HOME MADE DOG BISCUITS

  -  for our furry child Otto

These dog biscuits are some that Otto loves.  Just to be clear, Otto loves anything you feed him, except for celery and lettuce.  So the fact that he devoured these was not surprising.  But it did make me feel good that he likes the biscuits I made specially for him.

The recipe can be found at http://www.dogtreatkitchen.com/wheat-free-dog-treats-with-ham.html

Otto is so freaking funny.  All you have to say is “Otto, you want some biscuits?”  He licks his lips and runs to kitchen quicker than a flash of lightning.   His favorite food-related words are ‘eat, cheese, biscuits and treats.’  He also is a big fan of ‘play, walk and daddy’s home.’  Such a goofy dog!  ;-)

So if you are into making homemade dog biscuits for your four-legged friend/child, I would recommend these to try.

Here are some of the pics of me making them and Otto greedily eating them.

This pic is of biscuits from a different recipe that is barbeque flavored.

Swampy Redneck TV

Last night I somehow got sucked into watching 2 tv shows I thought I would never watch.  ‘Swamp Pawn’ and ‘My Big Redneck Vacation.’  When pigs started flying I don’t know, but I watched those two shows.

‘Swamp Pawn’ was not as bad as I expected it to be.  The show is supposed to be about a man living in a Louisiana bayou who runs a wholesale fish business and also a pawn business on the side.  But to say it is a show committed to televising the pawning of items as the title implies is like saying that I am going to build a rocket ship and then only lighting a match to watch it burn.  During this whole one hour episode, do you know how much time was actually given to a pawned item?  A single pawned item?!  About 30 seconds!!!  30 short seconds out of a 3600 second long show.  I wound up liking the storyline of the featured people and wished them well in their business.  However, I think having the word ‘Pawn’ in the title is fraud.   They should just call it ‘Swamp People Who Want to be on TV.’

Furthermore, I think television has gone too far with all of these spin-off tv series about the same damn thing.  We have one too many shows about stupid pageant parents where the shows border on the brink of child abuse and child exploitation; more dumbass, hot-headed, soulless, gold-digging housewives than you can shake a stick at; and more than enough pawn shows to last a lifetime.  But if tv producers insist on making more ‘pawn’ shows, I have a couple of suggestions.  (Keep in mind that the majority of the items pawned on pawn shows are sold to the business owner and not actually pawned.)

1)      ‘Boob Pawn’   The storyline would consist of strippers pawning their breast implants so they can try to buy back their daddies love.

2)      ‘Soul Pawn’   This show would be about talentless, debauched heathens pawning their soul to the devil for a tv show.  (*cough cough*  examples: The Kardashians, Honey Boo Boo, Bachelor/Bachelorette people, Bridezillas etc  *cough cough*)

3)  'Silent Time Pawn'  Here some movie patrons would pawn/sell their silence in movies for theater food or gold jewelry.

Now on to ‘My Big Redneck Vacation.’  This of the two was the worst for me.  In this episode, the redneck family was driven down to Miami Beach.  Oh, those poor Miamians.  The Miamians would more likely prefer the swimming Cubans and drug dealers to these out-of-place rednecks.   The locals of South Beach probably did not know what hit them when this bunch rolled into town.  There were so many awful awkward moments, they were tangible through time and tv.  One particularly terrible awkward moment happened while the family was on South Beach.  The men decided they would be sly, charming and flirty with a couple of topless women.  Instead, the men were dumbstruck, clueless and way out of their league.  Watching them try to talk to the sun-bathers was so painful, it made my ta-tas and vajayjay cringe.

I am sure this redneck family from Louisiana is super nice and willing to help people who may be in trouble, but for the love of all things great, please get them off tv.  We have enough train wrecks (figuratively speaking) in this world that to put them in places and situations that are so incalculably out of their comfort zone is equivalent to rapper Chris Brown to Abusers Anonymous meetings.

Oh tv, you hurt my brain.

JUST STOP IT – FaceBook Posts Edition

People updating their Facebook status with uninteresting and worthless posts that no one really cares about really irritates the hell out of me.  Here are some examples of what I mean:  “off to work” or “have to go pay bills” or “I can’t sleep” or “grocery shopping at (store name) with (name of person who may have been drugged and then forcefully hauled off to the grocery store).”  To the people who post these kinds updates, let me assure you of one thing – 99.999% of this world’s population does NOT care. 

There are hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people who go to work every day.  Those of you who feel the need to tell the Facebook world that you are off to work are not special.  Good for you for actually being employed, especially in today’s economy, but working is not new.  Being employed has been around since the beginning of humans.  We are all constantly employed in one way or another – growing a garden, cleaning house, raising children, walking your dog(s), maintaining your car’s operability or actually working a job that pays  – I think you get the point.  So I will reiterate: working is neither new nor only done by a few.

For those of you who feel the need to inform us you are paying bills, we get it.  It is a mundane task that regularly sucks the life out of you and most likely ruins your checking account.  But be happy you actually have services to pay for (like phone, power, water, cable etc) and shut the hell up.  Again, we do not care and you are not special.

Also, for the people who inform the FB world that you can’t sleep, telling us isn’t going to help your problem.  Put away the phone/ipad/laptop because they stimulate your brain, which in turn keeps you awake.  Want to go to sleep?  SHUT OFF THE ELECTRONICS!

And finally, there is no reason to bring us up to date about grocery shopping or other errands that you have to do continually to maintain yourself and household.  You are not the only person in this whole wide world who does these kinds of tasks.  Telling us you are going to/at the grocery store does not mean crap to us because 99.99% of us will not share any meals with you at your house anytime soon.  Keep it to yourself people.  Unless something bizarre, extraordinary, just plain wrong or unbelievable happens – examples: you ran into Hugh Jackman and attached his face with your tongue or you saw a 3yo child throwing back shots of bourbon - just keep it to yourself!

So to these people who think that we have to know every insignificant thing you are doing, get your heads out of your rears and know that we do not care about posts of the similar variety stated above.  But if you feel that you need to post something or otherwise your day is not complete, and you have knowingly done nothing interesting in your day, for hell’s sake make something up!  Say you fought hand-to-hand combat with a dragon after tracking it down on a unicorn or planted an empty m&ms bag hoping to grow your own giant m&m tree or swam the depths of the ocean and danced the salsa with an octopus. Or how about post no status - nothing at all.

VEGGIES ON THE STOVE

The other night I had what seemed to be extra veggies in my fridge that would not be eaten individually before going bad.  And as I am the only one in our household who gladly eats cooked veggies, I knew I had to something with all of them and do it soon.  So I rounded them up and got some out of the freezer too and decided to sauté them.  **Please note – I did not measure anything.  I just kind of threw it all together.

                            

 I started with a medium sauté pan and put in some olive oil, sesame oil and soy sauce.  I put in just enough of the liquids to barely cover the pan.  In the back, those are frozen brussel sprouts boiling until they are just turning tender.  I did not have any fresh ones on hand otherwise this part would be unnecessary. 

As the oils were getting hot and after the sprouts tenderized, I set to work to getting the other veggies together to dish them up for their Olan Mills style picture.

Here I have frozen corn, frozen green beans, fresh white mushrooms, the tender brussel sprouts and raw cauliflower.  **The reason I boiled the brussel sprouts and not the other frozen foods is because of their density and thickness.  (After the boiling bath, I did cut the sprouts in half.)  The beans and corn I knew would be cook just fine as they were.**

Here are the veggies sautéing  

           

I put the cauliflower, brussel sprouts and green beans in first, followed by the corn and mushrooms about 5 minutes later.  Let all of that sauté for about 3-4 minutes and then added in dashes of garlic salt and nature’s own seasoning.

I must say I found this dish to be really tasty.  Obviously, if you wanted to try this, different veggies could be put in to suit your own personal taste.  Other veggies such as carrots, broccoli, celery, asparagus etc.  Spinach would be good too – cooked till barely wilted.  I wonder how pineapple chunks would work in something like this???  Hmmm that will be something to try the next go round.  Anyway if you decide to give this a whirl, I hope you enjoy it!