Peanut Butter Cookies for Dogs

Words on Wednesday will be back next week.  Today, I'm continuing to share my holiday baked goods with you.

I won't lie, I love my dog.  (As I write this, she's having an intense, barking dream on her new bed.)  I completely spoil her.  4 out of 5 Target trips I come home with a new toy for her, which means we have about 40 dog toys lying around.  (She's not the kind of dog who rips up her toys, so they last a lot longer than most.)

As most of our friends are just as crazy about their pups, I opted to bake up a couple varieties of dog treats, along with the human treats I've been whipping up.  Here's today's recipe:

Peanut Butter Cookies (for Dogs)

Throw Me A Bone

Ingredients

Vegetable Oil/Non-stick cooking spray

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling

1 cup natural peanut butter

1 cup skim milk

1/2 cup chopped peanut, walnuts, or pecans (optional)

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Lightly grease cookie sheet.

Mix peanut butter and milk until smooth.  Add the nuts, if using (I was lazy and didn't feel like chopping peanuts).  Add the flours and baking powder and mix until it forms a ball.

Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth.  Roll out into 1/4-inch thickness and cut with a bone-shaped cookie cutter (or any other cookie cutter you have handy, like holiday-themed cookie cutters) or scoop tablespoon-size balls onto the sheet and flatten with your palm.  Place 2 inches apart on the prepared cookie sheets.  Bake until lightly browned, about 20 minutes.  Set aside to cool.

Store in an airtight contained in the refrigerator up to 3 weeks.  Bring to room temperature before serving.

Yields approximately 36-48 cookies.  I doubled the recipe, so I have a LOT of cookies in my fridge waiting to be handed out.

It was very difficult to get a picture of Shadow with the treat in front of her nose without her eating it up right away.  She only has so much self-control and she really liked these treats.


Tomorrow: A break from the recipes to show you how my terrariums progressed (I'll give you a hint, not well) and what I did to revamp 'em.

Holiday Baking Line-up

I am thisclose to being done with the third quarter (out of five) of my Master of Library and Information Science!  Very exciting, but even more exciting is the holiday baking that is about to take over my kitchen.  Cookies, cupcakes, bars, and dog treats are all on my to-do list.  (Too bad I don't have a fancy Kitchenaid Stand Mixer....yet...)  Tomorrow, I will be hitting up the store for all my baking needs, so today I'm sharing the starting line-up for Christmas 2011.

Dog Treats
Shadow rolls with a pretty tight crew of pups, so a few homemade treats with a nice Christmas bow will be perfect gifts.
1. Cinnamon Bites
2. Peanut Butter Cookies
3. Puppy Power Treats
All three recipes come from Throw Me a Bone by Cooper Gillespie with Sally Sampson.  It was an impulse buy over a year ago that I just found sitting with the rest of my recipe books.  This will be my first venture into homemade dog treats and I'm pretty excited.

Human Treats
1. Peppermint Bark
2. Graham Bars
3. Candy Cane Cookies
4. Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies
5. Sugar Cookies
6. Pinwheels
7. Gingerbread Softies
8. Plain, old Chocolate Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting (Because I'm a fatty, and have been craving them for weeks.)

Our lovely (fake) Christmas tree.

Here's hoping I can:
1. actually whip all of these up
2. not gain 30 pounds in the process.

Enjoy your week, INM readers.  Keep an eye out for recipe posts with pictures and a new Words on Wednesday.

List Love

I have created a list of things that have made me happy in the past few weeks. I thought I'd share not only this list, but my love of lists with the world.

• My husband - He keeps me sane in an insane world.
  
• My dog - Shadow is a cozy cuddler and a constant cache of cuteness. (I adore alliteration.)
  
• Rain storms -A sudden deluge of cleansing water and a glorious concert of light and sound.
• Skirts - Easy, breezy, free.
  
• Dog toys - There is nothing more adorable than the full body wiggles that ensue when a new toy is gifted to Shadow.
• Air conditioning - Too hot. Too humid.
• Museums - Being surrounded by history reminds me that someone came before me and someone will always follow.
  

Those who know me know I love lists and organizing. It's very therapeutic to have a better idea of what's in your life or missing from your life in that moment. You can remind yourself of those things that make you smile or release tension by finally admitting to what's bothering you. To do lists help you remember what needs to get done so you can keep things in working order and help you prevent your life from imploding on you. When in doubt, make a list!

85 Is Cool? New Technology is Cool?

This is the first evening since we moved down here that it's been "cool" and not 90% humidity, so I'm taking advantage of this and sitting in our Florida room watching the dogs attack bugs stuck crawling along the screens and listening to my Pandora "They All Laughed" station.

I started subscribing to RSS feeds on my Google Reader today. I don't know what took me so long to enter this realm of online information gathering. I have seen the little orange wave on practically every website, but ignored it. I like to think it's because I'm anti-conformity and a total non-hipster, but I cannot lie to myself; I dislike a majority of new things until I force myself (or, more often, am forced) to try them.

I'm a crotchety, creaky 90 year old man. (Definitely not a sweet, candy-carrying granny.) I prefer to shuffle around the house in my worn-in slippers and curse those youngins with their loud music and crazy ideas. This might be a (slight) hyperbole, but I do enjoy my slippers. I'm definitely a child of this extremely connected, constantly moving Internet age, I just come around to new technology a great deal slower than others.

The only Uggs I will ever own. Thanks, Santa!

I swore off e-readers when I first heard of them because nothing can replace the feel of a bona fide, grainy book in your hands. After spending time reading reviews about different e-readers and playing with the Nook at Barnes & Noble, I've decided they might not be the work of El Diablo. Now the top of my Christmas list is adorned with the Nook (No, not the Kindle. Give me a color screen and book sharing.). Hear that, Santa? My husband downloaded the most recent Blackberry software to my phone yesterday and I nearly had a heart attack. As you may have guessed, I survived, but I spent today adjusting to the new BBM format and horrible pain of setting up my email again. Life is so hard.