Winter veggies beef casserole

1/4 cup pepitas (can get at Trader Joes/they are the inside of the pumpkin seed)
1 pound 4% chopped beef
1 pound butternut squash (I buy already cubed)
2 medium green zuchinni's
2 cups yellow string beans
1/4 cup frozen blueberries
1/2 cup low fat cottage cheese
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)
Extra Virgin Coconut Oil
1/4 cup parsley
1/4 cup fresh basil
2 cloves garlic

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put butternut squash on sheet pan and drizzle with EVOO and bake for 35 - 40 minutes until tender.

Put the pepitas in the food processor and combine until ground up a bit.  Add this to a big bowl.

While the squash it cooking , put 1 Tablespoon Coconut oil and 1 Tablespoon EVOO in frying pan and saute beans for 4 minutes.
When beans are done, just place them in food processor.

Put cubed zuchinni in the pan and when partially done, add the beef and garlic and stir until the beef is cooked and add to food processor with the beans  along with frozen blueberries and process.

Add the mixture to a big bowl.

  Then put the butternut squash, cottage cheese and process and add to the big bowl.

Add the parsley, garlic and basil that has been chopped to the bowl and mix all up.

I pre-measure serving sizes and put in freezer bags and freeze.

Always alternate your meals, so if one night they get beef, the next night they should get a turkey or salmon casserole with different veggies.  No one wants to eat the same thing over and over!

Autumn up with Fennel and Butternut Squash!

The leaves have turned bright red and orange color and the fruit and veggies at the market are also reflective of the season.  I just bought some Fennel, actually I bought it for my human family.  Growing up in an Italian Family, Fennel was always presented on the dinner table along with nuts and oranges.after the meal was done.

You ask, why would one give Fennel to a dog?  You may even ask what is Fennel?

Well first of all, I consider Fennel a high class celery with a split personality!  It is crisp like a celery but has MUCH flavor.  Eaten raw, Fennel has a nice licorice flavor. Once roasted, Fennel takes on a sweet flavor.

Why give it to your pooch?  Fennel aids in the digestion process and rids the body of toxins, so why not?

Below is the recipe I created today; of course you can substitute ingredients, you can put pasta in or leave it out if your pooch is allergic to wheat; in the recipe I used brown rice pasta, so there is no wheat.  Have fun while creating your own recipes for your pooch!  You can go to my back postings to see what NOT to feed your pooch.

Autumn Casserole with Fennel:

1 lb 4% ground beef
1 bulb of fennel with tops
2 cups cubed butternut squash
ExtraVirgin Olive Oil EVOO
thyme
1 clove garlic
2 cups Kale (I buy frozen from Trader Joes)
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
2 cups (uncooked) brown rice Pasta
1/4 cup Extra Virgin Coconut Oil

Cut up the fennel. Reserve the ferns.
Don't know how to cut it, look at this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPTZDvdKYcM

Put cut up fennel and butternut squash in a pan with parchment paper (for easy cleanup)  and coat with EVOO.  I put my oven on Convection Roast at 375 for like 20 - 25 minutes until the butternut squash is soft

Cook the meat and when half way through, put in the garlic and chopped up ferns that I asked you to reserve along with the thyme.

Meanwhile cook the frozen Kale in a microwave container around 4 - 5 minutes.  Add 1/4 cup of water to it.

After the meat and veggies are cooked, add to a food processor along with the kale and the water that you added to cook the kale.  Mix and also add the blueberries.

Cook the pasta with the most time allowed on the directions.

  Drain and toss with the coconut oil and add to the mixture that has already gone through the food processor..  I don't like to put the pasta in the food processor cause my dogs like to eat the pasta in its orginal form,  but right before serving, if the pasta is big, I do run my fork through it to cut up a bit.

When all finished, you can pre-measure all meals in sandwich bags and put in freezer along with your other meals and you can alternate what you give your dogs!

Salmon with good stuff!

How does this look for the start of a nice healthy recipe... can't go wrong with blueberries, zuchinni, asparagus, sweet potatoes and garbanzo beans, just need to add the salmon and we are done!




RECIPE for Salmon Dinner:

1 block of salmon (I buy the frozen prepackaged frozen raw salmon from Costco)
1/2 package Trader Joes roasted asparagus (or a bunch of fresh)
1 sweet potato, or 2 cups carrots
1 zuchinni that I roasted in toaster oven
1 clove garlic
1/4 cup frozen blueberries
1/2 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed to take salt out
1 1/2 cups of Italian 5 grain pasta that I found at Costco (see pictures below)

See below to see the good ingredients in this!




Brush salmon with Extra Virgin Olive Oil  and cook in toaster oven on 350 until done.
Cook pasta in extra water and cook for 25 minutes, not the 15 minutes on the directions.  Grains are great for dogs, lots of fiber but they just need to be cooked longer in more water so they can easily digest.
Microwave potato and cook zuchinni however you want, I roasted it in toaster oven.

Put all ingredients in food processor (not the pasta) and mix.  Hand mix the pasta.
I use a large cookie scoop dropper which measures a 1/4 of a cup and pre-measure for each meal.

