The Healthy Hound Cookbook: Over 125 Easy Recipes for Healthy, Homemade Dog Food--Including Grain-Free, Paleo, and Raw Recipes! (21 page)

You and your dog can share this nutrient-packed meal made with chickpeas (garbanzo beans), a canine superfood. It’s excellent with a side dish of couscous.

YIELDS: 9 cups

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 cup (
¹
⁄
₄
" -thick) carrot slices

1 teaspoon brown sugar

1 teaspoon peeled and grated fresh ginger

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 cups cooked chickpeas

1
¹
⁄
₂
cups peeled and cubed baking potato

1 cup diced green bell pepper

1 cup (1) cut green beans

1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained

1
³
⁄
₄
cups water or vegetable stock

3 cups fresh baby spinach

1 cup light coconut milk

1. In a large nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add carrot and cook until tender, approximately 5 minutes. Stir in brown sugar, ginger, and garlic. Cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly to prevent sticking. Remove from heat.
   
2. Place mixture in a 5-quart slow cooker. Add chickpeas, potato, bell pepper, green beans, tomatoes, and water or stock. Cook on high for 6 hours or until vegetables are fork-tender.
   
3. Add spinach and coconut milk, stirring until spinach wilts. Cool before serving to dog. Refrigerate for up to 3 days.
   

Beef Stock

Although you can easily purchase canned stock or bouillon cubes, many commercial stocks include onion. It’s inexpensive and easy to make your own dog-friendly Beef Stock, which freezes well.

YIELDS: 2
¹
⁄
₂
quarts

2 carrots, cut into 1" pieces

1 pound beef stew meat

5 pounds beef marrow bones

Olive oil, as needed

1 celery rib, cut into 1" pieces (or celery tops from several ribs)

2 cloves garlic

Water, as needed

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
   
2. In a large roasting pan, spread out carrots, stew meat, and bones. Rub bones with olive oil to coat. Roast for 45 minutes, turning meat and bones halfway through, until meat and bones are browned.
   
3. Place bones, meat, and carrots in a large stockpot along with drippings and browned bits. Add celery and garlic, then top with cold water, reaching 2" over bones.
   
4. Cook stock on burner’s lowest setting for 4–6 hours. Remove from burner. Discard bones.
   
5. Using cheesecloth, strain the stock to separate the liquid from the vegetables and meat. Save these solids for another dish, for a stuffable treat toy, or for tasty toppers on your dog’s food.
   
6. Refrigerate the liquid. When cold, the fat will rise to the top of the liquid. Remove and discard this solidified fat. Freeze the stock. It’s handy to freeze it in plastic zip-top bags with 1 cup in each or in ice cube trays. Beef Stock makes a flavorful substitute for water or chicken broth in many dog recipes and also is a tasty frozen treat. Refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze in an airtight container for up to 6 months.
   

Liver Gravy

A spoonful of this tasty gravy can be a great way to encourage your dog to try new foods—put it on top of the dish you’re trying to introduce. Frozen ice cubes also make a great summer treat!

YIELDS: 3–4 cups

1 pound chicken liver, rinsed

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 cups chicken broth

1. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, cook liver in oil until browned.
   
2. Remove liver from heat and place in a blender. Add chicken broth. Pulse until puréed.
   
3. Refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze in an airtight container for up to 6 months.
   

This easy turkey gravy makes a quick accompaniment to your Thanksgiving meal, but you can also reserve it to prepare for your pooch anytime. As with all gravies, limit servings to just 1 teaspoon as a meal topper.

YIELDS: About 2 cups

2 cups pan drippings

¹
⁄
₄
cup all-purpose flour

¹
⁄
₄
cup water

1. Remove fat from the drippings by cooling drippings then skimming the fat from the top. Reserve
   ¹
   ⁄
   ₄
   cup of fat for use in this recipe.
   
2. In a large skillet, heat the
   ¹
   ⁄
   ₄
   cup fat and add flour over medium-high heat.
   
3. Stir constantly for about 1 minute to brown flour. Pour in turkey drippings and water, stirring constantly, and reduce to desired thickness.
   
4. Cool completely before serving to dogs. Use a spoonful as a meal topper. Refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze in an airtight container for up to 6 months.
   

Today, several companies offer commercial gravies to put on your dog’s food, but it’s easy to make your own healthy gravy from whole foods (and you can make some for yourself, too!). Just pour a spoonful on top of your dog’s meal for a tasty tidbit.

YIELDS: About 4 cups

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Neck and giblets from 1 turkey

1 celery rib, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

4 cups water

2 cups chicken broth

2–3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1. In a large saucepan, heat oil over medium heat, then add neck and giblets. Brown meat, then add remaining ingredients except flour.
   
2. Simmer for about 1 hour. Remove from heat.
   
3. Strain broth through a fine sieve. Skim off and discard fat.
   
4. Remove meat from bones; discard bones. Finely dice meat.
   
5. Add meat to broth with flour, stirring while reheating. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, until gravy thickens.
   
6. Remove from heat and cool before serving to dogs. Refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze in an airtight container for up to 6 months.
   

This simple sauce can be used in many different ways to enhance Rover’s mealtime. It can be a tasty topper over kibble, a flavorful addition to a KONG
^®
stuffable treat, or a topper to his commercial meal.

YIELDS: 1 cup

2 tablespoons butter or margarine

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1
¹
⁄
₄
cups Homemade Chicken Broth (see recipe in this chapter)

¹
⁄
₂
cup milk

1. In a large skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Whisk in flour and cook flour in butter for 1 minute, stirring constantly.
   
2. Add broth and milk, stirring constantly while mixture thickens (about 2 minutes). Remove from heat.
   
3. Cool before using 1 teaspoon as a topper over your dog’s food. Refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze in an airtight container for up to 6 months.
   

Although dogs with lactose intolerance can’t enjoy this gravy, you and your dog can share this gravy as a special occasion topper for your dog’s food.

YIELDS: 1
¹
⁄
₂
cups

6 slices bacon

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 cups milk

1. Fry bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crisp; remove bacon from pan and break into small bits.
   
2. Remove all but 2 tablespoons of bacon fat from skillet and discard.
   
3. Add flour to grease and whisk constantly to lightly cook flour. Pour in milk and continue to whisk as gravy thickens, allowing it to bubble before reducing heat. Add bacon bits and stir. Simmer to desired thickness.
   
4. Cool before serving 1 spoonful as a topper over your dog’s food. Refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze in an airtight container for up to 6 months.
   

Since the Middle Ages, thickened meat broth has been coaxed into forming aspic from the natural gelatin found in beef, veal, pork, poultry, and even some fish. Before modern refrigeration, it was an ingenious way to protect the dish from spoiling by sealing it off from the air. These savory jellies also made a nice presentation at mealtime. Enthusiasm for the use of aspic and gelatin in human recipes has waned, but you can bet that anything that is meat-derived will appeal to canine taste buds. Your pooches may not appreciate the elegance of an aspic dish, but you’ll have fun making this traditional meal for them.

Aspic