Frosty Friday!

I would like to dedicate today's post to my good friend Lori over at What Remains Now. One of Lori's greyhounds, Casper, is my cousin. Yeah I know, everyone is my cousin. I blame Grandad..... But I digress. Lori has made this very hot week so much better for me. She writes a fantastic blog about painting, crafting, her life and most importantly, her 3 Greyhounds!! You really should visit if you haven't already met her.

A couple of days ago, Lori wrote about making frozen treats for Casper, Freedom & Nikki. One of the ingredients was pumpkin, which immediately caught Mum's eye. (Mum is obsessed with canned  pumpkin, which can be quite hard to come by in the UK) Mum was inspired! We are in the middle of a mini heatwave here in the UK, and while I show no distress in the heat, Mum is keen to keep me cool.

Out of Lori's ingredients, we only had pumpkin (and I don't like peanut butter) so Mum thought she would improvise.........

......and came up with this. This is a very simple frozen treat made by mixing together skimmed milk and pumpkin. You can use soya or rice milk if you are dairy-intolerant. 300ml of milk and 3 table spoons of pumpkin make two small pie tins of mix.

Oooh wwhat is this?!!

Aaagghh! Mumth  meh thung is thuck...!

Well that went down well!

I'm all cool and relaxed now.....

Mum now has another obsession; Lolly making! Here in the UK we don't have Frosty Paws or anything like it, as far as I know, so these home made treats are fantastic......and very cheap!  They went down so well, Mum made some more....

This is the rather exotic, skimmed milk, coconut and melon...

I only have one left, so I am sending Mum off to the kitchen to make more....not that she needs any encouragement.....  Today we are thinking something with apple....

Thank you very much Lori for a great idea! Stay cool and safe everyone. I'm off to see Ganny, so catch you all later

Deccy xx

Nearly Wordless Wednesday 5/12

I've been baking again.....

Merry Christmas Biscuits everyone...... help yourselves!

Declan the Chef goes raw!

Mum has been thinking about homemade and raw food for me for sometime now. She likes the idea of both, although for some weird human reason worries a little about giving me raw food. WTF?! I'm a dog Mum. You think Mr Caveman used to nip out and get a tin of Pedigree Chum for his doggy? Sheesh!  Anyway, I digress. Several of our blogging friends who enjoy the delights of raw food will have heard Mum moan that it's really hard for us to get raw meat for pets. It seems it is not hard; Mum simply wasn't looking hard enough. When we were on holiday recently Mums found a supplier and having got a brand name, have been able to source it locally. Again weirdly, Mum feels more confident about feeding me this stuff. Never try and understand a human.....!

We've been able to buy the raw mince in rabbit, beef, tripe, fish and chicken. 

 Mum has been dividing the packs into three and mixing it with a reduced amount of kibble....and I LOVE it! I can also report that my bottom has been behaving beautifully, so no worries on that front!

Now for the homemade bit. Rather fortunately for us, my small but perfectly formed friend Dachshund Nola wrote a post about the benefits of homemade food. Nola has a lot of allergies, so commercial food is pretty much off limits for her. Mum was really inspired by Nola's recipes, so decided to try something similar for me. Mum decided she didn't have the storage space for me to go totally homemade, so again she been mixing it with a reduced amount of kibble. 

For our first attempt Mum used celery, carrots, apple, cabbage and cooked potato.

She grated everything bar the potatoes in the food processor 

......And mixed it all together.

Finally she mixed in one pack of raw pet mince - in this case, rabbit.

Mum divides this into 6 portions and adds it to my kibble. She has made another batch using a mixed bag of squash, broccoli and cauliflower, an apple, celery, carrot and half a tin of chopped pineapple. She added raw beef mince to this. 

At this early stage, Mum can't say what the benefits are, other than I really like it, it isn't costing us anymore and she knows I am getting some fresh vegetables, which can't be a bad thing. She likes the idea that I'm getting some raw meat too. Makes me feel all manly...... Grrrrrrrrr!!!!

Cooking with Declan

Welcome to another Cooking With Declan slot!

If there is one thing that my Mum really loves, it's foraging. Now, before your imaginations run riot, what I mean is, searching fields and hedgerows for wild food stuffs. Most commonly this happens in Autumn when we go out and pick Blackberries and Sloes. Mum makes several bottles of Sloe Gin which we keep for Christmas. Okay.... We keep some if it for Christmas!  She has a romantic notion of going out before breakfast to collect mushrooms from the fields, but Other Mum says she is not allowed until she has been on an identification course, as she will probably end up killing us!

