Tasty Tuesday-Cheese Ball!!!

Every once and a while I like to make a dinner of appetizers for my husband and myself.  I'm partial to retro tinged classics like shrimp cocktail, sweet and sour meat balls, and of course cheese balls.  Then I can pretend our home is the setting for a glamorous vintage cocktail party.

 A few weeks ago I made a cheese ball so deliciously indulgent that after a few crackers worth I tossed it to prevent any further consumption, but it was totally worth it.

Delicious Cheese Ball

In fact it was so tasty that it got me thinking about a cheese ball for dogs.  I mean why should people have the fun.  If I ever do have a real cocktail party with guests and everything, unlikely, wouldn't it be fun to have appetizers for the dogs as well?  I think so.   Luckily my dogs tolerate dairy well and they all love cheese so my primary tax was defatting and simplifying the recipe.  I can't say the end result is healthy but its not terrible and the dogs sure loved them.

Canine Cheese Balls

Everyone loved the cheese balls even my big old guy Norbert who looks rather stoic in this picture.

 Now for the recipes, of course you can change up a cheese ball any which WAY you like by using different cheeses and seasonings.

Cheese Balls for Dogs

• 8 oz fat free cream cheese
• 1/2 cup shredded fat free cheddar 
• 5 baby carrots, diced

Stir the above ingredients in a bowl and form into balls with your hands.  Voila! cheese ball.

Amy Sedaris's Lil' Smokey Cheese Ball

Definitely half this, I should have.

2 cups shredded smoked Gouda cheese
16 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup butter
2 1/2 tablespoons milk
2 1/2 teaspoons steak sauce
1 cup chopped nuts

Directions:

Bring all ingredients to room temperature.
Beat the Gouda, cream cheese, butter, milk and steak sauce together in a bowl until combined.
Chill overnight.
Roll the mixture into a ball.
Roll the ball in the chopped nuts.
Serve at room temperature with ritz or club crackers

In the end I'd really much rather spend an evening at home with my dogs then at any silly cocktail party!

Easy Beefy Bites

Did you know June is national beef steak month?  Well apparently it is and that makes a perfect time to make these treats from the Whole Dog Journal.  

They have an exhaustive ingredient sure to make any dog drool: Beef Steak.
We used london broil since its reasonably price. 

All you do is trim any large pieces of fat from the meat and then cut it into smallish cubes with a sharp knife.  Put those cubes on a foil lined baking sheet and put in a 175 degree oven.   Leave the meat in the oven for about 6 hours, or even longer, stirring them around with a spatula periodically.  The goal is to make the beef chunks completely dry.   I turn of my oven and leave them in over night to really cement the drying process.  Of course if you have a food dehydrator you can make these in a jiffy with that.   Serve the treats to any dogs in the vicinity and June is sure to become their favorite month.

Don't worry Norbert and Bob got beef treats too, but mom liked the pugs beef expectant faces.

Pupsickles and Popsickles (and a product review).

Credit for this recipe goes to Kolchak Puggles mama who came up with this delicious idea for Pina Colada inspired Taste of the Tropics Kong stuffing.  Sadly the hounds really don't like eating out of Kongs, I know weird.  I agree with Kolchak Puggle that Kongs are a great way to keep a dogs brain busy, and I used to stuff a kong with pb and banana (too ingredients they love) freeze and leave for work, Id come home to the very top licked and melting PB and banana on the kitchen floor.   Now they are left with some other chews and toys, they love chewing on the Bad Kong balls, and everyone is happy.

Kolchak's mama mentioned the famed song:

If You Like Pina-Coladas

And Walks in The Rain...

It put a smile on my face for this reason.  My late father who was a very funny person, was something of a connoisseur of goofy pop music (apologies to anyone who really likes the Pina Colada song).  He used to play the record for my friends and I when we are in junior high until we laughed ourselves silly.   Enough of memory lane.  Here is the recipe for the pina colada pupsicles.

Pina Colada Pupsicles

1 cup pineapple chunks

1/4 cup low fat plain yogurt

2 ripe bananas, sliced

1/2 cup pineapple juice

3 tbsp unsweetened coconut flakes

Puree all the ingredients in a blender and pour into the Popsicle molds.  This should make four or five large pupsicles.

