Meal Prepping Pureed Vegetables For Our Furbaby 💖🐶💖

Disclaimer: This is not nutrition advice for anyone (or their furbabies.)  Please do your own research about your furbabies needs and consult your vet if you have queries about their diet or nutritional needs, hugs  💖🐶🐱💖 

Hi Honeys,

How are you today?  All staying warm I hope?  Only 152 days till spring arrives again and yes, I'm still counting down as I do every year.😊 

In yesterdays post, where I shared one of our new favourites, cauliflower cheese and spinach, I promised I'd share my latest little kitchen experiment.  This one though was made for our much loved furbaby Jade. 💖🐶💖

As I started to explain yesterday honeys, one of my favourite Youtubers, Silvia, inspired me with one of her videos where she shared her latest grocery haul.  Included in her grocery shop were lots of tiny pouches of pureed fruit and vegetables for babies.  The little organic ones?  

Sylvia so clearly adores her beautiful furbabies, as much as we do our baby Jade.💖 So, I showed Hubby the video and we added half a dozen of these little pouches to our grocery shop, all in different varieties, just to see if Jade likes them. 

Well. long story short honeys, they were a huge hit!  That got me thinking... I wondered if I could make these pureed veggies at home because then I could control what's in them and they wouldn't have any preservatives in them. They are organic, so you wouldn't think there were any preservatives in there?  There won't be I'm sure, but having already had that thought run through my head, it made me very uneasy. We don't take any chances with our baby.  

A meal prepping adventure💖🐶💖  

For this first time making Jade's pureed veggies I cooked broccoli, garden peas, carrots and sweet potato (I cut the sweet potato into small cubes to cook through faster.)  I added water (no salt!!) and brought them to the boil and then I simmered them, on a low heat for 15-20 minutes.  I tested them by gently piercing them with a knife, everything was all soft.  

Another bonus was the gorgeous scent of simmering vegetables coming from the kitchen.  I used a slotted spoon to lift all of the vegetables into a glass mixing bowl, then used a hand/stick blender to blend them all together into this vegetable puree...    

I also poured the liquid left over from cooking the vegetables (shown above) into a smaller bowl.  This vegetable stock will make a fabulous base for a lovely pot of soup for Hubby.  He adores soup.💖  

Till the weekend though, I've put the stock into this bowl (which has a secure, lockable lid) and popped it into the freezer.  On the weekend, Hubby will be out in the garden clearing the mountains of leaves that have been falling from the trees, and he's hoping to give the lawn it's last cut of the year too.  

It's a lot of work honeys and while he's doing that, I'll use this yummy stock as a base and make him a lovely, warming potato and leek soup.💖 

Back to Jade's yummy dinner💖🐶💖

So, now that I had Jade's veggie puree all blended, I left it to cool for her and popped some boneless, skinless, chicken thighs into the air fryer...    

Once cooked, I then cut the chicken thighs up into smaller pieces... 

I then added around half of the chicken pieces to a small dish and mixed through a few tablespoons of the veggie puree...

The results...

I wasn't sure she'd like the homemade version of veggie puree as much as she was enjoying the little organic pouches we'd bought for her in our grocery shop but she loved her dinner and ate it all up!  

I should add that Jade rarely finishes a meal in one sitting.  She picks at her food when she feels hungry.  She's always known that her bowl of kibble is always there for her.  I'm sure that's why she feels safe to only eat when she's hungry and not feel compelled to empty her bowl because she's scared her human will take it away.  

I've read in so many dog care books, and online, over the years that dogs should have regular feeding times and it should be a window.  After this window the bowl is removed whether your furbaby has finished their meal or not.😟 Excuse my language honeys but hell no!! I'll never, never take our baby's food away from her!  If she hasn't eaten a meal, I'll replace it next meal time (we'd never let her eat spoiled food either.)

During the last almost forty years honeys, we've been blessed to be furbaby parents to eight wonderful furbabies.  Not a single one of our babies has ever eaten too fast, fought over their food (we were owned by multiple babies at a time over the years, once we had a family of four furbabies💖) neither have they been overweight.  

From puppyhood they've all known their food supply was certain.  Between meals, they've always had a large treat tin, always accessible to them, with dog biscuits in it (bonio, mini gravy bones, milk bones and wee markies are Jades faves.🐶💖) 

(Almost) the final word...

I'm so happy to have another way to care for our baby honeys.  The remaining puree from last night was divided into two of the smaller (0.3 L/10 fl oz) ISTAD clip seal type bags from Ikea and they were placed into the freezer.  She still had four of the small pouches Hubby bought her left (she had one of those tonight with dinner) so I thought she can finish those before moving on to the puree made last night.  

I'll definitely be making batches of pureed vegetables from now on. I can mix it through her usual foods.  For dinners this could be beef mince or chicken breast/thighs or canned Mackerel, tuna (not albacore) or salmon, so a little added pureed vegetables will give her dinner an added nutritional boost.  For anyone thinking this is too much bother for a wee dog we were blessed to adopt from rescue... I have a memory for you.  It's one I treasure and if it makes your heart smile too then I'll be very happy.💖  

Furbabies are family...

Many years ago, a dear uncle got home from work.  As he opened the front door with his key he was hit by the amazing scent of steak cooking.  He shouted hello to my Auntie and she told him to go wash up, that his dinner would be ready soon.  Off my uncle went to wash and change out of his overalls, eagerly looking forward to his lovely steak dinner.  He went into the living room and sat down and my sweet auntie came through with a huge plate of chips, sausage and fried egg.  

There, on the rug by the fire, was their wee dog... munching happily on the steak, cut up into tiny pieces for him, in his bowl.  The steak my auntie had gone to the butchers specially to buy for him because he'd  "...looked a wee bit depressed on his walk."  To his credit, my fabulous uncle just sighed and ate his dinner.  They both adored their wee dog, as much as we adore our baby Jade.💖🐶💖  

We're blessed with so little time with them really, and the time passes so fast.  I read a quote on Pinterest recently, and maybe because our baby will be thirteen next spring, but it hit me really hard and actually made me cry.  It was a drawing of a girl holding a dog lead, crying and it said "you were my best hello and my most painful goodbye."  Now I'm fighting tears again, nobody wants to think about the goodbyes but as Her Majesty, our beautiful Queen, said "Grief is the price we pay for love." 

Till next time dear ones, I hope you're having the best week and thank you for keeping me company.🤗 Hugs always x

Links:

Silvia's YouTube channel can be found here.  She's such a lovely lady and a wonderful pet parent, honeys.  If you visit, do say hello to her?  Thank you.🤗💖

11 Benefits Of Vegetables For Dogs  This is a really interesting article, you can find it here. 

Are Veggies Good for My Dog?  Another great article honeys, you can read it here.

Adding Fish To Your Dogs Diet: What You Should Know Lots to read here honeys but worth mulling over while enjoying a cuppa.☕ 🤗💖

Edit Oct 2023: For some months now, we've been using a steamer basket to steam Jade's veggies for her.  She's still loving her veggies and I read somewhere that steaming retains more of the goodness in the veggies.