Weekly Drool Recipes

It’s the beginning of August, the unofficial halfway mark of summer.  At this point in the season, you and your dog are either reveling in the sunshine and fun summer activities or wishing September 22^nd would hurry up and get here. No matter which one of these categories you and your dog fit into, today Best Bully Sticks gives you a recipe that is full of summer fun for your dog and provides relief from the hot, hot heat.

This week’s drool worthy creation comes from our friend Doggy Dessert Chef and her ingenious yet simple recipes. Her Chicken Carrot Chilly Bones are only 3 ingredients and a few hours away from making your dog a very happy pup!

Ingredients
1/2 cup shredded Chicken
32 ounces Plain Yogurt
2 Carrots, shredded

Directions
Mix all ingredients until well blended. Pour into molds and freeze.

Thank you to Doggy Dessert Chef for her Chicken Carrot Chilly Bones recipe and the use of her photos. 

Check out all the great Weekly Drool Recipes on the BBS Blog! Summer recipes are a-plenty every Wednesday throughout the season! Fresh Watermelon Salad, Bully Stick Popsicles and Blueberry Pie Dog Treats are just a few great summer recipes that are sure to please your pup this summer.

If you don’t know what offal is, it might make you squeamish. Best Bully Sticks doesn’t want to gross you out, but offal is all of the parts of poultry, or any animal, that you take out of the bird to cook it. Yes, that means the internal organs. For instance, when you’re cooking a whole turkey for Thanksgiving, you take out the heart, liver, kidney and neck meat. It may sound strange, but these “leftovers” are actually great for making dog treats!

Lucy Norris proved this to us with her Organic “Sweet Offal” Cookies for Dogs. Lucy, author of Pickled: Preserving a World of Tastes and Traditions, and academic foodie, is also a very loving doggy mom. She also writes the BrinyLife blog to document her adventures with fresh foods. Her dogs, Cassius and Roxy are always pictured Lucy’s photos and always look interested in sharing whatever Lucy is whipping up in her kitchen. BBS came across Lucy’s organic recipe for cookies using the offal she saved in the freezer from her last Thanksgiving turkey. BBS is glad to feature Lucy’s original post for Organic “Sweet Offal” Cookies for Dogs!

I’m a dog mom.  That means that my dogs Cassius and Roxy are like children to me.  I cook most of our “people meals” at home but I’ve never made homemade dog food or treats.  We’ve always fed our dogs very high quality food so I never really felt it was necessary.

During a recent visit to Texas, my mom and I got to talking about a recipe for dog treats she created for her doberman pinscher Suzy.  Suzy had not been feeling well and was off her food, but she really loves my mom’s homemade cookies.  I decided today to make a batch of dog cookies.  It’s based on my mom’s recipe but I used all organic ingredients, and instead of store bought ground turkey, I used up the organic turkey offal that has been sitting in my freezer since Thanksgiving.  This cookie recipe is very simple to make, and most of the ingredients I had on-hand without a trip to the market.  The dogs were willing and enthusiastic taste testers so this recipe seems like a winner.

Ingredients
1 large organic sweet potato or jewel yam, baked and mashed (or a 15 oz can pureed sweet potato or pumpkin)
Offal from 1 organic turkey, baked and diced (heart, liver, kidney, neck meat- no bones!)
Handful organic Italian parsley leaves and stems (about 1/3 cup) roughly chopped
2 organic, free-range large eggs
3/4 cup organic old fashioned oats (I used Bob’s Red Mill)

Directions
1. Heat the oven to 350 F. 

2. Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and process until ingredients are pureed. 

3. Chill the mixture in the freezer for about 5 minutes.

4. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Using a small ice cream scoop, spoon out mounds the size of a heaping tablespoon and place onto the sheet -making sure the mounds are about an inch apart. 

5. Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden brown on the bottom.  Transfer to a wire rack to cool.  The cookies will also harden as they cool- but not too much.  Depending on the size of your cookie sheet, you may need to bake the cookies in two batches.

6. Allow the cookies to completely cool and then transfer to a airtight container or baggie and store refrigerated.  Your dogs will thank you.

Makes 30 Cookies

Thank you to Lucy Norris at the BrinyLife blog for sharing her great recipe! And thanks to Cassius and Roxy just for being adorable!

Check out all the great Weekly Drool Recipes on the BBS Blog! Summer recipes are a-plenty every Wednesday throughout the season! Fresh Watermelon Salad, Bully Stick Popsicles and Blueberry Pie Dog Treats are just a few great summer recipes that are sure to please your pup this summer.

One of the most exciting moments on the Best Bully Sticks Healthy Dog Blog is discovering the ingenious recipes that dog lovers whip up in their homes! What’s even more wonderful is that they give us the opportunity to share them with you!

That being said, this Wednesday’s trip into Best Bully Stick’s recipe book is a gift from the blog Sliver & Chalk. This blog, created and curated by Megan VanSchaick, a freelance writer and a lover of whimsy and art. She posts many craft projects and recipes, including the one she shared with us, Rustic Root Vegetable Dog Treats.

