Last night hubby and I were finishing up our shopping list, and trying to save money, we delved into the dark corners of our freezer to inventory what we had already. We were very responsible adults and made a list to put on the front of the fridge, I even put it in a page protector so it would be (a little) toddler proof.
Let me stop here and say I LOVE my fridge, you could put at least 2 bodies in it. It's like a Tardis. The freezer is an on-the-bottom chest, but things have the habit of disappearing into the bottom of it.
About 50 feet down, my husband found several mystery meats. Wrapped in foil and bagged, but not labeled, and looking like they'd been there since the dawn of man. Knowing what's in my fridge and not wasting money, I'm totally doing it wrong >.<
After much poking, peeling and squinting, we figured out it was ground beef. Horribly wasted, freezer burnt little rocks of graying cow matter. "Ick, throw that out!" you'll say. But, if you have furry little friends in the house, think twice about chucking your icy chuck. You can turn that wasted money into saved money in about 15 minutes. Dogs and cats both will eat food that consists of actual food! They'll love it, you'll feel like less of a wasteful jerk, and they'll be a little healthier for it. Seriously, watch how their coat will suddenly get all shiny and soft.
Because I love my puppus, here is my dog Remy, he's an American Eskimo (AKA German Spitz) and my toddler's BFF. He will be very happy tomorrow morning when I feed him this project.
I've made dog food before from a recipe HERE, figured out very quickly how easy it is and have done it a few times since with different kinds of meats (Remy's favorite is salmon, rice & peas.) I will say this though if you'd like to follow the instructions on that website, canning ground beef is tricky because the fat can cause the seal to not form and you should NEVER can anything with rice or pasta in it. It is a serious health risk because of the density of such foods. HERE is a website that has all of the up to date info on canning and all the horrible things that can happen if you do it improperly. Don't chance it and just freeze or refrigerate this stuff and use it immediately.
Here we go....
All you need is your newly found freezer treasures and a few things from your fridge/pantry that you'll most likely have anyway.
I have here 1 massively-massive grated carrot, 1 egg, apple cider vinegar (also called ACV, it's great stuff for people and animals), 3 cups steel cut oats & 3 pounds of beef (that's the defrosted chuck-cicles in the bowl)
I found that we had around 3 pounds of beef, so that's what I'm using. I also found the oats about 17 feet back in my cupboard. It's old, and honestly a little stale for people's tastes, but Remy won't mind at all. It's good filler and still fairly healthy for him (especially in comparison to all the junk you'll find in bagged dog food, go ahead, read the ingredients list on your bag of Puppy Chow...) I made 3 cups of the oats. I've made this in the past with rice, Remy approves of this way too. It's really about what you have on hand and what's OK for a dog to eat. NEVER-EVER-EVER-EVER give your dog onions, it will kill them, that is not on the "people food that's cool for dogs" list.
Start off like you're making dinner for yourself, throw your beef into a hot pan.
I cooked the beef until it was about halfway done, do not season it, your dog doesn't need all that salt and pepper.
Then I cracked in an egg AND put in the shell. It's extra calcium that is great for your furry friend and they can digest it just fine as long as it's crushed up pretty good. I crushed up the shell after taking this picture because pulverized egg shell isn't that photogenic.
After I squashed the egg shell up good and the beef was fully cooked, I realized I had about 1/3 of a bag of frozen peas left over, so I threw those in along with the pre-cooked oats and about 2T of ACV.
Mix it all up and look at what a good job you did wasting all that meat!
Is it "budget friendly" to make your animal's food like this all the time? No, not really. But if you've got meat in your freezer that has been frozen to the point of needing to be thrown out, then yes, it is budget friendly. You're not throwing out money and you can save that bag of kibble for another day, it'll keep.
I portion mine out to about a cup for my 30ish pound dog. You can freeze this to keep for an "oh S**T I forgot to buy dog food!" day, or just toss it in the fridge and use it immediately.
Also, my husband came home about 5 minutes after I made this and said "oh, did you make dinner?" Apparently my dog cooking smells much better than that canned junk :)
