Recipe: Banana Carob Peanut Butter Cookies

We baked yet another lot of cookies for Shalom. Its also part of her Goodnight Cookies series. We have to vary the flavours or else the girl is going to frown at her cookies and leave crumbs all over the house when she plays with them instead of eating them.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoon of crunchy peanut butter (creamy works just as well)

200g bananas (that's about 3 pieces of Dole bananas)

1 tablespoon of carob

100ml olive oil

150ml cold water

1 egg beaten (for brushing)

400g flour

Method:

• Mix peanut butter, banana and carob well. It will look mushy.

• Add in oil to the mushy mixture.

• Add flour to the oily mushy mixture.

•Add water slowly as you knead the flour and mushy mixture into a firm dough. Break the carob bits as you knead.

• Flatten dough till 1.5cm or thinner if furkids don't have strong teeth. Cut to your choice shape.

• Glaze with egg.

• Place on lightly greased pan.

• Bake in oven at 160C for 20 minutes or until firm.

• Let cookie cool and harden before storing in air tight containers.

You'll notice that the recipe for Shalom's cookeies are pretty much similar. I just play around with different "flavoured"ingredient e.g. cod, peanut butter, pumpkin or even peanut butter. So have fun experimenting with what is good for your furkid or what your furkid likes best.

Carob is a safe alternative to chocolates. Chocolates are poisonous to dogs so I use Carob which is somewhat similar tasting but a wee bitter to replace chocolate. You can get Carob at good organic or baking shops.

#1 egg is more than sufficient to glaze the cookies. So I normally beat the egg and reserve only 1/3 of the mixture for glazing. The other 2/3 is added into the cookie mix.

Goodnight Cookies

Baked Shalom some of her fave "Goodnight Cookies". Some good home made goodness in her treats without any preservatives, colouring or artificial flavouring.

Simple and easy to make and it's quite yummy for humans too. A wee like our bread sticks.

Preparation time including baking is about 45 minutes.

Ingredients:

200g cod fish (or chicken meat)

125ml olive oil

170ml cold water (or meat broth if you're using meat)

1 egg beaten (for brushing)

300g gluten free flour

50g wheatgerm

5g of preferred herbs / spices (I use Italian herbs and cinnamon)

Method:

• Mix flour, wheatgerm, tuna, olive oil, half of egg mixture, herbs and spices well.

• Then add water bit by bit and knead till it becomes a firm dough

• Flatten dough (until approximately 1.5 cm high) on a lightly floured surface. Cut into desired shapes.

• Place cut out cookies on a greased baking pan.

• Brush with egg mixture

• Bake in 160C oven for 20 minutes or until firm.

• Let it cool and harden for about an hour before storing in bottles.

## If you're using meat, boil the meat to make the broth. Then separate meat from broth. Once the chicken is cool, tear it into slices.

## Gluten free flour is a bit harder to roll out. So use regular white flour if you need to.

The above keeps in the fridge for up to 4 weeks and a week in room temperature.

Working on a Sunday

Here I am. Working on a glorious Sunday. The skies are clear which means that I should be doing any of the following:

Touge somewhere randomly. Camerons sounds good. So does Genting.

OR

Running

OR

Checking out good food somewhere

OR

Cooking / Baking 

OR 

having a picnic somewhere with Shalom and her pals!

But...here I am in office working. LOL

Consolation, I had a hearty breakfast with hubby and Johnson. Bumped into Douglas and Natasha and caught up about our furkids. OK...its back to work:D

Which reminds me...if you missed the previous MACC shows, hurry up and grab your tickets from PJLA!

Lamb fudge tempter

Baked some lamb fudge last night for Shalom's 2011 new year getaway trip to the beach. This is an easy to make and definitely yummy treats. Actually we use this a fair bit for our daily play and trainings. And because they are slightly moist, they make good treats during outings as it is another source of hydration for the furkids rather than dry treats such as Polly Pumpkin.

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 30-40 minutes (depending on your oven)

Ingredients:
• 400g ground lamb
• 1/2 teaspoon of chopped garlic / rosemary
• 120g carrots / pumpkin
• 300ml of water or milk (milk gives it a creamier consistency and does not seem to be a problem for Shalom who is lactose intolerant)(and we now opt for Goat's milk)
• 400g flour (rice flour or wheat flour)
• 1 large egg (optional)

We made 2 pans this round - one pan being garlic carrot and the other being rosemary pumpkin

Chopped up or slice the carrots and pumpkins, whichever your preference. I like them chopped because I am lazy. I just dropped them all into the chopper.

Transfer to a large bowl. Mix flour, garlic / rosemary, lamb, carrots / pumpkin, milk / water and the optional egg in the bowl. Combine till is a watery texture. If a wee dry, add more water or milk.

Optional: replace some of the flour with oats so that it has a stiffer and chewier texture.

Pour ingredients into an oiled baking pan.

Preheat oven.

Baked at 180C at 30-40 minutes.

Check that is is cooked by inserting a toothpick through. If it comes out clean, its cooked. if not, popped it in for another 2-3 minutes or so.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

I generally cut it into cubes for Shalom at home. However for gatherings, I normally cut them into smaller bits. Don't want any furkid choking as a result of gobbling their food.

They keep one week in the fridge. I normally keep them in tubs and freeze them till they are needed:D

It smells lovely even to my nose. So I normally would nibble on some. Be warned...no salt or sugar, so its just flavours from the ingredients and nothing more.

