Soft (Flour-Free) Salmon & Tuna Dog Treats

            So as you know, I love my dogs - and I love my dogs to eat healthy. Sometimes I think they actually eat better than we do - they are fed a high quality grain-free dog food and they don't get too much "human food" - when they do it's good for them, such as apples, sweet potatoes and carrots. I also like them to eat healthy treats - especially since we train so much (an hour each week in agility and then -unknown- amount of time training at home). Up until now, we've always bought their treats from the local pet stores - at a hefty price, of course. Pure liver bites etc aren't cheap, for some reason (on a side note: I always find it so funny, the fewer "ingredients" something contains, the more expensive it seems to be - both for dogs and humans). Since we're a family of a tight budget, I've decided to take on my "make whatever we can to minimize our expenses" mindset to dog treats as well. I needed something quick and soft, that I can cube up, throw into baggies and freeze. I also didn't want to use flour. Flour is a "bad" carbohydrate (not normally found in most carnivore's diet) and can contribute to obesity/other health issues in dogs but not all carbohydrates are bad! Oats are known as "healthy" carbohydrates as they don't cause a dogs blood glucose to rise and fall rapidly. So with all that said, here are the treats I made:

 

These treats are very easy to make, probably took me about 5 minutes to whip up and put in the oven.

 

I did one "loaf" with salmon and one with tuna. 

Ingredients

 5 1/2 tbsp. oats, pulsed in a food processor

2x 150-170g can of salmon or tuna (in water)

1 egg* 

1/4 tsp. garlic powder

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350F. Pulse the oats in a food processor until ground up - about the texture pictured here:

2. Pour the oats into a mixing bowl.

3. Pour the one can of the salmon/tuna AND the water from the can (this is very important) into the food processor, and pulse until incorporated. 

4. Put this mixture into the bowl with the oats. 

5. Open up the second can of salmon/tuna and pour the water from this into the mixture of oats and pureed salmon/tuna. Then place the remaining salmon/tuna into the food processor and blend up again. Place all this into the bowl with the oats and salmon/tuna puree.

6. Add the egg.**After making this for the first time, I think I will add another egg to bind this all together a little better - once I've tried it I'll let you know how to works out**

7. Add the garlic powder, mix everything together. 

8. Shape the mixture into logs on a greased baking sheet. I did one "loaf" of each - one salmon and one tuna as pictured below.

9. Put in the oven for about 40-45 minutes. 

10. Slice up like I did above and watch the dogs go nuts for it!

              My two truly loved these. We used them for agility on Monday and they went crazy for them. They smell disgusting, just a warning. But the stinkier, the better in a dogs world. Let me know what your dogs think!

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Lessons Learned and Chocolate Cream Puffs

            Alrighty - new week, new motivation and new lessons learned! This week (especially while baking) was really full of lessons. I truly think we learn from our mistakes - at least, that's how I seem to learn the best. Keeping up with my "motivational direction" I went to the Farmers Market this Saturday and wandered around aimlessly trying to figure out what I wanted to pick up - and ended up at the Chocolate Cow. They are our local chocolate "factory" - call them the Willy Wonka's of Thunder Bay. They are a chocolate lovers paradise, offering all sorts of delicious truffles and chocolate-dipped-anythings. Since I wanted to make something myself - I picked up a couple of their single-origin chocolate bars:

          These scrumptious bars are of Ecuador origin. So what now, you ask? Well I thought the same thing too. What in the world was I going to do with this dark chocolate? I tried a piece after taking this picture and was quite surprised. It was very rich but had some serious floral undertones - made me want to go back to the Market and try all the other kinds offered just to taste the differences. After much debate about what to make, I came up with chocolate cream puffs.

          So off to the internets I went to find a recipe, seeing as I've never made anything like this before. I ended up finding two, one from Tastebook and one from Foodloversodyssey (whose story of her chocolate eclairs and her mum was quite touching, I might add), that I modified to come up with a recipe of my own.

           Here are the basic ingredients for the puffs, also known as a "Pâte à Choux".

 1/2 c. water

1/2 c. milk

1/2 c. butter, cubed

1 tbsp. granulated sugar

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1 heaping c. all-purpose flour

4 eggs, room temperature

1. Pre-heat the oven to 375F and get out two cookie sheets, lined with parchment paper.

2. Place the water, milk, butter, sugar and salt into a pot on the stove-top on high heat and bring to boil. Make sure to stay by it and keep an eye on it!

3. Immediately once it has started boiling, add the vanilla extract. Once it's at a rolling boil and has expanded and then fallen back in on it self, remove from heat.

4. Immediately after removing from heat, add all the flour at once while stirring. Once a dough ball has formed, place back on a medium-low heat to dry the dough out - make sure to constantly be stirring the mixture while it is on the heat. I did this for about 7 minutes. 

