Somethin' For Your Chow Chow To Chow On - Cheesy Vegetable Chews

First, I must apologize for being MIA over the last couple weeks.  Yeah, I posted about Consomme and Eggs in Aspic (Ouefs en Gelee) but that was not without it's difficulties.  My Mac crashed (dead hard drive) so I was forced to bring my old Titanium 500 back into service again.  Yeah right.  The thing is antique and the operating system (Panther) is positively ancient.  Thus, due to the overwhelming amount of Flash all over the net, it was impossible to navigate anywhere or "see" anything.  The two posts I DID succeed in releasing took 3 hours to type up cause I kept loosing my connection through the decrepit airport card.  On top of that, I had to re-learn how to use the old version of Gimp to edit my photos which took an additional couple of hours to process. (sigh) Don't get me started on trying to check Facebook or anything else for that matter. 

I guess I should count myself lucky that the poor old thing worked at all at this point.  Luckily, and finally, I now have a new hard drive in my Aluminum 1.67 and life is good again.  Un-luckily, nothing on my old hard drive was salvage-able, so every photo I have taken is suddenly gone (Insert sound of flushing toilet).  But it is time to stop lamenting and get back to the main topic.

Dog Treats....... (though in a pinch, they are consumable by humans)

Just like humans, dogs need vegetables to stay healthy.  And while most dog foods DO contain some form of vegetable matter, it usually consists for the more questionable "vegetables" such as Potatoes, Corn or Peas; all of which are extremely high in starch.  While I realize that the FDA lumps all of these into the vegetable group, being why school lunches often include French Fries or Tater Tots (Insert eye roll), this is the same organization that deemed Nutrasweet to be safe for human consumption.

FDA charlatans aside, I figured it would be a good way to mix up the textures a little as well.  I have already made 2 hard and crunchy treats as well as crisp yet airy pumpkin treats, so I decided to mix it up a little further and go for a more chewy texture.  This was made infinitely easier by the inclusion of vegetables, though the cheese lent a proverbial hand as well.  :)   Some healthy Quick Oats and that hint of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese along with vitamin A rich Carrot and some vibrantly verdant Spinach and we have a winner. 

Cheesy Chicken Vegetable Chews

1 1/2 cup Barley Flour
1 cup Quick Oats
1/ 4 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
2/3 cup shredded Carrot
1/2 cup frozen Spinach, measured after thawing and squeezing out the water
1/2 -3/4 cup Chicken Stock

Combine Barley Flour, Quick Oats and Parmigiano-Reggiano in a bowl, whisk together well.

Add Spinach and shredded Carrot in a blender jar.

Add 1/3 cup of chicken stock and blend into a puree... Add up to an additional 1/4 cup of chicken stock if the mix is too dry to puree properly.

Add the Vegetable/Stock puree to the dry ingredients.

Stir until well combined and a soft sticky dough forms.

Grab a small cookie scoop or a teaspoon.

Spoon small balls of dough onto a parchment lined baking sheet.

Fill a small glass cold water and grab a fork.

Dip the fork in the water and then press a crosshatch pattern in the "cookies" just like you would for Peanut butter cookies.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Allow to cool on a wire rack.

Then store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks,

if you need them to last longer, store in the refrigerator.

I promise - my next post will be human food.... Gruyere scones to be exact.  I realize that over the last couple months about 50% of my posts have "gone to the dogs", but let me assure you, I am steering back towards Human consumables...  LOL

Mangia!!
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