Baking: Human and Dog Treats!

In my last post, I mentioned I baked dog treats for Dexter's birthday party.  I love to bake and I love my dogs, so it's a win-win situation for me (and the dogs).  I figured maybe someone out there might be a little weird like me and enjoy baking for pets, so here's my recipe for beef and cheddar biscuits:

Ingredients!
1 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup margarine
3/4 cup cornmeal
2 tsp white sugar
2 tsp beef bouillon granules
1/2 cup milk
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 egg
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup boiling water

1) Preheat your oven to 325.  Combine the oats, margarine, and boiling water.  Let this butter oatmeal stand for about 10 minutes and either grease your cookie sheets or line them with parchment paper.  I went with the parchment paper route because clean up is way easier.

2) Mix in the other ingredients and then add the flour one cup at a time until a stiff dough is formed.

3) Knead the dough, pat it out to about half an inch or so, and cut it up into whatever cute shapes you want.  I still don't have a bone-shaped cutter, so I used a Michigan-shaped cutter John's mom gave me (just the LP, sorry Yoopers).  Place your biscuits about an inch apart and bake 'em for about 35-45 minutes, or until golden brown.

This made quite a few Michigan-shaped biscuits, so you can throw them in a Ziploc and you're set with homemade treats for a while (depending on the piggyness of your dog).  They're Dexter and Chewie tested and approved for taste and Amanda approved for super baking easiness.  I also made some peanut butter based treats, but wasn't very happy with how dry the dough was and not easy to spread out and cut, so I won't bother passing on that recipe and will continue on my search for a second dog biscuit recipe.

Say Yes to Michigan-shaped dog treats!

Since I couldn't let the dogs have all the fun, I also made some human treats: smores bars!  I love smores and so far haven't been allowed to build fires in the yard due to fear of lighting our trees on fire and ending up burning down the neighborhood.  So, I had to settle and make some bars, which I'm happy to say, were a huge hit and whet my smore appetite (OK, I lie... such a thing is not possible).  For those of you out there who can't have a fire or don't want to deal with a fire or just want to make a bunch of smores to have on hand for smores attacks, here's the recipe:

Ingredients!

7 graham crackers, broken into one-inch pieces
6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled
3 tbsp light brown sugar
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp salt
1.5 cups milk chocolate chips
2 cups mini marshmallows

1) First of all, melt the butter and set it aside to cool.  I always forget to do that and panic when I have hot butter.  So do that now!!  Then adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat your oven to 325 and grease (or do a foil-sling (see below) and grease that) an 8" baking dish.

2) Process the graham crackers in a food processor to fine, even crumbs.  Maybe about 30 seconds.  Toss in the sugar, flour, salt, and pour in the butter.  Pulse all this until it's nice and combined.  Sprinkle it into your dish, flatten it down into a crust, and bake it for about 12-15 minutes, or until it's starting to brown.

3) Straight from the oven, sprinkle the chips over top of the crust and let them sit and get all soft and squishy for about 5 minutes.  Spread your melty chips over the crust and go ahead and lick the spatula if you're done with it.  Who can resist a chocolate-covered spatula?  I cannot.  Spread the marshmallows on top of that and stick it in the fridge until the chocolate is set (about an hour).

4) Now adjust an oven rack to about 10 inches from the broiler element and heat the broiler.  I have two settings - "Lo" and "Hi".  "Lo" worked fine for me.  Broil the bars until the tops of your marshmallows have slightly browned.  I made two batches and the first took about two minutes.  The second took about six.  Just watch them like a smore hawk and it'll be OK.

5) Let your bars cool (you might have to stick them back in the fridge depending on how warm it is in your kitchen) and then chop them up (see handy Pam knife tip below).  You can make 16 nice-sized bars, 8 big bars, 4 greedy-sized bars, or maybe one you-have-a-problem-sized bar.  Make sure to test at least one... you know, for quality control.  :)

My smore bars straight from the oven, still chillin' in their foil sling.  I've got to learn to take better photos...

Now, for some tips my "The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book" (best baking book ever... or at least that I've discovered in my few years of baking...) (also, if you're going to buy it, buy it on Amazon unless you have an awesome coupon from Border's... sorry Border's, but if you don't want to have to close all your stores, how can you charge full price always and never have anything in stock?).

Tip Number One: Foil Sling.  Get your pan.  Get your foil.  Tear off a foil sheet and lay it in the pan horizontally, with enough extra to stick up over the sides.  Tear off another foil sheet and lay it vertically, again with enough extra to stick up over the sides.  Make sure it's all snug in the pan, like a nice foil liner.  Now spritz it with your Pam.  When your bars (of any kind, it doesn't just have to be smores!) are done, you can pop up the sling, gently pull down the sides, and bam!  There's your whatever lying there all ready to be cut up.  No digging it out of a pan!  No bottoms permanently seared to the pan and your treat horribly disfigured!  Plus, the pan is probably clean enough that you can easily use it for batch number two or just toss it back into the cupboard.  *rejoice!*

Vertical foil (please excuse my weird half picture, half Paint creation)

Horizontal foil

Tip Number Two: Spray your knife with Pam!  Especially with the melty little marshmallows, you don't want gross goo all over your knife, gumming up the works and desecrating your bars.  So, spray your knife with Pam and it'll glide right through them.  Seriously.  I didn't have one marshmallow string connected to my knife.  Easy peasy!

