Homemade Dog Biscuits

Yesterday before I went to my last Eastlake "Growth Group" at lunch, I mixed up a batch of homemade dog biscuits, since the pups had been out for a few days and were asking for more. Ok, I'm kidding about that part. I don't pretend to know what my dogs are thinking, but I'm pretty sure if I could read their minds, they'd be saying, "Mom, please make some more of those awesome cookies!"

Anyway, this is about the fourth time I've made them, and I think I've finally perfected my recipe. I started out looking for a recipe online but couldn't find one I really liked, primarily because so many of them included ingredients that really weren't good for dogs (like a lot of flour). I really wanted mine to be pumpkin based, because pumpkin is supposed to be helpful for their digestion and other issues that our dogs tend to have. Since I never found a recipe with lots of pumpkin and very little flour, I started messing around trying to come up with my own.

The first batch pretty much tasted like whole wheat flour cookies--not good at all. Yes, I tasted them. Although my husband still thinks that's weird, I made them in my own kitchen with stuff that came out of my own fridge and pantry, so why wouldn't I try them? My first batches were also little too soft like cookies and not crunchy like I wanted them, so it took a few more tries to get the cooking time/temperature figured out.

Here's the final recipe I came up with, along with a picture of what they looked like before I put them into the oven yesterday.

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Pumpkin Carrot and Parsley Dog Biscuits

1 can pumpkin

1 egg

1-2 tbsp olive oil

2 cups old fashioned oats

3 tbsp fresh chopped or dried parsley

4 medium carrots

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

Boil carrots at least 15 minutes until soft. Mix together pumpkin, egg, oil, oats and parsley. Mash carrots into pumpkin mixture with a potato masher. The resulting dough will be chunky. Mix in flour. Spray round measuring teaspoon or melon baller with cooking spray and scoop balls onto greased cookie sheet. Flatten slightly with bottom of cup (also sprayed). Bake at 250 for 90 minutes and let harden in oven for several hours afterward. Store a week's worth in a sealed container in the pantry, with the remainder stored in the fridge.
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I'm thinking I might make this my first recipe that I add to AllRecipes.com, but I think I need a more catchy name. Any great ideas?