Busy Weekends & Homemade Dog treats

                                                             This past weekend was crazy.
  Saturday my mom and I went to 7 different stores! 7 in one day! Target, Home Depot, Petsmart, Macys, Kirkland's, Fiesta and Albertsons. Then today we had to go to Walmart to get some last minute baking items and then to Home Depot again because our thermostat broke.  

Playful in her chair

  I also got my christmas present early. Its kind of a habit with me... getting my presents early, but I had a good reason for getting this one early. My mom got me a Kitchenaid Artisan mixer which was on sale due to the holiday season. She- my kitchenaid- is red and her name is Rosie. Since Im in charge of preparing/making all  of the food except the turkey and a few other things for thanksgiving, Rosie will be used much this week. I will be making sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, a corn saute, pumpkin roll cake, cookies, and deviled eggs from scratch. The rolls, the stuffing, gravy, and green beans are either canned or boxed, but will be modified to. Its weird, I usually prefer homemade to boxed, but when it comes to stuffing, I tend to prefer Stove Top over the homemade stuff.

  Since we are having our "Thanksgiving" on saturday, I'm not sure how much I will be posting this week due to all of the cooking and cleaning I will be doing and since December 3rd (my SAT test date) is rapidly approaching, but I will post most if not all of the recipes I will be using for thanksgiving and some photos.
                                         - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
  After coming home and helping my dad install the new thermomstat; I decided to make our dogs some homemade treats. I've made homemade dog and horse treats before, we actually had a recipe book that we bought at our feed store a few years ago, but it seems to have gone missing. I made this recipe up while looking through some others online. This recipe is really easy to prepare and will make your house smell like peanut butter. All of our dogs were alseep while I prepared these, but as soon as I took the first batch out of the oven they all ran into the kitchen, tails wagging, and eagerly wanting a treat.

If you have smaller dogs, you can use a 1/2 tsp. measure to make the treats. All of our dogs (except 1) weigh more than 45 lbs so these treats were the perfect size for them.

after rolling the dough into balls, slightly flatten them with a fork.

this was her 3rd treat of the night

PBO (peanut butter oat) Dog Treats

Created by: Rayna (me)

yeilds: 4 1/2 dozen- 1/2 tbsp. size treats

1 1/2 cp whole wheat flour
1 cp old fashioned oats
1/2 cp peanut butter (I used creamy pb)
1 egg
1 cp hot water

1. In a large bowl, combine the first four ingredients. The batter will be thick, slowly add in the hot water and stir until combined. The batter will be thick and mildly sticky.
 >> If you want to use cookie cutters to shape the dough, add some more flour to the dough until its not sticky, roll out onto a floured board, roll into 1/4 inch thickness and cut out cookies.
2. I used a 1/2 tbsp meausure to measure out each treat before rolling them into a ball and flattening them down slightly using a fork (like you do with peanut butter cookies).
 --These cookies do not spread so you can fit many on a cookie sheet, but don't over crowd the pan.
3. Bake at 350 F for 15 minutes or until the cookies are firm and golden.
4. Transfer to a cookie rack to cool completely before storing in an air tight container.