A cookie recipe this time. My friend Laura came and farmsat for me this weekend and the previous week, on the same day, she and her dog celebrated their birthdays. Isn't that cool? I left a big baggie of these cookies for Nick in Laura's thank you bag. They were so stinky that I had to put the expensive dark chocolate bar that was her present, in a baggie too - I was afraid her chocolate would end up tasting like beef kidney! I'm still not sure it didn't, actually . . .
Nick's Birthday Chewies
- 1 1/2 pounds beef kidney, sliced (it's easier to do this when it's slightly frozen, not as messy)
- 6 cloves garlic
- 1 tbsp Mrs Dash (or any dried herb combination)
- 1/4 cup dried parsley (or 2 oz fresh)
- 1 egg with shell
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 cup wheat, barley, or other high gluten flour
- 1 to 2 cups oat flour (you can make this by putting oatmeal in a processor and pulverizing it)
Preheat oven to 300 F. In a food processor, process kidney until liquid. Put in large mixing bowl. Chop garlic and herbs until very fine, add egg and blend until shell pieces are almost invisible. Add to bowl. Add baking soda and blend in well. Add flour until dough is at a pudding consistency. The more flour you add, the "tougher" the cookie will be. I like them to be like a soft jerky treat so I stop at the pudding stage, and for me that's around 1 3/4 cup dry ingredients.
Take a large cookie sheet and grease well. Oh, don't use a nonstick coated pan, or at least not one that you want to preserve the surface - more on that later. Spread batter/dough in cookie sheet evenly. Bake for thirty minutes to an hour, depending on how hard you want them. If you go more than an hour, reduce the heat to 250. That will produce a really hard cookie, probably (I've never actually tried that).
Remove from oven and cool entire pan on a rack until just cool enough to handle. If you had no choice but to use your favorite nonstick coated cookie sheet, you'll want to transfer the entire "cookie" to a large cutting surface. Otherwise, just cut them in the pan. I use a pizza cutter to quickly score the sheet in about 1 1/2 inch portions. Separate them and continue cooling them on a wire rack. When cool, bag them up and store in fridge. If you cooked them longer than about ninety minutes at 250, they are safe to leave at room temp, though you might want to store them in the fridge anyway as the dogs will be scheming to scale the counter for them otherwise!
Alternative for grain free dogs - use three medium baked potatoes, with skin - process them and add them to the bowl. Reduce heat to about 275 and cook for ninety minutes to two hours. They will still be crumbly compared to the gluten version, but the dogs don't care.