To accommodate her diet needs, I decided that I would spend part of this afternoon making her "meal bags" for the week (knowing I won't want to be getting up with the dog every morning when she wants food). This is where the problems began...
First, I had a low blood sugar shortly after putting the hamburger (90% lean top sirloin) on to boil. Of course, the water boiled all over the place while I was off dealing with the low! So, after we got most of that mess cleaned up, I set a timer for 5 minutes, left the lid cracked and walked away again. Upon my return to the kitchen (5 minutes later), I discovered that our rice cooker decided that in the middle of cooking a big batch of rice was the perfect time to die (problem #2)! So, I quickly got the rice dumped into another pot set on the stove. I stirred my meat that was happily boiling away and set the timer for another 5 minutes after dumping in all the veggies into boiling meat and water. After another 5 minutes, I returned again to stir the veggies and check on the rice. Veggies were almost done, but the rice pot looked "foggy"... I decided to crack the lid to check on it and was met with a cloud of thick smoke (problem #3)! In 5 minutes, the rice had not only finished cooking, but had begun to burn! I quickly got it off the burner and dumped into the now drained meat and vegetable pot.
The smoke from the rice, of course, set off the fire alarm! I say alarm rather than detector because it set off the alarm that is hardwired into our home security system! The alarm is beeping, the security panel is yelling "smoke alarm activated", I'm opening windows and pouring water into the pot...and then....the phone starts ringing! It's the alarm company letting me know that the detector has been activated! Because, ya know, it was a great time to take a phone call...sheesh! He was just doing his job, I know that...and it really was nice that he was there making sure I didn't need help from our local fire department today...but why on earth wouldn't they just use the two-way radio that is built in to our system?!? Garrick was down at the panel trying to get it to shut up...he could have talked to them while I tried to corral all the dog food mess! I did manage to save the pan I was cooking the rice in...I think, but it really just reinforced the need for a new rice cooker (I ruined a pot making rice in our first year of dating doing this very thing...in fact, I ruined two pots before we bought the rice cooker)!
So, after getting the dog's new food all mixed up and cooling...we made a trip out to Best Buy (because we have a "credit card" there, along with a "reward card" that gives us discounts back, & I have tax exempt status there...we also had a $5 cash off reward to use) to get a new rice cooker. The old one (that died) held 7 cups of rice, before cooking it...prepared, that was roughly 14 cups of rice! I never made over 6 scoops though...it tended to boil over when I tried to do 7. The new one only makes 6 cups of prepared rice (3 scoops). But, for $20 ($15 with all our rewards) it wasn't a bad deal. It was also the only one they had, so we didn't really have a choice! It came with the scoop for adding rice, a paddle (for retrieving rice once cooked), and a steamer basket for meat/vegetables! The steamer basket will be handy if I choose to continue making food for the dog (which I may have to do depending on how many teeth she looses).
So, besides making 7 bags of meals for the dog...(one a day with a can of wet food in the evening as well), I boiled meat water all over my stove top, "broke" the rice cooker, burnt a pot to black, and set off the smoke alarm! Yup, I'm that talented...
- 1 pound Hamburger (90% top sirloin that we bought for us last week but didn't use)
- 1/2 bag chopped Spinach (frozen)
- 1/2 cup or so of Green Beans (what was left of a frozen bag)
- 1 bag Broccoli Florets (we had 3 bags in the freezer!)
- 3/4 cup Fresh Pumpkin (cooked and frozen back in November)
- 6 scoops of rice (cooked, approximately 12 cups of rice)
- reserved liquid from boiling meat and veggies
- 2 sample size supplements
Boil the meat, when cooked add frozen veggies (not the pumpkin though) and continue boiling until Veggies are soft. Cook rice. Strain meat and veggies, but save the juice, that's beef broth packed with vitamins from the veggies! Add frozen pumpkin and rice to pot with meat and veggies...stir. I used my rice scoop to scoop some of the broth, as needed, back into the mix, but kept it pretty dry looking overall. I had a couple of supplement samples left over from DinoVite...Rosie loves their Lick-O-Chops (fish oil for dogs), but was never crazy about the powdered supplement samples, so I sprinkled those in to boost the vitamin content of the food as well.
After it cooled completely, I scooped 2 cups of the mix into Ziploc baggies (I got 7 bags). To each baggy, I added 1/3 cup of the cooled "broth" as well before sealing them up. When we give her a bag in the morning, I'll crack a raw egg over it to add a little extra protein as well as all the other things found in yummy "farm" fresh eggs! Some sites recommend grinding up the eggs, shells and all, but for now, I'll stick to the egg innards only. She'll also be getting a can of commercial dog food in the evenings to help supplement anything this is missing and provide her with enough food to maintain her current weight (ideally). Using a "by weight" food calculation for dogs, she should be getting 20 to 30 ounces of food each day, my 2 cup baggies only contain about 16 ounces.
Without the dog supplements in this...it would be perfectly fit for human consumption...but it smells awful, to me at least.
I may need to steal this recipe from you! Buddy isn't getting any younger! and I think we have ll the same "ingredients" here to make it. I will have to look into it! About how much does this cost to make? Or have you not done the break down yet?
ReplyDeleteMost of it came out of the freezer or cupboard, so the price tag for this batch was basically "free". Unless, of course, you count the $15 we spent on a new rice cooker! There are better recipes as far as "good for dog's health" go...this is basically just calories to keep her from starving!
ReplyDeleteI'll have to purchase meat, veggies, and more rice for the next batch, so it'll be much (much, much) more expensive!