Here is Megan's original post along with wonderful photos of her process and her beautiful dogs, Draya and Bronx.

“A few months ago, in the midst of my sourdough bread flurry, I decided to try my hand at homemade dog treats. I’ve never felt great about dog biscuits.  Also, we have lots of veggie scraps in this house, even with keeping a stock bag in the freezer. And my dogs love fruits and vegetables. Draya would shank you in the back to get a piece of banana; Bronx seems to feel the same about carrots.

I had a kitchen disaster this week, while attempting beet chips, which led to lots of raw beet scraps. And I always keep a jar of chopped carrot peels in the freezer. Then there was that lone banana, staring at me from atop the flour tin, accusing me of not eating it before those spots showed up. Whatever could be done?

Dog biscuits. (Don’t you think Rustic Root Vegetable Dog Treats sounds so much more Martha-y than Vegetable Scrap Dog Biscuits? Me, too.)

There are a billion dog treat recipes on the web (beware: many of these contain a lot of sugar and salt), but I use a super simple base that I can alter according to what veggies I’m using.

My base is just cornmeal, flour, a bit of oil or applesauce, and egg. Everything else is determined by what I have on hand, usually. Read more

Summer time means grilling time! When you fire up the grill for you and your family, don’t forget Fido! Best Bully Sticks knows these Bacon-Cheese-Barley Burgers are going to have your pup’s sniffer going crazy well before they’re ready to eat. Your dog will feel truly apart of the summer time festivities with this great, drool-worthy burger recipe!

Ingredients:
1/2 cup pearl barley (If you don’t have barley, substitute 1-cup white or brown rice.)
2 cups fat-free chicken broth
2 slices lean bacon
1 large egg
1/2 cup dried bread crumbs
1/2 cup shredded cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese

Directions:
1. Over high heat, bring barley and chicken broth to a boil.

2. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until barley is tender (about 20 minutes.) Drain excess liquid and let cool in a medium bowl.

3. While the barley is cooking, cook the bacon over medium heat in a large nonstick skillet until bacon is crisp (about 4 minutes). Keep bacon fat for cooking the burgers.

4. Finely chop bacon and add to the cooled barley.

5. Mix in egg, bread crumbs and cheese.  After mixture is evenly combined, divide into 4 patties.

6. Reheat the bacon fat and cook the burgers for 4 minutes per side on medium heat.

(top image and recipe courtesy of Rachel Ray)

Check out all the great Weekly Drool Recipes on the BBS Blog! Summer recipes are a-plenty every Wednesday throughout the season! Fresh Watermelon Salad, Bully Stick Popsicles and Blueberry Pie Dog Treats are just a few great summer recipes that are sure to please your pup this summer.

Summer is fully upon us and many areas of the country are going through early heat waves! Best Bully Sticks headquarters in Richmond, VA has experienced first hand the hot and humid temperatures and we’re soaking up every bit of air conditioning and cool drinks as we can!  Now imagine this: what if you had to deal with all the heat, and you were covered in a thick layer of fur! Sounds pretty uncomfortable right? That’s what your pup is putting up with right now!

To help your pup beat the record setting heat this summer, make sure you give him plenty of water, keep him indoors and to be extra nice, make him a cold treat! This week’s Weekly Drool Recipe comes from an ingenious reader and customer, Deb Eldredge! Deb, a DVM, lives with three Belgian Tervurens, with whom she participates in just about every dog sport! She writes about Belgians for Examiner.com, which is where her recipe first appeared. Thank you so much Deb for sharing this recipe and the great photos of your Belgians! Deb used this recipe for her Belgians, but any dog will love this icy and tasty Bully Stick Popsicle recipe!

“This recipe is easy to make with ingredients you may already have at home and gives your Belgian the added benefit of some chewing exercise. By using organic yogurt and bully sticks from grass fed South American or US beef you are also providing a chemical free treat.

Make up 2 cups of low salt beef bouillon. Because Belgians tend to cool off by panting and only sweat via their paws, they don't lose the large amounts of electrolytes that people and horses do when sweating. Low sodium is healthier for your Belgian.

Mix this in a large bowl with about half a large container of organic low fat plain or vanilla yogurt. The low fat version is healthier than the no fat versions that generally contain some additives. Stoneyfield is a good and readily available brand. You can add more or less yogurt in the future as you see what consistency your treats end up and what mix your own Belgian prefers.

Put about 1/2 cup of the mix into small bathroom cups. You could also use popsicle molds. Then add a four-inch bully stick (Best Bully Sticks is a favorite brand). Put the cups into a pan to hold them upright and set on a shelf in your freezer. Leave overnight.

The next day, the cups will have hardened but aren't as hard as ice cubes. It may be easiest to simply cut the cups and pull them off before feeding. Ideally your Belgians will eat these in their bowls but that is not always the case, so be prepared for a little mess. This makes a great "cooling off" treat for Belgian of all ages from seniors to puppies.”

Thanks, Deb!

If you have your own version of a bully stick recipe, we’d love to hear more about it! You could be featured in the BBS Weekly Drool Recipe as well!

Check out all the Best Bully Sticks Weekly Drool Recipes!