Ghosty

I was just over at a great blog where the dogs are possessed! VERY COOL!

I'm not possessed, but sometimes I'm a ghost!

hoooooo - BOY!

Sorry I've been gone so long, fans - there's been a whole lot of barkin' going on in every direction and I'm as worn out as a three-legged dog trying to herd a bunch of pole cats!

FIRST I want to share a photo of my girlfriend, Sammie - oh my oh my! Will you look at that pretty girl SMILE! No, you can NOT have her address! She's MINE.













Here I am flickin my tongue at her, trying to tempt her to come on up and snuggle.













But not my baby. She's as pure and demure as a little hottie can be. She just looks away in embarrassment.













Now HERE is a girl I could take home to Mama!

Meat Pie for Baily!

Baily my friend, you only gotta' woof and ol' Jake will get the recipe for you. Here it goes.

SHE WHO COOKS says that making the dough is much easier when you're cooking for dogs. Instead of making the dough tendar and crumbly, you want it to hold together and be a little tough. Tough? If you ask me, those humans just have pitifully weak jaw muscles.

Cook up a pound of ground meat, drain (reserving the fat) add a 1/2 c of cooked peas and a T of nutritional yeast - set aside to cool.

Take two cups of whole wheat flour and add 3 T of good animal fat - (The reserved fat from the cooked meat is fine here - if there isn't enough, SHE uses duck fat that she gets in a pot from her butcher, but she says GOOD lard or rendered beef or chicken fat is fine - just NO BACON fat due to the nitrates and stuff. Could use flax seed oil, too - but it doesn't have that really yummy smell!) and add an egg or two, depending on size. Before you add the egg, reserve a T of egg white. Mix it all up. You want a dough that's wet enough to hold together, but dry enough to roll out on a bread board. SHE usually throws a couple of T of dried parsley into the dough, too.

Roll out the dough to about 1/8" thick, and cut it in rounds with a biscuit cutter or a water glass. Near the center of each dough round put a spoon full of meat. How much you use depends on how big your dough round is... do one to experiment, and you figure out if its too much or not enough. Then just flip the one side over the other, so you have a half circle, and use fork tines to crimp the dough edges. put them on a greased cookie sheet, beat the egg white w/ a few drops of water, and paint it over the top side of the turnover. Bake them at 350-375 for about 20-30 minutes... until the crust is nice and golden.

Let them cool on a rack, eat, and repeat from the beginning!

Nutrition: SHE is no food scientist, but as close as she can figure, these are about 25% protein. Commercial food is typically 19-20; the Cornell studies say 35% should be the target, wolves get 54%. So even if SHE is off, these shouldn't be unacceptably low. In other words, they're an occasional meal, not just a snack food. I get them for picnics mostly. SHE says she's not happy with the calcium, but do I care?
NO I DO NOT!

Friends & Food!

Or maybe it's Food & Friends. Whatever!






Wow, what a DAY! Here's my friend Sami and her person, Sami's belly is fat cause she ate part of my dinner!

The day started with a bang - I got to go to the SF Hound Lounge again (man, I LOVE that place!), and then my person picked me up and before I knew it, we were off across the SF Bay Bridge, and going for a visit! I couldn't believe it when we got to the house and I picked up the trail of Sami; she came to visit me months ago when I was just a small wag of pup, I've never been to her house before. The people say she's blind, deaf, arthritic and incontinent; all I know is that we had LOTS of fun and although she always uses the ramps, she did a good job of chasing after me and playing.

The part I didn't like so much is that my person brought my dinner, and I had to share it with Sami. Not like I was hungry or anything, my belly was full, but it was so yummy I didn't really want to share.

I'd never had this dinner before: she made me meat pies! Well, meat pie. I only got one, and Sami ate the other. Boy oh boy! I could smell the chicken fat in the crust, and when I bit in it was full of hamburger and potatoes and green beans! Man that was good! She said she made it because it was easy to take to work and keep in the fridge so we could go visiting right as soon as she picked me up, whatever! I just hope she makes it again soon!

Barking Good Yogurt

(Because ONE of MOI is NOT enuff!)

OK, I've gotten a couple of emails, so I'll post mom's yogurt recipe. I've watched pretty carefully and I know how she does it.

2 quarts of milk (she uses non-fat)
1/4 c instant dry milk powder (makes it thick and creamy)

Mix them together and heat them in a BIG pot (milk that starts to boil expands and goes over the edge FAST! be sure you stay out of the splash zone!) Heat to 180 degrees, or until the skin forms.

Cool to between 90 and 115 degrees, mix in about 1/4 cup of unflavored yogurt. (check the label, choose yogurt with active cultures, avoid pectin.)

Pour it out into containers, cover loosely, put in oven with just the light on. Cuddle a kitchen towel around them to help hold the heat in.

Wait 3-12 hours, take out of the oven, tighten lids, put in the fridge. After 3 hours it won't get thicker, just tangier. We like it best at 3 hours.

Don't forget to start a new batch before you use it all up!

Sometimes Mom puts coffee filters in a sieve, rests it over a bowl, and puts the yogurt in the sieve to drain (in the fridge). This separates out the whey and makes it thick and creamy - perfect for making spreads, dips, or MY favorite - frozen yogurt!!

Don't throw the whey away, use it in place of plain water for cooking grains (rice, oatmeal etc) or for liquid in soups or other cooking. The water-soluble protein is in the whey, so worst case, use it to water your plants. Don't waste it down the drain.... I like to drink it too - but not at night because it makes me pee a lot and I hate to keep getting up when I've got a good snooze going, you know? Sometimes Mom freezes it into ice cubes and uses it in her breakfast blender drinks.

Shaking a leg. Or lifting it.

There comes a time when a dog needs to get out in the main stream, to bark and be counted. As I approach the anniversary of my birth I think alot about who I am, what I want, and why I get breakfast and dinner, but no lunch.



It's time for me to make my mark on the world, and to be treated with a little more respect. Mostly I stay pretty close, I don't play in traffic, and I always lick my humans hands in the morning when she wakes up. I'm perfectly willing to lick her face, but she scrunches it up and mutters things about what else I've been licking lately, and generally behaves in an ungracious and undignified way about the entire thing.














Soon I'll be stepping out into the world of adults, to take my rightful place in the spotlight.
















But right now, I'd like to focus some attention on how to get some lunch around here!

FOOD FOOD FOOD!

I REALLY LIKE EATING!!! Frankly, its not as great as playing is, but if I've got a little time on my paws I LIKE TO EAT.

Luckily, I've been eating all human food since I was a pup of 10 weeks, so I don't need to worry about the pet food recall.

This morning Mom kinda' ran out. I mean, I had a nice breakfast, but I was STILL HUNGRY! Especially when I saw what she was eating.



Blueberries and oatmeal and her home-made yogurt! oh wow! I like her yogurt best, it's thick and creamy (even if she does keep insisting its 2% and not cream) and it doesn't have that sour taste that the stuff she gets at the market has. Thats not so bad for her, she adds sugar. But she won't let me have sugar.

I was very nice, I just sat and looked sad and licked my bowl cleaner than clean. Then I stretched and showed her that I'm thin and not a bit of fat on me! Finally she looked at her bowl and then at me, and put some in a bowl for me! HURRAH! She added a little more yogurt (yummy yummy yummy) to balance the protein, she said, and gave it to me!!!

IT'S GOOD TO BE A DOG!!!