At 8:30 on Saturday morning, I had a brilliant idea! So brilliant, in fact, that I absolutely had to run into our bedroom, jump on the bed and wake Brandon and Pele' up to let them know!
Why don't I make Pele' some homemade treats?
When Brandon brought him home some treats the other day, he took note of the fact that we try to avoid buying stuff that has a billion ingredients...so why wouldn't we do that for our dog? The "healthy" dog treats at the grocery store have just about the same thing that the regular treats have: flour, meat mush, bone mush and lots of unpronounceable preservatives.
Thus, my brilliant 8:30 a.m. idea was born!
Pele' loves apples. Pele' also loves carrots. I had some apples in need of a use, because they were threatening to go bad. I also had some carrot pulp I had saved in the freezer (they were carrots from our garden that we had used for juicing - I didn't want to get rid of the pulp!) I'd bet veterinarians and vegetarians would approve!
Homemade Doggie Treats
Ingredients:
3 apples*
~3 tbsp water
½ cup carrot pulp
3 cups whole wheat flour
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350.
Blend the apples with water until they take on an applesaucy texture (this might take more than 3 tablespoons of water).
In a medium sized mixing bowl, mix “applesauce”, carrot pulp and flour. The mixture should be almost like cookie-batter in texture.
Line a cookie sheet with parchment and spread the batter over the sheet in a ½ inch thick layer. Scour the layer of batter into whatever size you want your treats to be.
Bake at 350 for 20 minutes, turning the pan once about 10 minutes in. When they are finished, take them out of the oven and use kitchen scissors or a pizza cutter to follow your scoured lines and cut the treats. Return to over for another 20 minutes or so, until they’re nice and crunchy. Let cool before giving them to your puppy.
*Note: You can also use leftover apple pulp from juicing apples, but you may have to add more water to the mixture.
The verdict?? Pele' loves them! Gosh, Becca. That was a brilliant idea!
