Tasty Tuesday-Sunflower Treats in Honor of the X-Files

As we have mentioned many times before our mom is a huge nerd with many geeky sci-fi and fantasy obsessions.  One of her favorites is the X-Files.  In fact she is such a huge fan that when Mom and Dad got married (Dad loves the show too) they had Mulder and Scully figurines on their wedding cake, in lieu of the traditional bride and groom.   

 The thing is when mom and dad first met in college, before they were even dating, they used to watch the X-Files together.  So if it were not for the show, there might not be any marriage, we might not have been adopted, and thus no urban hounds.  Anyway you can see why the show is super important in our house.

Mom feels we should celebrate the premiere, on September 10th every year.  First, us pugs put on our X-Files shirts, courtesy of Cafe Press (whatever you love they can make a shirt to celebrate it).  

Then mom makes us some sort of sunflower seed treat, if you know the X-Files you know that agent Mulder loves sunflower seeds.

Agent Mulder eating sunflower seeds.

Now mom is no fan of sunflower seeds, but we seem to like them.  This year she used them to make us cookies.   Now we must tell you these cookies are not mom's recipe, they are from the amazing wonderful Kolchak Puggle are Tasty Tuesday host who hails from Vancouver birth place of the X-Files!  That is why they are just begging for the addition of some sunflower seeds.

Kolchak Puggle's Super Easy Canned Food Treats (With Sunflower Seeds)

1 13.2 ounce can smooth style canned dog food

1 1/2 cups brown rice flour, or whatever flour you want to use

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

1 egg 

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp Tumeric

Preheat the oven to 350 and grease a baking sheet with oil.

Stir all the ingredients together until very well mixed.  Use an ice cream scoop or spoon to spoon out nice sized dollops of dough.  Press down with the tines of a fork to make criss crosses in the dough.

Bake for 17-20 minutes.

Weasley trying to get to the bowl of cookie dough.

While you eat your cookies snuggle up with your parents and enjoy an X-Files Marathon.  Mom wants your 'rents to know that if they join Hulu plus or Netflix they can watch every x-file on line for free (plus tons of other shows) and with a Roku box they can watch them on the TV.  Mom says the Roku is the best thing ever.

Anyway here is mom's expert 10 essential X-Files Episode Guide-(Expert because she has seen the show a million times).  They are in order of season, not favorites.   (Note: If you are not a giant nerd please stop reading because you will be bored silly).

Pilot-Obviously an important episode because this is where it all started.  Plus if you are a huge geek like mom you will enjoy the fact that the actor who plays the werewolf Oz on Buffy The Vampire Slayer is in the pilot.

The Host-Eeek!  This episode is kinda gross, mom always thinks of it when she is brushing her teeth, but its still one of the best ones and it takes place in Newark, NJ.  Not far from where we live now.  Hopefully, we don't run into any human sized Fluke worms.

Irresistible -This killer in this episode is so creepy!  Mom showed it to a friend of hers who kept her eyes squeezed shut for the entire episode.   When the killer wants to shampoo Scully's hair it gives us the shivers, Scully does have great hair though.

Humbug-This is probably Mom's  favorite episode.   The circus setting is pretty and neat and its probably the funniest episode.  Plus Mr. Knutt, the dwarf manager of the trailer motel Mulder and Scully stay in, is played by Michael J. Anderson's is played by the mysterious backwards talking dwarf form one of mom's other favorite shows, Twin Peaks.

Clyde Buckman's Final Repose- A psychic who can only see how people will die.  Another super funny episode, plus Scully gets a dog although sadly his tenure on the show is short lived.

Jose Chung's From Outer Space-In our house we like the funny episodes the best, and this one is very funny.

Home-A creepy family of in-bred hillbillies with a Texas Chainsaw Masacre style dream home.  

Elegy-A bowling alley manager has a vision of a murdered women, one of a group of young women who have been killed.  The prime suspect is an autistic man who works at the bowling alley and Mulder and Scully have to look for the real culprit.  Mom really like the performance of the actor who  plays the man with autism in the episode.  She works with a lot of people with autism, and says this is a spot on performance.