Doesn't stuff like that make you hate yourself?  Like, why didn't I think of that?  It's so simple!  It's stuff that helps me and hopefully it'll help someone else.  With all the time you save not having to dig out bars, crying into messed up bars, cleaning up pans and sticky, gross knives, think of all the time you can spend eating!  *cabbage patch victory dance*

So, those are my two recipes.  A hit by dogs and humans alike.  Some humans tasted the dog treats and said they were "bland".  No dogs tasted the human treats, as chocolate is not good for our buddies, but of course, mommy snuck them a few bits of graham crackers and marshmallows.  Good times all around.

Learning to Love: Turning a Foe into a Friend

I'm the kind of person who can hold onto a grudge for way too long, be completely hung up on one small flaw, and generally carry around a half empty glass.  Luckily for me, I married a man who dances on rainbows and beams enough light to stun my retinas and distract me from the things that would otherwise drive me crazy.  Like my own personal Buddha, he provides me with annoying inspirational thoughts like, "In forgiving others, you forgive yourself" or help yourself... or something basically telling me to get over it and move on.

For a few years now, I've been waging an internal war on one of my most dreaded enemies: the Baker's Rack.  We picked it up at IKEA way back in the day to provide some extra storage in our kitchen/dining area and it has just been one of those things I've never loved, never been able to find a way to actually make it useful or attractive, and can't help but dream of just launching it out a window.  Structurally, I think it just completely lacks any sort of style.  Aesthetically, the only thing really going for it are its clean lines.  Functionally, all it's able to provide is a surface upon which some item could sit (assuming it doesn't need any support) and hope to not fall victim to roaming Catzillas (as did a souvenir Bluemont Vineyard wine glass meet its end, may it rest in pieces).

The offender, who has been discontinued.
Apparently, I'm not the only one who hates the thing.

Baker's Rack followed us to Grafton, its cumbersome metal frame and heavy glass shelves once again sneaking into our home and taking residence in our dining room.  Not being able to find a perfect place for it to loom, it now sits up against the stairs, partially obstructing the view between the living room and kitchen.  Somehow, it knows we need it, though, as our greatly reduced cabinet space has left my collection of small kitchen appliances homeless and wandering, the pet treats scattered, and some other random things just lying about... randomly?

Maybe it was the week long break we had over the holidays that renewed my spirit.  Maybe my heart grew three sizes.  Whatever it was, last weekend, I finally found the strength to look past the horror of the Baker's Rack and try to work with it instead of against it.

First step: pet treats.  As the proud parents of three loved (and well-fed) petsons, treats are plentiful at our house and previously took residence in a clunky basket that was too big for the shelf and further obstructed the view.  My solution?  Unload all the treats into a bunch of cute glass jars, allowing easier access to the treats (you know pets can't get their treats fast enough) and the transparency keeps things open.  I added a nice black and white photo of Elliot John gave me for Valentine's Day a couple years back to bring in an artsy touch (he's so glamorous), and finished it all off with a golden prosperity fish John's mom gave us for Christmas for a bit of flare.  Who knew pet treats could look so nice?

Second step: gettin' spicy!  After cleaning up and moving some things that definitely didn't belong, I was left with one pathetic little mortar and pestle.  John's mom also gave us a small stainless steel spice/salt tray for Christmas, so I thought that would be a perfect companion.  I created some homemade "art" by cutting out the logo on a bag from The Spice and Tea Exchange, a great new boutique shop in Old Town, and reusing an old frame from our now-defunct gnome art.  Inspired by the red in the logo, I used a bright red box to give height to the tray and pulled out some reddish spices to bring in even more color.

Next step: baking appliances.  Although my stand mixer and food processor don't get as much use as I'd like them to, they still need a home and one that's relatively accessible since they both weigh about 1,000 pounds.  Plus, they look so nice, who would want to hide them?  Two appliances looked too bare, so I quickly flipped through a Stonewall Kitchen catalog and found the perfect addition... an image of some yummy looking whoopie pies accompanied by the inspirational message "Peace, Love & Baking".  What more could a person want out of life?  One more frame was reused and I got another piece of free art!

The next two shelves still need some TLC, but I'm proud of my progress and happy to report the Baker's Rack is no longer in danger of being pitched out the window.  Sure, I'd still get rid of it in a heartbeat, but for now, we need the storage and it will do.  I think it's a good step toward organization, decorating, and improved mental health.  Win!