5. Remove from heat once again (and turn off stove - we don't need it anymore) and stir the ball around to cool it down slightly before adding the eggs. 

6. Add one egg at a time.*SEE SIDE NOTE AT BOTTOM* Each time you add a new egg, the mixture with break apart and then form back into a ball once the egg is incorporated. With the last egg, the mixture will NOT form back into a ball. Don't worry, this is OK!

 

This is what the dough looks like after incorporating an egg.

 

 

This is what the dough looks like after the 4th (last) egg was added.  

7. Once the dough looks like this, you have a couple of options. You can either just scoop out the dough into little balls onto the cookie sheets like I did or you can place them in a piping bag/zip-lock baggie and pipe out little balls. In hindsight, I think the next time I make these the latter approach is what I will do - much easier to control and make them look "pretty". Make sure to leave about 2 inches or so in-between each puff.

8. Bake at 375F for 20 minutes and then reduce the heat to 350F for another 20-25 minutes (until they are golden brown).

9. Turn off the oven and open the oven door slightly. Leave the puffs in the oven (with it off and the door open) for 20 or so minutes to dry them out. 

10. Remove from oven and allow to cool COMPLETELY before handling. Once cooled, take a knife and cut each puff in half carefully - make sure to remember which top goes with which bottom!

          Now came the fun parts, adding the filling and the chocolate! All I did  for the filling was whip up about 150 mL of whipping cream with 1/2 tsp. of vanilla and about 2 tbsp. of icing powdered sugar (I don't like my whip cream TOO sweet).

 Spoon the cream into the bottoms of each puff.

Next, I placed the tops back on each of the puffs and prepared the chocolate topping - this is where those beautiful chocolate bars above come in. Now let me say before I start off that I wanted to showcase this chocolate and the qualities and flavours within it so I did not add any sugar/vanilla/anything. If you're not a dark-chocolate kind of person (such as my other half) I would suggest using a lighter chocolate. With that being said, I poured about 1/2 c. of heavy cream into a pot on the stove and let it heat up - DO NOT LET IT BOIL. Once it has started to scald (bubbles start to form on the sides of the pot), remove from the heat and add the chocolate into the cream in little pieces, in my case it was 100 g. of 70% Dark Ecuador Chocolate and stir until the chocolate has melted. Once melted, add 1 tbsp. of butter and mix until incorporated.

 Immediately pour the chocolate onto the tops of the cream puffs and let cool. Ta-da, chocolate cream puffs:

*Try to ignore my horrific nails in this shot, I haven't exactly "kept up" with them*

*SIDE NOTE* This is where I learned my first lesson during this whole thing. I've always known the "crack your eggs into a bowl/glass/something else that DOES NOT have your other ingredients in it-just in case something is wrong with the egg" thing. I never do it. Let's just say, I will from now on. With the very first egg that I cracked directly into the dough, this is what I found: 

Eggs should NOT be red. Scratch that dough and start allllll over again - lesson learned. Might I add here that adding the eggs is a very, very, very LABOUR-INTENSIVE feat. You have to constantly be stirring and with each egg it gets harder and harder and harder and... well, you get the picture.

          So that was that for this weeks Farmers Market adventure. Til the next time!

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A New Direction and Carrot Cake!

             I've decided that in order to keep my motivation for writing here going, I'm taking some-what of a new motivational direction with this blog (this doesn't mean I won't write about other things as well though)! I am an avid "Farmers Market" goer and believe in everything local and fresh. We buy all of our beef and pork from a local farm and get farm fresh eggs almost every week. I also make it a personal mission of mine to try and go every chance I get to buy fresh produce; so the Farmers Market is nothing new to me. I am using this as my inspiration to keep this blog going. I will commit to going every week to the Farmers Market (usually on Saturday, as in the winter this is the only day it is put on) and to find something that inspires me. Whether it be something to cook or bake with, or try a new DIY/craft. So with all that, meet squash:

            Acorn squash, to be specific. Now, to some of you this might not be that daunting. To me, it's terrifying. We're not big squash eaters in this household. I would love to be, except I haven't the foggiest idea how to prepare them half the time, not to mention the other half is somewhat of a picky eater - more of a "Gimme a steak, skip the veg" kind-a guy. I got this lovely squash from the queen herself, The Squash Queen. Now, I'll be honest with you, I picked this pretty thing up and asked her point-blank what it was because I certainly didn't know! After informing me of it's name and giving me some suggestions on how to prepare it (involving one that I followed), I paid for the squash and came home.
           As soon as I got home, I knew I was in for it. I don't want to just roast the thing and have it as a side for supper - how boring is that?! I wanted to do something interesting - I wanted to stick to what I do best and bake something! So, after some research about exactly what this beautiful squash is (and learning that it's high in fiber and potassium with Vitamin C, B magnesium and manganese - who knew?) and several "What can I do with this?!" questions to the other half, he suggested a carrot cake. I've known you can replace fats in recipes with vegetable and fruit purees for a while, so I figured I'd do the same with a carrot cake. I adapted the Canadian Living Carrot Cake recipe I found online that I've used before. And wha-la!

