Hello Everyone! Hope you had a lovely weekend; I sure did! As hectic as it was, it was pretty great as I got to celebrate my Sister’s 21st Birthday on Sunday with my Mom and close family friends. For those who have been following my blog for a while now will surely say that today’s recipe is a bit odd in a way that it’s not something they’d think I would whip up in the kitchen I guess.

Alas, it’s because today is an important day in the household – it’s Blacky’s 5th non-Birthday! For those of you who don’t know, Blacky is my beloved and well-behaved Mutt. He’s such a character, and a very smart dog I might add! We got him 5 years ago back in 2010 on this day when he was about 2-3 weeks old together with his brother, Browny (yes, we weren’t very creative with names). Unfortunately his brother passed away about 2 years ago because he was poisoned by our neighbours.

Anyway, I realised that for the past 4 years, I’ve never been around to treat my doggie something special for his non-Birthday as usually around this time I’m in my second term of uni in Australia. Now that I get to spend a birthday with him, I thought I’d do something nice for him today and bake him a batch of yummy homemade doggie treats! The original recipe can be found on The Kitchn.

A little note for Vidhya (and for anyone else who skips the recipe part when reading my blog): please scroll down and continue reading, there’s a little story for you at the end as well!

PREP TIME 15 MINS | COOKING TIME 20 MINS | MAKES 15 TREATS

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup plain wholemeal flour
• 1/4 cup cold water
• 1/4 cup melted bacon fat (or unsalted butter)
• 1/4 cup rolled oats
• 1 small free range egg
• Fried bacon bits

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 180C (350F or gas mark 4). Line a baking tray with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Combine all ingredients in a medium-sized bowl and mix by hand until a dough starts to form. If the dough is still feeling a little bit sticky, add more flour. Likewise, if the dough is too stiff, add more bacon fat, butter, or water.
3. Roll the dough out onto a floured surface, to a thickness of just under 1/2-inch. This is where you can get creative with your treats; you can cut them into 1×4-inch bars or use various cookie cutters to shape them. I wanted to make the treats bone-shaped but since I didn’t have a cutter, I shaped them each by hand – it took a while but I got there in the end.
4. Transfer the treats to your prepared baking tray. Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until lightly browned. Once down, turn the heat off, flip the treats, and place back in the oven until the oven cools down (this will further crisp your treats). Remove from the oven and set the treats aside to completely cool.
5. Treat your beloved doggie with these lovely homemade treats!

These doggie treats can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature. With this recipe, I was able to make about 15 doggie treats, and about 5 small discs with the scraps of dough. I tried one of this discs myself and it was neither good nor bad, it just had no taste whatsoever for me personally. At this point, I was a bit scared that I spent all this time making these treats for Blacky just for him to ignore them and not eat them because of their tasteless state. So when I baked them yesterday afternoon, I tried to feed him two of the small discs. He was outside lying down, being lazy. I was able to put one in his mouth, but instead of chewing on it, he dropped it on the floor. I picked it up and tried to feed it to him again, but he did the same thing. I then put the two little discs on his two front paws and went back inside the house.

Five minutes later, I peaked through the window; he hadn’t moved and the treats were still on his paws. I went back outside and tried to feed it to him again and this time he chewed on them, and it was a sort of oh-my-gosh-this-is-actually-so-yum kind of chew. When he was done with the first treat, he looked for the other treat that I had in my other hand. I fed it to him and he was still looking for more after he was done! So really, I knew before hand that he definitely liked his non-Birthday present 🙂

the rain was coming down really heavily and there was a bit of thunder and lightning which was why Blacky looked scared in the photo on the right – my poor baby. He did appreciate his treats though! He’s had 6 of them today alone!

Also before I sign off from tonight’s post, I am aware that it is indeed week 4 and the last week of Auguest for this year; do not fret! Tune in tomorrow and on Friday for my final guest blogger!

BON APPÉTIT

– Ally xx