Bad Blood-Vampires that just want to live like normal people, except for the one who has seen to many Vampire movies, another funny episode.

 Signs and Wonders- The X-Files explores religion and snake handling!  Plus the minister is super creepy.

Note-In our opinion its best not to watch any X-Files after season 7, 8 and 9 ugh!

Weasley's First Trip to Central Park

Over our vacation in August Weasley took his first trip to central park.  He visited the Boat house, the lake, the Bramble, and Castle by the Bramble:

Checking out all the fun things to see and do.

These two adorable Papillons where at the park cafe with their owner.

The dogs at the Le Pain Quotidien Cafe in the park nearly outnumbered the humans (the coffee and croissants where pretty great too)

After breakfast at the Cafe we walked past the fountains and the boat house and lake.

 Next we walked through the bramble the most woody section of the park, there are a lot of bird watchers there.

 

At the end of the Bramble is a castle or Fort that is very popular with the tourists.

Mom, Dad, Tubby, Norbert, and Ping used to live on the Upper East Side so after leaving the park we decided to walk through their old neighborhood and past the old apartment.

Me and Dad outside the Whitney Museum.  Mom likes this museum a lot, too bad they don't let pugs in.

This is the old building Mom, Dad, Tubby, Norbert and Ping lived in while Dad was in Graduate School.

My first trip to Central Park was so much fun I can't wait too go back!

POTP Needed for Tubby

More lumps and bumps.  Tubby needed to have a lump on his shoulder that I just noticed today needle biopsied.  When he was nine he had a grade 2 mast cell tumor removed, malignant, so I watch him very closely.  The vet saw mostly fat in her aspiration and a bit of matter that she said could be skin.   She is sending the information out to the lab and we will know by early next week if it is a mast cell tumor and will need to be removed.    Please send POTP and juju are way.

Sci Fi Saturday

Norbert's Star Trek Inspired ID: Live Long and Prosper Tag from Fetching Tags.

Our mom is a big giant nerd.  Now thanks to cafe press  we all can all be nerds too, or at least we can have nerdy t-shirts.  On August 19 mom dressed us up for a Star Trek party in honor of Star Trek creator's Gene Roddenberry's birthday.   August 19th is also coincidentally an important day in real world space exploration history, it is the anniversary of Belka's and Strelka's flight, they were Russian dogs who became some of the first creatures to survive orbital space flight.  We did a post on their adventure last year: link.   

Here are some pictures of us this year in our Star Trek t-shirts from cafe press, playing with our insignia and Tribble toys from Pugs In the Kitchen, and of course watching Some Star Trek on TV.  If your parents have on obsession of any kind like our mom does they can get you cool t-shirts from Cafe Press.  Warning, though, it is very addictive because they send you  TONS of coupons and discounts one you start ordering.

 

Worless Wednesday-Weasley and Mom

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).

Puggie Hipsters

 WE ARE BACK!!!!!

Our mom loves to shop for us, hence our bottomless wardrobes.  Her last purchase: two retro tee's from the great pug friendly shop For the Love of Pug, your peeps have gotta check this place out.  Our tees started life as children's wear before being re-cycled (or up-cycled) into doggie shirts.  Our internet research leads us to believe that Hipsters (such as the Brooklyn based human hipsters pictured here):



consider ironic retro tees an essential wardrobe component.   Now, that we have our own retro tees we figure we are hipsters too and are ready to hang out with the cool folks in Brooklyn (not too many hipster's in Jersey City.)  What do you guys think, are we too cool for school? 

Tubby's shirt pictures Batman (particularly hipster appropriate considering the current pro 99% percenter Batman movie) and reads Hangin' with a Hero

Weasley's shirt reads I Do My Own Stunts, apparently Ping gets the joke (or else she finally sees the upside of her cone of shame: she can't wear any shirts until it comes off).

Weasley has really perfect a surly adolescent James Deany gaze, very hipster appropriate.

 On a very happy, but un-related note Ping's test results came back and every lump was B-9!   Woo hoo!   We are keeping our paws crossed that Scooter and Norbert's senior wellness exams and tests come back with good results and then we will be on easy street (except mom and dad are out 2 grand for the surgery and the senior exams, growing old ain't cheap!)