So @merej99 and @barrydutton got me to thinking about kibble, quinoa, and homemade dog food / treats.
So, I decided to put a day off to good use and experiment a little. Official day off, too. No shoes, only slippers to keep the toes toasty when Tinker had to go outside.
It's hurts-to-breathe cold out there!
I gathered up a few items I had on hand. From left to right - quinoa, beef broth, oatmeal, and amaranth flour - for the filling. I snagged a few of Tink's hollowed out bones (which caused a great deal of interest and concern) to use as 'edible containers'. The interior of the bone is rough, so I hoped it would help grip the sticky mess I was mixing up. The amaranth flour helps with making it ultra sticky. Normally, I use it for a thickener in soups.
(I'll put the whole recipe at the end for ease of reading.)
I kept things scaled back since this was an experiment. Mix the dry ingredients in a microwave safe bowl. Add broth. Nuke til the mixture reaches a boil. Carefully remove and allow the dry items to start absorbing the liquid. Stir occasionally to monitor progress. Start gradually adding more oatmeal. I ended up adding about a cup more, a bit at a time.
I was aiming for a very thick consistency - standing up the fork was a good test! I wrapped each bone in foil so the filling wouldn't leak out when baking. You can see I sealed the bottom as best I could.
I also anchored the foil at the top by crimping it over the edge a little. (Turns out this wasn't necessary, but I was erring on the side of caution.) I used a cast iron griddle as a base for ease of access and used another strip of foil as a spill-catch.
Finished product! The uncovered end puffed up during baking and the covered end was so smooth, it looked like real marrow. Even at the lowest heat (200 degrees F), the filling built up enough pressure to crack the bigger bones. The smallest one made it through without any cracks.
The real test came later when I turned it over to Tink. She's had beef broth and oatmeal before, but the quinoa and amaranth flour were new. If I can ever get the video uploaded, I'll add it, but in the meantime, these pics might help you judge for yourself as to the results:
She worked on it for a while. The promising part was that she came back to it at least three times after I initially gave it to her. Yay!
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup Beef Broth
1 cup (reserved), plus 2 Tbl Old Fashioned Oatmeal. (Do NOT use instant oatmeal!)
1 Tbl Quinoa (rinse if package says so)
1 tsp Amaranth Flour (substitute any gluten-free flour, if you can, otherwise all purpose should work)Follow process as outlined above. I had the oven on as low as it would go. Baking time, with periodic monitoring, was easily 5 hours.
I left the biggest bone in the oven to to continue drying even after I turned the heat off.
The side benefit to all this was the kitchen was toasty warm and the furnace ran less. I'm calling the day a success on both fronts!
