Puppy muffins

Well here I sit, supervising my kids in the kiddie pool at the end of May. I did not expect to fall into "get nothing done" mode quite so soon, but here I am with a mountain of clean laundry just sitting there, and we're hanging out outside!

We did run a lot of errands today actually, plus I made these very effective puppy muffins!! And yes... I do mean muffins for dogs... they would be disgusting if you or I ate them. In fact just a warning, you'll need a decently strong stomach to actually get these made as hydrated dog food is surprisingly potent in odour.

Ground beef was on sale so I bought like 5 lbs of it... I was going to use it all on dog treats, but I chickened out when I realized how cheap that was for actual hamburgers. So kaiser (or German shepherd puppy) was shafted of 4/5'ths of the beef that was supposed to be his! I feel like he was okay with it in the end though.  He actually somehow managed to roll over from a sitting position without getting hurt he wanted it so badly! Like... rolling over mid-air some how...I was pretty impressed.

I'll start off by saying that I am both a dog-food-purist, and a creative cook... so our dog doesn't get table scraps but he still gets totally spoiled!  He's also heavily into his training, being such a smarty pants, so it's a stage of life where we go through a lot or treats. Unfortunately most treats for dogs, are just as much junk food as human junk food. Nothing but empty calories and often harmful ones. And good quality wholesome treats are flipping expensive. So as hoity toytie as this all sounds, it's actually cause I'm cheap and creative. ;)

I started by not wanting to make something with grains. It seems like all the home-made dog treat recipes out there are either made with whole wheat flour, or sweet potato... both starches... Dogs are carnivores and grains aren't good for them.  unfortuntately most dog  kibbles are also full of fillers. Our dogs kibble however, is like gold (both in price and in nutritional value) so why would I back-track by adding fillers to his treats when I could use the kibble!?

I made a dog safe bone-broth which I used to re-hydrate the kibble (you could just use water too).

From there, I stirred in the 1 lb ground beef, 3 raw eggs and 2 cups of cottage cheese that was WELL past it's expiration date.

 

A little Google into the beneficial spices and herbs for dogs, and presto! You've got a muffin!

This recipe makes 24 muffins. I liked both the silicone liners and the parchment ones. Paper would likely just bleed all the meat juices, but feel free to try! Also, similar to a steak or meat loaf, you  need to let these muffins sit for a while after baking to reabsorb the fluids.

Also, blender or food processor can be used interchangeably.

If you don't have either, make your mix the night before so that the kibble has more time to hydrate. The blender is simply because I was impatient and wanted to get things done quicker, by breaking up the softened kibble.

Best of luck! Please share your own experimental changes and how they went over! :)