Recipe 4: Chicken with mashed Vegetables

Now this recipe my dog loves ! She even eats the thing frozen. When she's full, she leaves it, but this is one of the only recipes, that she will consider finishing it up in the morning ! Once again, this recipe is basically taken from "Frisst night - gibt's nicht"by Ingeborg Pils. Yes, I may love this book considering every single recipe so far comes from it. I can only encourage everyone to buy it, as there are so many more good recipes in here !

What will you need:

• Butter or olive oil
• 2 zucchini
• 4 carrots
• 6-8 potatoes
• 500g chicken meat
• 2 apples
• 300ml water
• Optional: 4 garlic cloves
• Deep pot
• Mixer to puree everything
• Pan for frying
• Bags to store leftovers 
• Pen to label

The process:

• Cut the potatoes and zucchini into small cubes
• Peel the garlic and mince it
• Peel the carrots and also cut them into cubes

• Put potatoes, zucchinis, garlic and carrots into a big pot, add in the water
• Let it boil slightly for 20 minutes, then use the mixer to puree everything
• Cut the chicken and apples into small cubes 
• Fry the chicken and apples in a pan with a little bit of oil or butter
• Cook the chicken and apples for about 10 minutes in the pan
• Mix it all together (I just used the big pot), feed it cold or warm immediately
• Store leftovers in tupperware or bags in fridge or freezer

Serving it:

• Can be served just thawed
• Warm (if you keep it frozen, slowly thaw and possibly re-heat in microwave or on stove, or heat it up by mixing it with some boiling water)
• Serve with kibble or by itself

Again I packaged the leftovers in bags of about 125g each as she gets about a cup of (puppy) kibble with it. We have started giving her home-made food every day. She just loves it so much, after each meal she comes up, jumps on my lap and licks my hands - it feels as if she is grateful for the meal (especially as she only does this on day when she actually gets the home-made stuff). 

The entire cost of this dish was probably around $15 and yield about 30 servings. As for the time I spent to cook this up, it took me about 40-50 minutes in total. However because this is one of the bigger things I have cooked so far, the packaging and labelling took a bit longer. However it was really rewarding and I wont have to make any dog food for a while now. Once again, about labelling, it is important to write on the bag: ingredients, how to prepare it, the weight and date. You can keep it in the freezer for about 3-6 months, in the fridge no longer than a week.

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

P.S.: Potatoes should never be given to a dog raw ! Make sure they are properly cooked.

Recipe 3: Beef Treats

In my first post "What to feed your dog" I quickly touched upon treats, and how one of the most bought treats (rawhide) can be quite bad for your dog. Odette's treats consist of bull wrinkle, raw bones, peanut butter and home-made treats.

This first recipe is very easy. Once again, it is from the book "Frisst night - gibt's nicht"by Ingeborg Pils.

What you need:

• Raw beef (any beef will do)
• Oven

The process is quite time consuming but simple:

• Cut the beef into pieces that are about 1cm x 1cm
• Put them on baking paper, apart so that they do not touch
• Put them in the cold oven and turn the temperature to 150 degrees Celsius 
• Leave them at 150C for 1 hour
• Turn the temperature to 100 degrees Celsius
• Put a wooden spoon into the oven door and leave it at 100C for 2 hours
• Take them out and let the pieces dry over night 
• Store them in an airtight container

We bought 2kg of meat for about $17 and it rendered about 500g of treats. However it is a very time consuming process, overall I was cutting away for at least 5 hours and then putting them in the oven, tray after tray, and that took me three cycles of putting them in at 150, etc...

Since I cut the treats into quite small pieces, they will probably last for about 3-4 months. This is why overall the treat is (in my opinion) cheaper than most others because I give Odette a couple of treats a day and they'll still last a while. On top of that do I know that they are completely natural and every dog I have given these to has absolutely loved them, my dog even stopped eating commercial treats because she prefers these so much.

Tip: If you put the treats in an airtight container, they will last for up to a year.