As you can see from the pictures below the pupsickles where a big hit, my husband was swamped  with eager pina colada mad patrons like the most popular bar tender at a beachfront tiki bar.

 Rather then leave all the fun to the hounds, I wanted to make some Popsicles for my husband and my self, particularly since I wanted to try my new  Tovolo Groovy Icepop Molds.   So I made these peaches and cream ones from epicurious and they where delicious.

Peaches and Cream Popsickles

4 ripe peaches, diced, no need to peel

1/2 cup sugar

3/4 cup greek yogurt, preferably full fat

1 tsp lemon juice

1/3 cup water

2 tbsp Amaretto

Combine all of the ingredients in the blender and our into molds and freeze overnight.  If you don't have Amaretto you can easily substitute almond or vanilla extract.

 

Now for the review part of this post.  I absolutely love my Tovolo ice pop molds.   They are $12.99 on amazon, free shipping if you have prime like I do, and they are the best popsicle molds I've tried, and I've had several.  For one things they are made of strong but flexible BPA free plastic and they are designed to stand up easily in the freeze.  The molds fit comfortable into the base.   Some reviewers on amazon complained that the pop sickles where a bit large, but perhaps due to my piggish appetite I liked this aspect.    With a quick run under some hot water I was able to remove the popsicles easily, many other molds I've tried left the Popsicle behind in the mold and the stick in your hand.  If  you are planning on making any popsicles this summer either for yourself or your dogs I thoroughly recommend this product.

Tasty Tuesday-Honey Bacon Birthday Cake

If  you ask Bob the best, indeed the only essential part of a birthday celebration is the cake over his 6 years with us he has sampled his own birthday cakes and those of his siblings plus any other celebratory dog cakes I've made.  By  my estimation he has sampled some 35 cakes during his life time, and enjoyed them all thoroughly.

Knowing what a conisseur he is I wanted to make something special for his 6th birthday.  I decided to include honey since 6 is the birthday I associate with Winnie the Pooh

and bacon because what dog doesn't love bacon.

Honey Bacon Birthday Cake

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 tsps baking soda
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup apple sauce, unsweetened
• 1/4 cup Kefir or plain yogurt
• 3 eggs, preferably organic
• 6 tbsp honey, divided
• 4 slices of bacon cooked and crumbled (reserve one slice for the frosting)
• 1 8 oz package low fat cream cheese

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and spray a cake pan with non stick cooking spray.  Whisk the flour and baking soda together in a large bowl.  In another bowl whisk together the oil, applesauce, kefir or yogurt, eggs, and four tbsp of the honey.   Add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture and mix well.   Mix in three slices of bacon, crumbled.   Bake for 30 minutes.

To make the frosting mix the cream cheese, the remaining 2 tbsp of honey, and the last piece of crumbled bacon together.  Frost on the cooled cake.

Bob enjoyed his cake so much that we had to remove his sibling from the room, he was on the verge of getting a bit posessive.   Also he was absolutely vibrating with excitement so the pictures are a bit blurry.  

(Note: If you make this cake for your dogs you want to be careful.  At one point I feared Bob would choke and not wanting to end the festivities with a trip to the animal ER we removed the cake in order to pace him.)

Meat and Potato Balls

Yesterday, mom made the Pioneer Woman's potato skins, and that left her with lots of potato filling and nothing in particular to use it for, so she knew she had to figure out how to  make it into treats for us.  With the addition of some ground beef and canned tomato we got a tasty meat and potato treat that we really enjoyed:

 Meat and Potato Balls

3 cups cooked mashed white potatoes (or you could use sweet potatoes)
8 ounces, 1 cup, cooked ground beef, drained
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes
3/4 cup brown rice flour (or all purpose flour)
1/4 cup wheat germ
2 eggs, beaten

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Stir all the ingredients together in a large bowl until well mixed.  Drop by generous spoon fulls onto the lined cookie sheets and bake one hour.  Serve to a meat and potato loving dog:

With these ingredients there is something 1950s about these treats and it got mom thinking about her favorite MST3k short, A Date With Your Family: watch and enjoy

Today is our pal Pip's birthday (and his human sister's birthday) make sure you drop by to wish them a special day.

