Beetroot birthday cake

With a lag, but finnaly made it to turn on the computer :) Here's the recipe for an amazing beetroot cake, which make every dog wag its tail! From the ingredients I used there came out a pretty big cake, so Nuka had 3 approaches to it, before she ate the whole thing. As a siberian husku, she's not gluttonous though, so when she's full, she stops eating (this way the 'cake' served her as a dinner for 3 days). If your pupp is a little gourmand (or you've got a lab), you might wanna adjust the proportions - use half, or even one third of the ingredients :)

What will you need:

- 10 dag chicken stomachs
- 10 dag chicken hearts
- 10 dag chicken livers
- 1 chicken leg
- 100 g white rice (0,5 cup)
- 2 carrots
- 1 leek
- 1 beetroot
- 250 g mascarpone

- treats to decorate

How-bow:

Frosting:

The best thing to start from is beetroot frosting, simply because of the time it takes a beetroot to get cooked. It took mine something between 1,5 up to 2 hours until it got tender. The time you can use to prepare other igredients. When cooked and cooled off, put it in a bowl, add mascarpone cheese and blitz with your hand blender. You can add more or less beetroot dependently on how pink you want your frosting to be. Cool in a fridge.

Layer 1:

Put chicken leg  into a pot and cover it with cold water. Bring it to a boil. After 20-25 add giblets and cook alltogether for another 20 minutes. When cooled off, debone the chicken leg and meat with gibblets grind using mincing machine. To gain a more creamy consistency I mixed all using a hand blender. It should be like a pâté (which, technically, it is).

Layer 2:

Carrots and leek cut into a very fine dice (about 0,5 cm). Bring 2 cups of water into a boil and add vegetables and rice. If you use Boil-In-Bag rice, you should cook it separatly from the vegetables, following the instruction on package and then mix them together. I added 0,5 cup of rice to my boiling veggies and cooked it at a slow simmer for 12 minutes, removing lid and stiring it from time to time. Then removed the pot from the heat and let it sit, undisturbed with the lid on, for 10 minutes .

Preheat the oven to 180°C. As a form you're going to need a round casserole vessel. Put a layer of hot rice on the bottom. Then, spread the pâté, put another layer of rice and so on. The other layers of rice don't have to be hot. It's good for the first one though, since steam should help avoid sticking to the vessel. Put casserole into the oven for 20 minutes. After that time cool it off and put for at least 30 minutes to the fridge. Spread the frosting evenly on the top and sides of the 'cake'. Decorate with doggy treats. For that I also used the leftover beetroots, from which I made chips :)

Happy birthday Nuka!

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Tomato soup with rice and medium rare entrecôte

Very easy and fast to prepare - of course, if you have some broth prepared in advance.

Ingredients:
- 1l chicken and beef stock
- 1/5 cup rice
- 1-2 celery stalks
- 2 small carrots
- tinned tomatoes (500 ml)
- 25 dag entrecôte
- colza oil

Optionally:
- crème fraîche or sour cream

I started preparation from heating the broth. Since all kinds of broth loose their quality when heated too fast or overboiled I decided to put it over a medium heat. While it was gaining temperature
I sliced the carrots and celery stalks into 0,5 cm rounds (or semi-circles), cut the beef into 2 cm dice. Once the broth has boiled I added rice and sliced veggies. Now, we've got plenty of time to pan fry our beef cubes to a nice, brown colour and leave them to rest. They need only a couple of minutes if you want them medium rare (and we're sure that your pupp does ;)). I fried mine for 3 minutes, tossed, and fried for another 3 minutes over a high heat. It's important to use a little more oil than usual - dependently on how much fat has your broth. When you notice the rice is fluffy and tender and the vegetables soft, you can add tinned tomatoes. I boiled the soup over a low heat for another 6 minutes. At the end I added beef and the remaining oil from the pan. Effects? See for yourself ;)

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Duck and turkey liver dumplings

We're starting with something crazy! Since, in most of cases the leftovers are bad for pupps, and we can't stand the idea of not giving something tasty to our dog after dinner, we should think about it before starting cooking. The ingredients of many dishes I prepare for Nuka are based on a meal I cook for us - I need to do some adjustments first though, so the food was suitable for a dog. Just like in case of these Polish-style dumplings. Before adding salt, spices and herbs part of the stuffing i put into another bowl. The same thing i did with the dough.

Stuffing:
- 60 dag duck meat (any part of duck - boiled or oven-baked)
- 40 dag turkey liver (fried for 4-5 minutes)
- 10 dag millet
- 50 g flat leaf parsley
- 4  carrots
- 1 root parsley
- 1 leek
- 1 celeriac
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1 egg


First, I boiled water and cooked carrots, leek, celeriac and root parsley until soft. In the meantime I fried livers quickly over a high heat. They don't need much time. You can take them out of the pan as soon as they gain brown colour (usually it takes about 3 minutes) and leave them to rest and cool off.


After that, I cooked the millet. I started mincing from the duck legs roasted in oven for our dinner a couple days before (As usually - I had some of them backed with no use of spices or whatsover).

Then I minced fried livers and cooked millet and veggies. At the end I added finely chopped flat leaf parsley, olive oil and whisked egg and mixed all the ingredients until smooth. It's good to put the filling to fridge for at least 15 minutes before start making dumplings.



You can make the filling also for yourself. All you need to do is spice them up a little. I used salt, ground pepper, a pinch of cayenne pepper, herbs de Provence and a little bit more majoram. For us I also added diced onion, which I fried on butter.


Dough:
- 6 cups wheat flour
- 1 tbs butter
- 1 egg
- approx. 3 cups water

Warm up the water until it's lukewarm. Pour it into a bowl. Slowly add the flour, than butter and egg and knead until all the ingredients are well combined and the dough smooth and pliable. Roll out, cut out circles using a baking cutter or a glass. Put batter mounds onto the circles and close it forming semicircles.

Boil the dumplings for about 7-8 minutes or until they float.

Preparing the dough for dumplings for yourself you should add 3 tsp of salt.


For Nuka we sprinkled the dumplings with olive oil.

For us we chose grated parmesan cheese and diced prosciutto ;) Dumplings should be moist and light. We managed to eat 8 pieces each and didn't feel full at all. Nuka ate 4 - we don't want to spoil her ;)

Enjoy!

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Hello world!

I decided to start this blog to share my two biggest passions with you - cooking and dogs! Both have been growing over the years and eventually resulted in me making more and more attempts to make my dog's - Nuka - diet a little bit more diversified and varied than simply dry or wet dog food. Because, just like people - every dog is different. Some dogs benefit from chewing on steaks, another from a diet rich in veggies, and other - should avoid dairy products. Important here are not only the weight, the age or breed, but also the  susceptibility to allergies and intolerance of certain nutrients like dairies, some kinds of grains or (even!) meats. In different manner, you should feed your sports dog, a lapdog or a guard dog living in a kennel. Choosing the right method for feeding your dog we should also take into account the physiological state of the dog (eg. pregnancy, convalescence after a surgery or gastrointestinal diseases, etc.). With the reserve we should  approach the various supplements and enhancements. However, in some cases they actually may be administered (eg. joint support supplements for large breeds or biotin for troubles with coat or claws), feeding them to our pup (eg. calcium supplements) may do more harm than good. Properly composed and selected diet should meet all the needs of the dog, without the use of pharmaceuticals. Remember that the dog's diet affects not only it's physical health but also it's mood and behavior!

I hope that everyone who happens to run across this blog, will find here something for his or hers pooch.

Enjoy! :) 

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