Making another batch of yummy doggie cookies for Ellie cuz she has a friend coming over!

changed it up this time around so that it has more of a cookie crunch versus the other one made.

1 1/2 cups quick oats, blended to grind to fine powder
1 banana
1/2 cup Peanut Butter
1 tsp Honey

mix all.  roll onto the Silpat to 1/4″ thickness or so.  Use cute cookie cutter to create shape.  Bake at 350F for 15 mins.

Ellie: Mommy, please stop taking pictures and put it in the oven!

made a lot….

Ellie’s happy face

Ellie’s sad face cuz she still hasn’t eaten any…

With all the cakes I have made for family and friends over the  years, there was no way I would not do the same for my Ellie girl’s first birthday!  I looked online for inspiration – something that didn’t have flour in it.  Ellie isn’t intolerant to grains, but figure why put it in if I can avoid it.  Got enough inspiration, so got to it. super easy, enough to make one ramekin sized cake for my pup.

She didn’t leave my side the entire time, and got to reap the rewards of licking the spoon and bowl clean!

Ellie even sat by the oven while it was baking…to be honest, it did smell pretty good

Shot of the pupcake before frosting:

Added a coconut oil frozen bone for decoration, plus a candle of course, and voila!

is this made for me?!

Nick bought me this cute silicone mold of bones on amazon last week, and I immediately decided to make something for Ellie…cuz let’s be real…pretty much everything we do these days evolves around our puppy girl.  Decided to mix a bunch of things that she loves and cleared by vets to eat – 4 ingredients:  Peanut Butter, Banana, Oatmeal, Coconut Oil

1/2 cup PB

1/2 cup Coconut oil

1 banana

3/4 cup Oatmeal – I used quick oats

To whip it up:

• I first soften the solid coconut oil by  putting it in a small bowl, then filled up a larger bowl with hot water and surrounded the small bowl to warm it up
• using my magic bullet, blended the quick oats to get it to a finer powder
• blend the PB, banana and Coconut oil together
• mix the oats in slowly – I didn’t end up using all of the 3/4 cups, but it wasn’t as solid as I would like, so next time I will
• spoon into the mold, press flat
• bake at 350F for 20 mins

Ellie didn’t leave my side as I was whipping these up

she got to lick the spatula. apparently she approves

Peanut Butter Banana Cookies

Once cooled, store in a container in the fridge – I was only able to keep these for a week as they were all gone by then.

My absolute favourite restaurant Chinese dish is definitely the Peking Duck.  The flour pancake wrap with crispy duck skin and a bit of meat. YUM.  Since I have some time on my hands this summer, I thought I would give it a try and make it at home.  Read some recipes and videos online and as per my cooking style, I started eyeballing and making it my own.  (Baking however is completely different where I would follow a recipe religiously!)

Didn’t care to roast a whole duck as I’m only making dinner for two.  And I coincidentally have 2 frozen duck breast in the freezer.  Didn’t take a lot of pictures throughout, but was pretty happy with how it turned out.  Nick was happy as well when he came home from volleyball to Peking Duck dinner.  Didn’t actually take too long to make.  Approx 40 minutes to make the wrap and roll it out.  And approx 30-45 mintues of cooking time of the duck breast.  I was overly generous with the cooking time to ensure it is thoroughly cooked as I don’t even like to see pink on duck meat.  Sauce and cucumber side dish took all of 5 minutes to prepare.  Onto the making of my homemade Peking Duck!

I watched the movie “The Vow” a few weeks back, and this quote caught my interest:

Paige:  “I vow to help you love life, to always hold you with tenderness, to have the patience that love demands, to speak when words are needed, and to share the silence when they are not, to agree to disagree about red velvet cake, to live within the warmth of your heart, and always call it home.”

Red velvet cake…yum!  I kept thinking back on the movie as I was baking my first attempt.  It was actually quite easy – now my new favourite thing to make!

It all starts with this:

side note: I love making this so much that I went on Amazon and ordered a 3x16oz bottles (for total of $23 dollars!) – Food Basics for these little 3 tbsp bottles (28ml) was $2 each…which means that it would take 50 bottles of these to get to the 48oz from Amazon at a whopping price of $100.

Enough math – on to baking!  Preheat oven to 350F.  Get all your stuff assembled! (bamboo plant not part of it)