32 bagels and a loaf of rye

I finally had 2 days off in a row and what do I do? I bake! It was a busy weekend, starting with three dozen bagels (plain, onion and cinnamon raisin) and loaf of rye.

Here are some photos of my rye and my onion bagels. I'm still trying to perfect the art of the perfectly formed bagel. In the meantime, Waldo is having a good time eating the deformed ones (notice the subject of my post was 32 bagels and not 36!)

Meanwhile, he is perfecting the art of looking cute and begging. This is picture of him in the kitchen, trying his best to look hungry.
















Afterwards, we took some time for sleepy belly rubs on the couch.

















And there is always, always time to taunt the cat.

All's quiet

All is quiet in our corner of the world. I have a new dog recipe I want to try, but I ended up working this weekend and couldn't do it. Waldo's leg seems to be back to normal, which is a huge relief.

In a physical sense, he is well but we may have to get him into counseling for his emotional state. Peanut the cat is on a special diet for a bladder condition, and seems to have taken issue with the fact that Waldo has better food and treats than she does.

Whenever he eats, she will sit close-by and try to eat from his bowl. In this photo to the left, take note how he is looking at her with one eye while trying to eat.

She will sit patiently and wait until he's not looking to inch a little closer.

Waldo seems quite distressed about this and will do nothing to defend himself since it's just not in his nature. He hasn't quite realized that he is much bigger than her!

I have also tried feeding him in his pen, but she will camp outside of it (like in this photo) and reach through the bars to try and get to the food. Poor guy is being bullied by a cat. Do you think there is a support group for dogs in this situation?!?! =)

Easy dog cookie recipe

Okay, so I baked my first batch of dog cookies this weekend. I started with an easy recipe for Cheesy Garlic Chunks that I found here. The recipe is simple with few ingredients, all of which I had in the cupboard already. Instead of margarine, I substituted a half stick of butter and also added turmeric in addition to the garlic.


Blending the ingredients by hand was very simple, much like an easy bread recipe. Per the recipe, I added enough milk to form the dough and let it sit for a bit in the refrigerator.

Speaking of forming, I did not bother to cut out shapes. I figured that Waldo would not mind that it was round instead of bone-shaped. Hand-rolling them seemed much faster and easier than rolling them out and then cutting them with a cookie cutter. I had to adjust the temperature and the cooking time to ensure that the thicker pieces were baked through.

I put the piece on two different baking surfaces - a Silpat covered cookie tray and a baking stone. The baking stone wins hands-down. The pieces on the Silpat tray burned quickly on the bottom and took longer to bake. The baking stone pieces were a uniform brown color even though I did not turn them during baking and the pieces were nice and dry within 25 minutes.




Overall, I would make these cookies again. Waldo seems to like them, the recipe makes several dozen, and it was easy!

Thanks for Herbie's mom for the recipe links. I will have to work my way to up Liver Cake...!

Makin' (dog) cookies

Okay, so I tend to get obsessive about certain activities. Like I wanted to learn how to knit, so a few years ago I spent all my free time teaching myself how to knit... and then going to knitting workshops... and reading knitting books. Most recently, I've been learning how to make bread at home sans electric bread maker. It's been a fun project, but clearly it is easier to knit a scarf than to bake a good loaf of bread.

An offshoot to this latest obsession is the quest for a good dog cookie recipe. I have an official taster (Waldo... and maybe Rich) and all the ingredients since I already make bread. I will start documenting my "makin' cookies" progress this weekend, along with which recipes worked or didn't work (and why).

If you have any links to a dog cookie recipe you've tried or want to try, let me know!