At this time of year Mum loves to go along our favourite canal walk to pick Wild Garlic (Ramsons)  Even an idiot less experienced person like Mum can't fail to recognise this stuff; you smell it long before you reach it!

Here in the UK, the season lasts from about mid-April to end-May

This is me in my lovely new coat. (The Wild Garlic is behind me....!)

This is a duck we saw on the canal - you can just make out her newly hatched ducklings next to her!

Anyway, I digress, Back to the garlic.

Once Mum has a large bag of it, we are rarely allowed to eat anything else! One of her favourite recipes is for Wild Garlic Pesto. It is really easy to make and very tasty.

You will need:

80 g wild garlic leaves (stalks removed)

50 g parmesan (or similar hard) cheese

50 g pine nuts

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

100 ml olive oil + some more for topping up the jar

You can use any nuts or seeds that you like, Mum often uses Walnuts instead of pine nuts.

Basically grab your food processor and grate the cheese. Replace the grater with the blade attachment and put in half of all the ingredients, blend until smooth and gradually add the remaining ingredients and continue to blend. Place the pesto in steralised jars. Cover the top with olive oil. This recipe will make about enough to fill a 300g jar. It will keep for a couple of months in the fridge.

Mum hasn't tried it, but has read that if you make the pesto minus the cheese it will keep for a year if refrigerated. You then just grate the cheese and add as needed. 

Mum hasn't made any Pesto yet. She plans on going back to our garlic patch next week when she is back from Ganny's. Have I mentioned she is going to Ganny's WITHOUT me.?!

With our current batch of leaves, Mum has been making Wild Garlic Mayonnaise for everyone that we know! You can make your own Mayo from scratch, obviously, but really, isn't life a little short?!

Anyway, grab a jar of your favourite Mayo and put in a bowl. Add lemon juice to taste. Finely chop about 8-10 wild garlic leaves per 750ml jar of Mayo and stir in. Easy and really really good!

Well I do hope you've enjoyed today's recipes. Whether or not I speak to you before next week sometime will depend largely on Other Mum, who is being left in charge! I have mentioned I'm being abandoned, haven't I?.......................

Declan the Chef

Had all gone to plan, I was intending to have a regular slot showcasing doggy treats - both of my own invention and from my doggy cookbook christmas present. However, the best laid plans and all that stuff.....

Some of you will know, (some will be trying to forget..) that over recent months I have had intermittent Exploding Bum Issues (EBI). Currently I am on a very bland "back to basics" diet, and touch wood, no explosions for 2 weeks now. Mum says if all is well in a weeks time she will introduce other foods one at a time to see how I cope. We are going to start with mashed carrot or potato. The excitement could very well prove too much...hmmmmm. 

So..... If I can't cook for myself, now that I have the outfit, I might as well cook for Mums.

I decided to go with the all- American classic - Meatloaf. I may well be on dodgy ground here, what with so many of my friends living over the Pond, so I hope you approve!

Ingredients

2lbs mince beef

1 large onion

3 cloves of garlic

2 tbs chopped parsley

2oz white bread, crusts removed

1 tbs mustard powder

2tbs Worcester sauce

5floz white wine

1 egg

seasoning

Method

Pretty much, just blend everything together in a food processor. Start by putting the bread in on its own, reducing to fine crumbs & remove. Then the onion, garlic and parsley. Blitz until they are very finely chopped. Then add the mince followed by all the other ingredients.

You may want to get your humans to help with the above... I found having quite long toe nails made it a bit hazardous.....

Pack the mixture in a loaf tin. I made a simple vine tomato sauce, just using cherry tomatoes, a good virgin olive oil and seasoning, reducing it over a low heat in a saucepan.  I poured this over the meatloaf before placing it in a bain-marie and cooking at 150 degrees centigrade for 2 hours. I think the tomato sauce helps keep the meat moist.  I then let it rest, covered in foil for 20 mins. (It was quite hard not to eat it, at this point..)

Traditionally, I believe, meatloaf is served with mashed potato, but my friends, this is Yorkshire! And what do Yorkshire folk eat with everything? Yorkshire Puddings of course! Just click the link if you'd like the recipe.

Meatloaf served with roast potatoes, cauliflower cheese and Yorkshire puddings.

I do hope I haven't incensed my American pals too much. Perhaps one of you could get your own back, by posting your recipe for Stotty cake!

Make me Giggle in February!