Recipe 1: Beef, Pea and Carrot Stew

Second post in the category of "Recipes"

Ever since we got Odette I have been cooking things for her, or giving her raw items. I am quite ashamed to say that we used to give her Hill's Science Diet (as that was what was given to us when we were fostering her), but now that she is ours, those days are definitely over !

This post marks the first recipe for home-made dog food I am posting on here. This one is a sort-of stew that I prepared and froze. The reason I am cooking Odette's food is because good quality, wet/canned dog food can be quite expensive. Theoretically your dog doesn't even need it, you can feed your dog kibble only, but I always feel bad, so I try to give Odette something more every second day for dinner. So instead of buying expensive canned food, I cook for her. It saves me money and I love to cook - also by cooking I actually know what is in her food and I can control what she gets. Most importantly, don't just buy cheaper dog food for the convenience, learn about what nutritious items your dog needs and keep them in mind. See my past post on these issues.

This recipe is very similar to one in the book "Frisst night - gibt's nicht"by Ingeborg Pils, which I received from my aunt for my birthday. The recipes in this book, and the ones I will be posting here, are all human-grade food. Basically you can eat them yourselves (after adding a bit of salt) and I would. I make a point of trying every recipe before I feed it to my dog, just to know what it is like.

This beef stew recipe ended up yielding about 14 servings for Odette. She gets 1 1/2 cups of kibble a day. When I add in the cooked things, she gets 1 cup kibble 1/2 cup cooked food. 1/2 cup is about 125g, I end up just using 100g for packaging. If you have a bigger dog use bigger measurements, or if you use the same, you will end up with fewer portions.

Let's start with what you need:

• 300g beef (we used stewing beef)
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• Optional: 1 garlic bulb (some people believe garlic is bad for your dog, talk to your vet)
• 100g Peas
• 100g carrots
• 1 cup water
• Optional: Some shredded cheese (mozzarella)
• Optional: Rice
• Wok or Pan
• Bags or tupperware to store leftovers in
• Pen to label (by using a water-soluble pen, you can even write on your tupperware !)

The process is simple and fast:

• Put oil into pan and heat.
• Add in beef and garlic and fry it for about 2 minutes.
• Add in water.
• Add in carrots (can be shredded).
• Add in peas.
• Boil until most of the water (but not all) is gone.
• Take off stove and let it cool down, package and/or serve with rice and cheese.

Refrain from adding any salt or pepper. Dogs do not crave salt the way we do. 

Serving it:

• Serve either with kibble, rice or pasta.
• Serve on top of kibble or on a separate plate.
• Add stew to kibble, add hot water just so that it is covered, mix, let it cool down, top with some shredded cheese and serve it to your pooch.
• Package it and put it in the fridge/freezer for other times.

As mentioned, I packaged the cooked things into ziplock bags, each containing about 100g of this stew mix. 

The entire cost of this recipe was about $4 and it yield 14 servings, lasting us for about a month, which makes this a lot cheaper than any good-quality, wet/canned dog food you could buy. 

Cooking and packaging probably took me a total of 20 minutes. In the freezer this also takes up very little space as it is just on the side in the door, rolled up. 

Odette loves it and it also gets her to eat her kibble when we mix it in. 

Tip: Make sure to write a date on the packages. You should not keep them in the fridge for longer than a week after cooking, and in the freezer no more than 3-6 months.

Cheap, fast, healthy and your dog will love it.