This recipe makes 6 meals for two dogs.  My dogs are 11 pounds and 16 pounds and they get 1/2 cup and 3/4 cup twice a day.

My finished product, all premeasured .  Each bag has 1 meal for both dogs in it.  I just take out of freezer in the morning and defrost and its done!

Turkey meatball snacks

1 pound ground turkey

2 slices whole wheat bread

1 tablespoon blueberry flaxseed

1 egg

1 tablespoon parsley

1 carrot

1 green zuchinni

1 clove garlic

1/2 cup mozerella

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Place bread in food processor to make bread crumbs and then mix with flax seed.  Put in bowl.  Grate zuchinni and carrot, place in bowl; chop parsely and garlic in food processor; put in bowl.  Add egg and turkey and EVOO and mix all together. 

Make into small meatballs and bake at 375 until done, maybe 20 minutes.

Cook and put some in refrig and the rest in freezer.  Freezes well!

To Supplement or not?

I have a love/hate relationship with vitamins.  Before I begin, let me stress that I am not a doctor, just a person with my opinions based on experiences.
I used  to sell Shaklee vitamins back in the day and take a ton of them.  Just two years ago I had some bad blood circulation in my arms and I purchased this vitamin that claimed to help blood circulation.  After being on it for two weeks I got my menstrual period and I proceeded to get my period twice a month for three months before I went to the doctor who was perplexed.  I came home after a wasted doctor's visit and I read the back of the bottle of the vitamin to improved blood circulation and it read "increases blood flow"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well it sure did increase blood flow with me!  I went off that vitamin and my periods went right back to normal!  This experience really made me think how vitamins can effect your body.

So a little over a year ago my holistic vet suggested that I home cook for my bichons cause one of them was always vomiting.  I did ask her if I should supplement and she said "as long as I give them plenty of fruits and vegtables, ect I will be fine.

Well I did that for a whole year and my dogs were so healthy but I was reading some articles that said people who home cook for their dogs are causing their dogs to have brittle bones, ect ( you can't always believe what you read and you need to know ALL the facts) ... so I went out and purchased a cocktail of a powder with everything in it including nutritional yeast.

Three weeks after giving the powder supplement one of my dogs got a yeast ear infection.  My vet said the supplement did NOT cause the yeast infection but rather it was caused from stress of having a foster dog in the house for two weeks.  I do believe her but still it gave me doubts about the supplements and I do give my dogs fresh produce, beef, turkey, salmon, oils, ect so I really think they are eating probably just as good if not better than we are so I am not going to supplement anymore.

What is your take on supplements?

Beef Zuchinni casserole

1/2 pound ground beef (only 7% fat) hard to find 1/2 pound so buy the 1 pound and freeze half of it for another time!

2 teaspoons of thyme

1 tablespoon each of extra virgin coconut oil and extra virgin olive oil

2 green zucchinis

1 bag frozen carrots cooked in microwave

1 cut quinoa (rinse well before cooking)

1 clove garlic

3 tablespoons fresh parsley

1 egg

1/2 cup low fat cottage cheese

1 tablespoon flax seed

1/3 cup low sodium beef broth

Rinse the one cup of Quinoa very well to get all the bitter taste out of it and cook it in 3 cups of water for 30 minutes.  This is NOT the recommended cooking time on the box but the recommended cooking time for this particular grain for dogs. I am seeing this grain in my local Safeway now so it should be easy to find though you can substitute couscous if you can't find.

Shred the two washed zucchinis with a box shredder.  You can use a food processor but it gives my right boob a good workout! 

 Sautee the zucchini in the oils for five minutes and then add the diced garlic and cook until all in tender on medium heat.  Be careful, garlic can burn if cooked too high and it taste nasty then and even a dog won't eat it then!

Now cook the meat in the same pan that you cooked the zucchini and add the thyme.

Add the cooked quinoa to the cooked zucchini and then add the cooked beef breaking up all the clumps of beef to evenly distribute the beef.

Put the cooked carrots, garlic and parsley in the food processor (you can even put the beef in here)

Now mix everything up including the egg and cottage cheese and beef broth.

place it all in a well oiled pan and bake for 20 minutes in a 375 over

With my dinner casseroles, I measure out servings and freeze each serving.  This way I can give them an a variety of foods.  Bella is allergic to chicken and Snow is not crazy about fish, so that leaves turkey, lamb, beef, vegetarian and egg casseroles.

Asparagus omelet

1 tablespoon of extra virgin coconut oil

1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil

8 large eggs

one bunch fresh asparagus (I prefer the pencil size)

1 tablespoon of ground flax seed

1 medium sweet potato cooked in microwave

1/2 cup low fat ricotta

Melt the oils in a pan that can be put into the oven to bake later at 375.  I just open the jar of coconut oil 

and the dogs come running for a taste!

cut the asparagus small and cook in the oil for five minutes and then add the diced garlic and stir frequently on medium heat until the asparagus are tender.

  Then add the cooked sweet potato and mash in pan to eventually distribute. 

 In a bowl, scramble the eggs with ricotta and flax seed and add to pan.

Cook in oven for around 375 until it looks set.