 

          So how do I turn the above squash into this, you ask? First I split it open and scooped out the seeds (which, for some reason, I was surprised to see!) and then placed it on an aluminum foil covered baking sheet. I placed a couple of tablespoons of water on the bottom of the pan to keep the squash moist and almost steam it in the oven. Next, I placed butter, brown sugar, salt and cinnamon into the crevices of the squash like such:

1 tbsp. of butter,each

1 tbsp. of brown sugar, each

pinch of salt in each

1/4 tsp. cinnamon, divided between the two pieces

 

            Cover the squash with more aluminum foil and place in a 400 degree for about 45 minutes - this depends on the size of your squash and your own oven. Just check it after about 40 minutes, if it is fork-tender, remove the squash and let cool fully. You'll notice when you take the squash out that there will be a pool of brown-sugar-butter-goodness in the squash itself - DO NOT DUMP THIS OUT! Once everything has cooled, pour the brown-sugar-butter goodness into a blender and then scoop out the squash flesh and put in the blender as well. I have a Magic Bullet smoothie maker knock-off so I just used that. I hate the bulk of my blender.

            Puree the squash and liquid until you have a very smooth consistency with NO LUMPS. The puree looks like baby food. Just a warning.

          Now you're ready to bake the cake! Gather all of your other ingredients for the carrot cake:

Ingredients:

2 1/2 c. all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tbsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

salt

2 c. grated carrots

1 c. brown sugar

1 c. squash puree

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

3 eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and pre-grease a 9x9 metal pan.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt) in a large bowl.
3. Mix all wet ingredients (brown sugar, squash puree, vanilla and eggs) in a smaller bowl.
4. Put the grated carrots into the flour mixture and mix around until the carrots are coated with flour*
5. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Don't worry if the batter looks slightly "gluey/gluppy".
6. Bake in the oven for approximately 45-50 minutes (again, depends on your oven). Check the cake at about 45 minutes with a tooth-pick. 

7. Let cool completely on a rack before icing.

*Mix the carrots in the flour first as this coats them in flour and helps them "stick" all throughout the cake instead of sinking to the bottom. This will help you have an even distribution of carrots throughout the cake!

      

        While the cake cools, you can prepare the icing:

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing

1 package (8 oz.) of cream cheese, room temperature

3/4 c. icing (powdered) sugar

1 tsp. heaping cinnamon

2 tsp. lemon juice

1. Mix everything together with electric beaters until incorporated and fluffy!

2. Ice your carrot cake.

           Ta-da! The kids (or in my case, the other half) will be none-the-wiser! He actually ate my "picture piece" without me asking him to try it! Carrot cake = win in my house.

           I hope you enjoy! Again, if you try this recipe don't be afraid to experiment! Let me know how it turns out either way. Til then, more on dogs, love, chocolate and everything in-between!

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Recovery and Baking - Banana Cinnamon Cocoa Muffins

            True to the title of this blog, today's post is all about dogs (my two and agility), love (for said dogs and baking) and chocolate (Banana Cinnamon Cocoa Muffins, to be exact). **Note to readers: I will not always be this good at sticking to the title of the blog - hence the "and Everything In-between" - have to cover my butt somehow, right?

             Last night was the fourth week of agility for us three (Beginners agility for Loki and Foundations for Lexi). It was a great session for both of them - even Lexi. She still is terrified of the equipment however there is hope! I finally got her to step on the travel boards and give me a "target" a couple times - and she actually (somewhat) enjoyed it! I'm finding that no matter what, I have to really believe in accomplishing our goals and envision what I want her to do before hand in order for us to get anywhere. Lots of praise and treats helps too, of course. I'm thinking some "behaviour shaping" with some clicker training is in order in the future - stay tuned for that adventure. Loki, as usual, enjoyed every moment we were there. We worked on jumps for the first time, and he loved it of course. We spent the majority of the time off-leash for the first time as well and, knock on wood for next week, it was successful! I'm finding with these two that everyday is one step forward and it is by no means either instant/immediate or without a lot of practice and trial and error. It is also very exhausting to train two dogs back-to-back for 2+ hours straight. Most people would think that this isn't very difficult however, in order to be successful, you must be very "present" and live in the moment. You also have to be very enthusiastic and animated, there to catch every correct move and let them know it! Energy begets energy, that's for sure. So this is the "Recovery" portion of this post. Next, baking.....