And here's the 2 pans all sliced and packed ready for Shalom's 2011 new year countdown getaway.

Shalom turns 7!

OMG but my lil girl Shalom is all grown up and turned 7 over the weekend. 7 years old and I still call her a lil gal. That I supposed has everything to do with her manjaness, her running and jumping around the house every day!

Her current nick divashalom pretty much came about when I set up her twitter account. Shalom was not available so I thought why not divashalom since this Royal Highness demands to sit nothing but on chairs at home and parties. And when we're put in the park or beach, its the mat or only soft sand. No pricky grass for this diva!

This time around, I thought why not bake everything from scratch on my own for my kiddo. After all I have been baking 90% of her treats. So its a good time to share some wholesome almost organic goodness with her pals from her obedience classes, jungle trekking, beach bumming, makan & twitter kakis. Baking all those cookies and cakes wasn't easy amidst a busy period at my boutique sized ad agency. But I have no regrets doing so. It was therapeutic and mostly so when I saw the happy faces of the furkids when they ate.

We had tonnes of fun on that fine Sunday morning at One Utama Central Park. THANX to all who braved the rain and also did the sun dance. We had an amazing dry ground and mildly sunny weather when it was pretty much raining everywhere else! The furslaves (us) brought our own picnic nad yoga mats and settled down under the tress and enjoyed our breakfast. The birthday picnic was BYOM (Bring Your Own Mat) and BYOB (Bring Your Own Breakfast)! Many thanx for the lovely mini potluck to pals who also brought some yummy goodness. Edleen & Adam brought lovely nasi lemak bungkus. Jo made us chicken avocado sandwiches. Gladys who had to miss the picnic baked us lovely chocolate chip banana cake! Visit her website for the recipe!

This momma here basically packed the picnic for the kids. I reckon the kids will not complain on bad food:P

Oh oh oh...this was not a picnic for those with furkids only. We had pals like Wijay who swung by even though he does not have a furkid. Yeah wijay has always been a big part of Shalom's picnics and parties. And I must thank Wijay coz he actually went searching for candles at 8am on that Sunday morning coz this momma forgot the candles for her baby. THANX bro. *muaks muaks muaks*

Heres some pics for her 7th birthday do. Didn't take much pictures as I was busy being mummy to her 7 year old diva:P And also special thanx to Andrew, Cai Lin, Mae V and Rocky for the use of some pictures taken by them that I have used here too!

Visit the following blogs for more pics:D
• mikeyip.com
• runningandrew.com

Polly Pumpkin

I've been baking non stop since last Sunday for Shalom's birthday picnic. Reason I've been baking is that I really would like Shalom and her friends to have some home made wholesome goodness minus the preservatives, colouring & flavouring. And of course since I'm making them myself, I've also been using organic as much as I can.

Well after last night I think I want to bake something that Shalom has not tasted before. So far for the birthday party pack (all of which are her regular treats at home), we've made:
• Flea Busters
• Peanut Butter Banana Squares
• Salmon Bombs
• Italian Sweethearts
* I say "we" cause hubby helps out. Not in the kitchen but I can count to ferry me around to pick up the ingredients needed from all over town:D

So I've decided to come out with something new based on my previous ingredients and experience of baking over 6 years for my diva. And I shall call this Polly Pumpkin. Why Polly? I don't know. It just came into my mind:P

Ingredients:
• 150g Oats
• 150g pumpkin
• 150ml yoghurt
• 1 egg
• cold water (use as needed to create a slightly sticky consistency)
• 3 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• Dash of Italian herbs or cinnamon or garlic (whichever tickles your fancy)

Mix all ingredients together until you get a sticky mix. Add or use less water as needed to get the consistency.

Then grease your baking pan lightly. Place the balls on it and pressed it with a fork or spoon. I like to use forks because i can make patterns with it:D

Bake at 160C for 20-25 minutes until light brown (monitor this closely as different ovens behave differently)

The results will be a slightly chewy cookie because of the oats. If you like the crunchier, just leave them in the oven another 15-30 minutes when you're done baking. I normally make 2 pans so Shalom gets both chewy and crunchy ones.

Dogs love the natural sweetness of pumpkin and its filled with vitamins & minerals.

And if you like to adapt the above for humans, well you can add cinnamon and use sugar to taste. Adding some sunflower seeds into it gives it an added crunch and oomph!

Sweet Potato Crisp / Chewies for furkids

This is another treat that we make for Shalom. Crisp or chewies coz the recipe allows for both.

But when making it as a crisp, I realise that its not a good treat when we go out. Simply coz its dry plus because it is crispy, it breaks into pieces:P Shalom prefers moist treats during her outing. The chewy version is OK anytime anywhere.

Ingredient is just sweet potatoes and nothing else.

Peel off the skin. Then slice it into 2-3mm for chewy versions. Or use a peeler for the crispy ones. lay them on the pan. Bake for 10-20 minutes for the crispy ones. Bake 30-45 minutes for the chewy ones. Temperature is 150C. Again this depends on your oven:D

You can use the 2-3mm ones to make the crispy ones. But I rather just cut the baking time and use the thinner ones for the crispy version.

Honestly, this is quite yummy, so I actually nibble on the crispy ones when I am making this. Healthy wholesome snacks for humans too. And they make great pressies for birthdays too:D