Tasty Tuesday-Pumpkin Muffins for Pups

Two Saturday's ago mom made these

 Pumpkin Peanut Butter Muffins with Pumpkin Cream Cheese frosting.   We were supposed to bring them to our Pug-O-Ween meetup on the 27th.  Then the weather  got all scary and before we knew it Pug-O-Ween was canceled and the power went out and mom and dad where throwing out tons of spoilable food.  Now, thank goodness we had plenty of kibbles and they don'g go bad, but those muffins now had a short life span.  So guess what?  We got to eat them ourselves and no sharing with other dogs.  They were delish!

Pumpkin Peanut Butter Muffins with Pumpkin Cream Cheese Frosting

 For the Muffins

2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (or if you dog is grain intolerant substitute a grain free flour such as coconut)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup of canned pumpkin
1/2 cup of peanut butter microwaved until its runny
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup honey
1 egg
  
Preheat the oven to 325.  Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl.   In a smaller bowl stir all the wet ingredients together until well mixed.   Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix very well (the dough will be a little dry).   Line 14 muffin tins with paper liners and spoon in the dough until about 3/4 full. Bake for 1 hr, or until the muffins are dry and cooked through (the muffins will be pretty dry and biscuit-ey)

For the Frosting
 8 oz softened low fat cream cheese
1 cup pumpkin

Beat cream cheese and pumpkin together until very well combined.  Spread on top of the muffins and garnish with a cookie for decorations (we used Apple flavored paw print cookies from Whole Foods).

 

Tasty Tuesday-Summer Fruit and Veggie Treats

Other then Ping's surgery, which had a happy ending since those nasty lumps where all benine, we had a great blogger break and staycation.

We went on walks:

 Ate at cafes:

 Got some new toys:

 Spent a lot of time lounging on the couch

 and of course we all ate quite a bit.

One thing mom made us was some Zucchini Bread.   After all Zucchini is a perfect (and plentiful) end of summer vegetable.

Zucchini Bread for Dogs

 1 1/2 cups brown rice flour

2 tsps baking powder

1 Zucchini, grated

1/2 cup canola oil

1/4 cup molasses

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup blueberries

Preheat the oven to 350 and grease and flour a loaf pan.   Whisk together the brown rice flour and baking powder.   Stir in the grated zucchini.  In a separate bowl whisk together the oil, molasses, and eggs.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir to mix well.   Fold in the blueberries.  Pour into the loaf pan and bake for one hour to one hour and 15 minutes until a tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Yummers, Zucchini Bread!

(Note: If you want to make a people friendly Zucchini Cake/Bread check out this post.)

Now mom can't resist baking a cake for herself and Dad too.  Her love of food could be why she is such a fan of pugs and bulldogs since according to this month's BARK magazine people choose dogs who remind them of themselves, and we certainly  share our short stocky frames and love of food-ables with our Mom.  One recipe that she made over the break that she and Dad really enjoyed was Peach Cake in a Cast Iron Skillet from Bon Appetite magazine.  (Bon Appetite calls this a cobbler but it really is more of a cake.)

Peach Cake in a Cast Iron Skillet 

2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp salt

2 large eggs, beaten

1 1/2 cups sour cream or cream fraiche, divided

1 cup whole milk

2 tsp vanilla

4 tbsp butter (1/2 stick)

2 cups sliced peaches (about 3) or substitute nectarines or plums 

1 cup peach preserves, or other preserves if using different fruit

1 cup chilled heavy cream

2 tbsp sugar

Preheat oven to 350.   Whisk the dry ingredients together in a large bowl to blend.  In a smaller bowl combine the eggs, 1/2 cup sour cream or cream friahce, milk and vanilla.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry and whisk well, until there are no lumps remaining.  Melt the butter in a cast iron skillet over medium heat, tilting it to make sure the butter coats the entire bottom of the skillet (if you don't have a cast iron skillet get one right away you will use it all the time, its one of mom's favorite kitchen tools).   

Take the skillet off the heat and pour the batter in tilting to make sure it is spread evenly.  Scatter over the fruit and then dollop with the preserves.   Bake 45-50 minutes until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

Whip the heavy cream and sugar in the electric mixer on high until fairly stiff peaks form.  Fold in the remaining one cup of sour cream or cream fraiche.  

Serve the cake with the cream fraiche whipped cream.  Yum!  (In mom's opinion this makes a good breakfast but cake for breakfast may be a bit much for some).