            Yes, you read that right. Banana. Cinnamon. Cocoa. Muffins. Do you think I could have fit any other ingredients in there? Well obviously I did. Below is a picture of what went into them - minus some yogurt and cocoa (more about those later). **Note: Before I go any further, let me just inform you that I am not a typical baker - I commit the cardinal sin of not following recipes - not even my own. For any of you that are not adventurous I suggest you close your eyes for this part or avoid this blog altogether. For those of you who are - scroll on down and follow my experiments!

Ingredients

 Approx. 5 very ripe large bananas

1 tbsp honey

1 c. apple sauce*

1 egg

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 c. (heaping) packed brown sugar

2 c. flour

1 tsp baking soda

2 tbsp baking powder

pinch of salt

1 1/2 tbsp. cinnamon
1 1/2 tbsp. cocoa powder**

*I ran out of applesauce about half-way through measuring a cup so I just topped it off with plain yogurt
**I felt like these muffins needed a little chocolate kick so I added some cocoa powder in there - it's not necessary so feel free to omit it (or add more ha!)

 

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Pre-grease two muffin trays.

2. Mix the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder and soda, cinnamon and optional cocoa powder) together in a large bowl.

3. Mash the bananas to desired size (I left mine pretty chunky so you could really see the banana in the muffins but that's, again, up to you!) in a smaller bowl. Then add all the wet ingredients (including the brown sugar) in with the bananas and mix until well incorporated. 

4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until everything is just incorporated. DO NOT OVER MIX! I can't stress this enough - the muffins will be hard as a rock and dry if you over mix them.

5. Bake for 18-22 minutes or just until a tooth pick insereted in the center of the muffins comes out clean. This took 20 minutes in my oven.

6. Stuff your face!

 

          These muffins come out light, fluffy and moist. Unlike most banana bread, it doesn't feel like you're eating a dense loaf. Warning, this makes it very easy to eat several in one sitting. I should add the chocolate isn't very strong - it's more of a subtle background note so if you want them really chocolate-y you should add more cocoa.

          So there you have it! Agility and baking all in one! Hope you enjoy! If you do end up trying these, leave a comment and let me know how they turned out and if you experimented on your own!

   .......Back to homework I go.

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Brand new. First time. Scary.

        That's what this experience is to me. Not so sure why it's scary - this is a blog that will probably be forgotten with time, pushed off to the side collecting dust much like my most recent (by most recent I mean it's been collecting dust for almost 2 years now) knitting adventure. I would like to say I will commit to this as other bloggers I have seen do, posting religiously every day, not disappointing their followers - but let's face it, this may not be possible and I currently have no followers (at least there's no one to disappoint!). One step in the right direction.
         I have started this blog as a way to voice my experiences in life and, hopefully, use it as a tool in my current exploration in bettering myself and my quality of life. (In this case, I may point out that my above paragraph is very negative and not a great way to start off! Think positive, right?)
        Let me start off by, briefly (ha), introducing myself. I am a twenty-something HR student living in my hometown in Northwestern Ontario. I am engaged, living with my fiancée in our very first house; we have three cats (2 most of the time - one seems to wonder back and forth between our home and a neighbour's home) and 2 dogs. I love to cook but I really have a sweet tooth so baking is #1 for me. Unfortunately for me, the other half does not have a sweet tooth so that usually means I end up eating the entire cheesecake, plate of cookies or pan of brownies. Enter the 25+ pounds I would love to lose (I really love baking way too much to let those pounds interfere with my eating of said baking!). I have recently discouvered dogs, and training dogs, as a huge passion for me as well. My two "fur-babies" are mixed breeds; Loki is almost a year and a half and is some sort of Border Collie/Lab mix (and something that has caused him to be extremely tall) and the youngest, Lexi is a German Shepherd/Husky mix who is just over a year. I am currently training them both in Agility (but as you will learn as time goes by that may dwindle down to one in Agility and another in - who knows -). Agility has become an obsession for me. I am still in the beginning stages of training so I've got a long way to go but I am in love. I am also an assistant trainer within the puppy classes at the local dog club. More on that in the future. Probably one of the biggest things you'll learn about me is that I have an anxiety disorder. This is one of the reasons for my "better life, better me" exploration - I have lived my life dictated by my anxiety for a long time and it is something I would like to change. One moment at a time.
       This is just the basics! There's a lot more to learn about me and I'm hoping that, through this blog, that will come through. Keep tuned and keep your fingers crossed that the dust doesn't settle! More on dogs, love, chocolate and everything in-between.