I have a dog. He's not just any old dog though - he's special. He knows English. He listens to me intently no matter what I say - even when I'm not using words like "go," "treat," "ride," "need," "walk," and "Sammy." He looks me in the eyes all the time. Sometimes, I swear it feels like there's a human's reincarnated spirit trapped inside his canine body, and it's trying to communicate with me through him. He's an awesome companion, and when I say companion, I mean companion in the truest most complete sense of the word. He wants to be near me, by me, and with me no matter what (unless of course, we are in an open field, the woods, at the beach, or if there is any small game or other dog nearby to chase - but that's just instinct, it's nothing personal). This is regardless of my mood (although he does tend to be hyper-sensitive to any level of irritation or anger he senses from me - likely because he was abused by the people who had him before me and gave him up).
So, a dog like this deserves more than store-bought Milkbones. This dog, this friend, this companion, this partner deserves the best. And, to me, the best is a homemade dog treat made with the finest organic ingredients and most of all, lots of LOVE. As fate would have it, a friend's mother gave me dog biscuit cookie cutters shaped like bones for Christmas a couple of years ago. On the back of the adorable tin container, there was a simple recipe for dog biscuits:
3/4 Cup Hot Water
1/2 Cup Powdered Milk
1/3 Cup Butter, Softened
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Egg, Beaten
3 Cups Whole Wheat Flour
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a large bowl, pour hot water over powdered milk. Stir until mixed. Add salt, butter and egg. In ½ cup intervals, add the flour. Combine dough until it forms a stiff dough. Dust surface with extra flour and roll dough with a rolling pin into a ½ inch thick. Cut into bone shapes or use any cookie cutter. Bake for 50 minutes. Biscuits will harden when cooled.
This is so much fun! I recommend rolling out portions of the dough rather than the entire batch of dough at once, as there is always excess from cutting the cookies, and the dough can become easily dried out and over-glutenized with too much repeated rolling and cutting.
I made these as a Christmas gift for Alex and Sam, and I decided to make two batches. To one I added an entire jar of real bacon bits, and to the other I added about 6 Tbs. grated parmesan chese. They were a big hit, and it felt so good to give them good treats made with love!
This is the batter. It looks like whipped butter because, well, it's whipped butter with a little sugar, flour, and vanilla mixed in. :) No, seriously, this recipe has TWO STICKS OF BUTTER! 
The directions say to use two spoons to spoon the dough onto the cookie sheets. Yeah, right. I've never been good at that. I just used my hands. It worked a lot better and saved me about 20 minutes and a lot of irritation and mess. Oh yeah, and I only use AirBake cookie sheets. I've never ever burned the bottom of a cookie when I use an AirBake cookie sheet.
Here they are! They turned out really really well, and they were mixed, baked, cooled, I'd eaten a few, and the kitchen was clean in just a little over an hour. I observed that it seems there is a critical mass at which cookies spread rather than rise. The smaller balls of dough ended up bumping up, and the larger ones spread out. I'll keep that in mind next time and "spoon" accordingly. Also, someone posted a comment that a Tbs. of sour cream, yogurt, or buttermilk could be added to make the cookies softer, so of course I did that (I used buttermilk but would love to try sour cream next time), and I think it helped keep the cookies from getting overly dry. They only needed to bake for 9 minutes, too, which is fabulous!
I've got my Wonder Woman glass of milk - I'm ready to go! :) This is definitely a recipe I'm going to save and use over and over again. The recipe said it could make up to 4 dozen, but I made 2.5 dozen. I made some kind of big, but not that big. I'd say it's more like 3 dozen, if you're lucky. Regardless, they're delicious!
The second time, I looked at the recipe and then did what I wanted, and they turned out soooo much better! It helps to add about 3x the amount of butter and 10x the amount of cream/milk/half + half the recipe calls for. Oh, and I added dill - that was the key ingredient. :)
UPDATE: Ok, so I knew the zucchini part of the sausage stuffed zucchini might be a challenge, and boy, was I right! To be fair, I only tried one store, but the "zucchini" they had were not only imported from Mexico, but they were literally 6 inches long and about 2 - 3 inches in diameter - in other words - not suitable for STUFFING. :) So...I stood in the produce section for a minute to mourn the loss of my zucchini fantasy and think of a way to salvage the situation (kind of like the engineers at NASA did when they had to manage all those problems with the Apollo 13 spacecraft...). My first instinct was to scrap this plan and just make a pizza, then I decided to make like Julia Childs and get creative! So...I took a moment to contemplate vegetables that are 
Long story short - the eggplant worked beautifully. AND according to my Italian friend, stuffing it with Italian sausage stuffing is apparently one of the most loving things one can do to an eggplant. So, I was happy - I mean, this meal was INSANELY good! Add a salad and homemade mashed potatoes (I wasn't really sure what side went best with this, but it just seemed like a starch was a good plan) to the plate, and you're good to go! Oh, and three really important things about the recipe: 1) the ingredient list doesn't mention grated parmesan cheese, yet the recipe instructions call for it twice, and 2) IMHO, this recipe only serves 2. I routinely double, triple, or quadruple the recipe for 4-6 people...usually about 1/2 meat for each person, and 3) the recipe instructs you to remove part of the zucchini/eggplant to make room for stuffing, then never tells you what to do with it! You can add it back to the meat, but I sincerely believe that ruins the flavor. I leave it out (after trying at least 3 different times to add it back in). I say cook it up separately or just discard it. Bon apetit!
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