Happy Thanksgiving

Mini Pumpkin Cheese Cakes for Pups

Pumpkins and pups are a natural combination.  As demonstrated above a pumpkin style hat as modeled by Tubby is a winning look, and pumpkin in a pups food is a healthy treat.  I wrote in this blog post about how I often add pumpkin to my dogs food.  While fresh pumpkin is the healthiest option canned pumpkins ease makes it a natural choice for treats.  With Thanks Giving just around the corner I decided to say thank you to my dogs with some Pumpkin Cheese Cake Treats.

Mini Pumpkin Cheese Cakes for Pups

1 can pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie filling
8 ounces low fat cream cheese at room temperature
1/4 cup fat free sour cream
1 tbsp honey
3 tbsp coconut flour
1 egg, beaten
1 package Pumpkin flavored dog cookies, such as Plato Turkey and Chicken Treats
cupcake tin liners

Preeheat the oven to 350.  Stir all the ingredients, except the cookies, together until smoothly combined.  You might want to use an electric mixer but I did it by hand.  Line a cup cake with paper liners and put one pumpkin cookie in the bottom of each liner.  Spoon the pumpkin cheese cake mixture over the cookies and bake 25 minutes, until slightly firmed but still jiggly.  Cool and serve.

If you are interested in a delicious Pumpkin Pie for peeps check out our Vintage Blog The Old Fashioned Way


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Oh and we have one announcement to make.  We sincerely hope we don't offend anyone and  mom absolutely loves all of blogville, she considers some blog ville friends better friends then non computer ones.   However, in an effort to save some cash and make Daddy happy, it was his request, we are opting out of sending cards this year.  As there are so many of us and we use shutterfly our cards are pretty pricey and it will be hard to swing the expense this year.   So please please don't feel you need to send us a card, we will feel bad if we get cards and can't reciprocate.  We hope no one is angry with us over this as we love you all. 

Our Greatest Costume Moment

This is from 2011 and it wasn't Halloween, but we had to share it because Bob dressed as Harry Potter is just to cute for words

Happy Howl-O-Ween-A Very Busy Halloween Weekend

Now here's the thing, our mom is pretty nuts about Halloween. I mean she owns a ton of horror movies, loves to eat candy and carve pumpkins, has a box full of vintage Halloween decorations, and she starts planning thr pugs Halloween costumes on November 1st.  So since last years celebration was washed out by Hurricane Sandy she was determined to make up for it this.   First she got up really super early and made apple cider donuts.  She was all proud of herself because she had never made donuts before.

 We put on our best begging faces and managed to get a taste.

 Now they were tasty, but we kind of agree with Dad when he questioned whether they were worth the effort since you can buy pretty good donuts at the shop.  Mom, however, is sold on them as a yearly treat.  After our donuts and our walk it was time for our yearly pumpkin of goodies.  Now we were pretty upset about this because Mom and Dad filled it with our bark box treats.  Which is totally unfair.  We get a Bark Box every month so it stands to reason that for Halloween we should get a Bark Box AND a treat filled pumpkin.  Mom is blaming this one on Dad who apparently said we did not need both.

Weasley saying "What the #?!# these are our Bark Box goodies!"

 There was still some cool stuff in the pumpkin so we guess in the end it was OK.  After the pumpkin it was time for the pugs to get ready for the Halloween parade.   Mom and dad used to bring all five doggies but it got to be too hard to control us in all the Halloween chaos so it now falls to the pugs to dress up and Norbert and Bob are lucky enough to get to stay home and then eat the treats we bring back.   For this Halloween the pugs wore the same costumes as last year, since they never really got to use them because of the hurricane.  They were the Three Pugateers:

The costumes are from Matti's Millinery and Costumes on Etsy  and they really are the  best costumes we have ever had.  She makes great stuff.  Mom is already drooling over the Renaissance Tudor pet costume  and she says she kind of wishes she was rich and had some Victorian event to go too because she would love to wear one of the Victorian people dresses too.  Anyway, our pet parade was at Canis Minor in Pavonia Newport in down town Jersey City. 
We arrived in style:

There were lots of doggies in costumes, but it didn't take us long to size up the competition and realize that really, no surprise, we were the cutest.

We participated in the parade but figured it was pretty much a moot point, since we were the clear winers.  Sadly it was so windy that tubby lost the feather in his cap.  However, that was made up for when we did indeed win, best group, and we got a twenty five dollar gift certificate to the store and we will be in the local paper.

 Clearly we are the cutest.

The best part was when we got home from the parade mom and dad gave us and Norbert and Bob lots of treats.  Maybe, they were feeling guilty because that night they ditched us!  They went out to the Halloween show at the Landmark Loews Theatre.  We wanted to go too but apparently no dogs allowed.    Its one of the last big movie palaces left in the whole country and since its a non-profit they occasionally show old movies there. We would love to see the inside because Mom and Dad both say its amazing.  They took some blurry pictures

 We hope mom didn't get any costume ideas for next year from the movie, it was  Bride of Frankenstein

Easy Apple Sauce Drop Cookies

Lately theres been a  cool crisp in the air during our walks, mom has been making us wear our Halloween ties, and there are piles of crunchy leaves to play in 

and all that means.........................................apple sauce cookies.

Apple Sauce Cookies

1 cup apple sauce
1 egg 
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 325.  Stir the egg, apple sauce, and oil together in a medium bowl.  Add the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and drop tsps of dough onto the baking sheet.  Bake 15 minutes.  The cookies will be browned on top but still soft.  Bake longer for a firmer cookie.

These cookies seemed to give Norbert and Weasley some energy because after they ate a few they  had a fun wrestling match.


 

Monday Mischief-Pumpkins, Pugs, and Bulldogs at Demarest Farms

October is by far my favorite month of the year.  I love the colors, the cool air, and Halloween.  One of my favorite parts of October is going to Demarest Farms 
 

with a few of the dogs to buy a pumpkin and eat their delicious apple cider donuts and potato pancakes.   This year we brought Tubby, Ping, Weasley, and Bob.   One of the nicest things about Demarest farms is every fall they have a play area set up with photo props for Halloween pictures, if you get there early in the morning like we did you have the section to yourself and can take some cute doggie pictures.

 The best part of a trip to Demarest farms is the food.  They have amazing apple cider donuts that just take like fall and delicious apple pancakes.  Since they have a lot of picnic tables its easy to sit with the dogs and have a nice breakfast.

Everyone got a taste.

After we ate our food we picked out our pumpkin:

The whole trip was a big success with every on good behavior and no mischief in sight until...............we walked back to our car and realized we had a flat.

Luckily Dad was able to change it quickly while the dogs waited in the car.  Mischief managed!