to celebrate the pups and Sitar’s birthdays. Stevie always gets a real balloon that he loves, while Ollie on the other hand is afraid of balloons so each year Kate humors me and draws a birthday balloon for Ollie. We tape it above his crate on the wall! We also bake birthday treats for them, there is a great Pupcakes recipe in our blog that Kate posted and the pups adore 🙂 This year is was miserably hot in our apartment and I really didn’t want to subject any of us to turning the oven on, so I came up with a frosty birthday treat recipe for the pups that they inhaled.

frosty treat prep

Ollie’s Frosty Pup Treats
makes 8 frozen treats

Ingredients

1 – 6 oz container of Chobani Vanilla Yogurt*
1 cup of unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup of 100% pure canned pumpkin

*If you want to control the sugar content in this recipe, just substitute Chobani Plain Greek Yogurt. Dogs don’t need the extra sugar but we made these as an extra special treat so I sweetened them with the Vanilla Chobani.

Steps

1. Whisk all of the ingredients together in a medium size bowl

2. Place cupcake liners in a muffin pan.

3. Spoon the batter into the muffin pan, filling cups a generous half full. (I got 8 frosty treats out of my batter.)

4. Place in the freezer, our treats were frozen solid in 2 hours.

frozen treat unwrapped

Notes

  • These treats are great for pups with allergies, Stevie is intolerant to all things poultry, they are vegetarian, wheat, and soy free.
  • If you have difficulty removing the frozen treats from the muffin pan, just flip the pan over and run warm water on it for a few seconds.
  • The cupcakes wrappers are easy to remove and just peel off, no need for non-stick spray.
  • If you opt to use the Chobani Plain Yogurt, add some sweetness using molasses approximately 2 teaspoons should do the trick!
  • If you are looking for other flavors to mix it up for your beloved pups, try subbing the pumpkin out with an equal amount of sweet potato, peanut butter, or banana.

patiently waiting

This was the easiest birthday recipe I have created in a long time.

frosty treat massacre

On the other end of it, I think these birthday treats were gobbled up the quickest as well, ha! Stevie & Ollie devoured and approved.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Trick or Treat | Handmade Howl-o-ween

31 Oct

Kate and I have a great relationship. She’s the maker to my baker. We have a lot in common, but we balance each other out.
Perfect case in point Halloween…. I love Halloween, I love the decorations, the costumes, pumpkins, Halloween candy and most of all throwing a Halloween party.

Every year I come up with the idea for “our” costume, a couples costume usually that entails hours of crafting and several yards of felt. Kate humors me and every year slaves over “our” costume and in true Kate fashion it always comes out perfect. Again, Kate and I have a great relationship. She tolerates watching the “Goonies” with me on the eve of Halloween, she spends hours hand sewing costumes we’ll wear for one night, and she does it mainly because it makes me happy.

This year she crafted my idea for Stevie and Ollie’s costumes too.. taking Stevie’s crate rest into consideration we came up with this…



No Boston Terriers were harmed in this photo shoot.

Stevie the lion and Ollie the lion tamer wish you all a Happy and Safe Halloween from our vintage circus to yours have fun!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ollie Turns 3 | Pupcake Celebration!

3 Jun

I’m sure it comes as no surprise that as much as we love baking for humans, we also love baking for our pets. We also have a self-proclaimed insane tradition of buying our pups a balloon on their birthdays. Ollie is terrified of balloons and so…it was decided, we’d get him some pupcakes to celebrate his day instead.

There are a few local cupcakeries that also sell a pup friendly version of their sweet delights, but 1) we love baking 2) we had all of the ingredients in our pantry/refrigerator 3) it’s cheaper…but most important of all, 4) we know exactly what’s inside. And no mystery ingredients means no potential allergens (Stevie has a wicked intolerance to all things poultry). Yay!

Now onto the important stuff…

Pupcakes for Ollie

Ingredients

1 cup whole wheat flour
rounded 1/4 cup whole oats
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup all natural organic creamy peanut butter (no sugar added!)
1/4 cup unsweetened organic apple sauce
1 cup shredded carrots (I finely chopped a couple of handfuls of baby carrots in the food processor)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup honey*
1 egg

*If you don’t want to add the sweetener, just substitute the same amount of the apple sauce. Dogs don’t need the extra sugar but we made these as a once in a blue moon treat so I sweetened them a bit with honey.

Steps 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees & spray a muffin pan with non-stick spray or line with paper liners.

2. With a whisk, mix the flour, oats, baking soda & cinnamon in a medium bowl.

Baker’s tip for measuring honey: Spray the measuring cup/spoon with a little bit of non-stick spray before pouring the honey into it. The honey will slide out — no messy honey fingers or lost sweetness.

3. Add the rest of the ingredients & mix well (I used a wooden spoon, but the same whisk you used in step 2, is fine).

4. Spoon the batter into the muffin pan, filling cups a generous 2/3’s full. (I got 8 pupcakes out of my batter.)

Baker’s tip for baking partially filled muffin pans: If your batter doesn’t fully fill all of the spots of the muffin pan, pour a little bit of water into each empty cup (not too high or it will be tricky to remove from the hot oven — 1/3 full or so). This will ensure even baking. Just remember to use extra caution when removing the pan from the hot oven!

5. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until a cake tester/toothpick comes out clean. (Our oven is a little unpredictable so I rotated the pan after 15 minutes to ensure even baking.)

Stevie loves to help!

6. Allow to cool completely on a wire cooling rack…and…let the celebration begin!

Very patient pups! (Sorry there are no action shots of them eating…they went completely & overwhelmingly crazy for these birthday treats.)

Notes

  • This recipe could easily be made gluten free for dogs with gluten/wheat allergies — just be sure that the oats you’re using are gluten free (Trader Joe’s Whole Oats are affordable & labeled gluten free).
  • Be creative when baking for your pup but always do your research to make sure your ingredients are dog safe! For example, while it might be tempting to add raisins to this recipe, please don’t. They can cause toxicity/death in dogs. Add a handful of fresh blueberries instead. YUM! Here’s a helpful list of people foods to avoid giving your pup (source: ASPCA). When in doubt, call your vet or leave it out.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

%d bloggers like this: