Cooking with Food Storage: Christmas Treats for Man's Best Friend

Molly loves treats! (What dog doesn't?) I have been know to use them as a bribe to get her to do what I want! And, since she happens to be a very fussy princess, treats have to taste good to impress her! 

I am pleased to say that Molly adores these treats! They are full of vitamins and Omega-3 oils. That is one of the reasons I love this recipe. Another reason I love it - it's gluten free! This is a great treat for dogs with wheat allergies. Molly isn't allergic to wheat, but she is allergic to almost everything else. I try to vary the treats I make her so I don't give her too much wheat. If your dog isn't allergic to wheat, I have a great peanut butter treat recipe you can see here.

I found this recipe on the Internet quite some time ago. For some reason, the link is no longer on my favorites list! The good news here is that I have made so many changes to it, it no longer looks anything like the original recipe. Still, I like to reference recipes when I find them elsewhere. My apologies to the original author that gave me the foundation to create the recipe below.

Chicken Broth Oatmeal Treats
3/4 cup of gluten free flour (I used Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Flour. However, if you have garbanzo beans in your food storage, you could grind them up and use that.)
1/4 cup flaxseed flour (In the past, I have used flax seeds instead of flaxseed flour because I didn't feel like grinding them to make the flour. If you do that, increase the gluten free flour to 1 cup.)
3 TBS powdered milk
2 TBS dried parsley (I grow my own.) 
1 TBS powdered butter (I am not sure the powdered butter adds anything. I keep telling myself that the next time I make these I am going to leave out the butter to see what happens, but I always forget to do it!)
1/2 cup chicken stock. (I make my own. You can see how to do that here. If you use canned chicken stock from the store, try to use low sodium. Be sure to read the label and don't use anything that contains onions. Onions are poisonous to dogs.)
1 cup oatmeal (I have used both quick cook oatmeal and regular oatmeal successfully.)

Start by adding all the dry ingredients together and mix well. Then add the chicken stock. This is a very dry dough that may need you to use your hands to knead it together.  I usually use a big bowl and knead it right in the bowl. In this picture, I added the chicken stock before I added the oatmeal and all of the gluten free flour. (I did that because when I was making these, I was multi-tasking! I actually had two different kinds of nut bread recipes going at the same time I was making these. I poured the chicken stock before I was ready for it!) 

Anyway, by the time you finish kneading the dough in the bowl, it should look like this. Wrap it up and chill it for a while. (I used freezer paper.) 

The reason you chill it is because the dough is a bit sticky. Chilling it will reduce the stickiness so that you can roll it out and use cookie cutters. If you are going to drop it on the cookie sheet by a teaspoon, there isn't any need to chill it. 

I rolled mine out and used doggie bone cookie cutters. Roll them thin. I like them about 1/8 inch thick. If necessary, you can dust the work surface with some of the gluten free flour.

Place on a cookie sheet. I used parchment paper. If you don't want to use parchment paper, lightly grease the cookie sheets.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 - 25 minutes. If they are 1/4 inch thick or thicker, you may need to bake them a bit longer. I made mine during the evening hours so there was not an opportunity to use the Sun Oven.

I store them in a cookie jar. When Molly hears me take the top off the jar, she comes running!

I bet yours will too!