Fennel & Brans

Here is an idea for a light and tasty meal for our vegan dogs, ours loved it!

Ingredients:
• Fennel
• Brans
• Spelt milk
• Parsil

Preparation:
• Mix some brans with chopped parsil
• Chop the fennel and cook it in spelt milk.
• Let the fennel cool down and mix with brans.
• Enjoy your meal!

Tortilla Twists

Good morning! The whether is definitely miserable so we need to put some colour on the table to cheer it up.
Here it is a tasty recipe to make our dogs and human friends smile!
Put your apron on and let’s start cooking!

Ingredients:

• Tortillas
• Blacks beans
• Courgettes
• Carrot
• Olive or Seeds Oil

Preparation:

• Cook and blend black beans in a blender. Alternatively you can use a tin of beans and blend them.
• Wash and cut the courgettes into small pieces and blend them too.
• Add a little bit of oil.
• Take a tortilla and spread the cream obtained by mixing beans and courgettes over it.
• Roll them up and place them on a non-stick pan. Warm them up both sides on a medium-high heat. This takes around 20 seconds.
• Repeat this process until you get the desired amount of tortillas for you and your furry and human friends.
• Cut the tortillas in slices and serve.
• Add some grated carrot as a fresh touch.

Tips: we used tortillas, but you can replace them with toasted bread. Regarding the stuff you can use the vegetables you have on the fridge instead of beans. Be creative!

Bean Risotto

 

Ingredients:
• Rice
• Beans
• Zucchini
• Olive or Seeds Oil

Preparation:
• Overcook the rice and wash it well. Add it to the beans that you have pre-cooked. We use fresh beans that we leave to soak the day before and cook for about an hour.  You can use the ones in cans, ready to be used and more practical.
• Wash and cut into pieces a couple of zucchini.
• Mix all ingredients in the pan.
• Let it cool down and serve!

VeganBurgers

Ingredients:

• Mashed Beans
• Corn Flour
• Breadcrumbs
• Oats
• Olive Oil

Preparation:

• Mix a few tablespoons of mashed beans with corn flour and bread crumbs as required.
• When the consistency permits, shape several small burgers and pass them on the bread crumbs.
• Bake in the preheated oven for a few minutes, wet the baking dish with olive oil. Turn them so that you cook both sides.
• When they are lightly browned, take them out of the oven and serve with vegetables.
• Garnish with oats and a few drops of olive oil to raw.

Tips:
We used smashed beans but you can also use other vegetables cooked and blended. For example chickpeas or lentils.
The corn flour can be replaced with normal flour, it helps to mix and make the mixture more compact. The result is a fun and delicious meal for your furry friends…and for you, if you wish!

Vegetables Soup

Ingredients:

• Carrot
• Courgette
• Corn
• Beetroot
• Radishes
• Potatoes
• Beans
• Small pasta for soup

Preparation:

• Clean and cut the veggies. No onions!
• Put them in a pan and cover with water. Light the fire and let them cook.
• When vegetables are almost ready, add the pasta. No salt!
• When everything is cooked, let it cool down and serve!

Tips:
We use to prepare this soup for all of us, humans and dogs. What is important is not to use onion, salt, pepper and none of the harmful ingredients for dogs. You can salt to your dish once served.

If you prefer, you can use noodles, rice, cereals instead of pasta. Be creative!

Porridge

Ingredients:

• Oats
• Dehydrated soybean
• Corn
• Banana

Preparation:

• Put in a saucepan oats and soybean. Add some water and let it re-hydrate, if necessary, add some more until the soybean is re-hydrated and the mixture soft and not watery.
• Add chopped banana and a little bit of pre-washed and pre-cooked corn ad well.
• Stir, let it cool and serve!

Tips:
If the final mixture is too thick, add some water.
Corn and oat are great, because they are gluten free.
Such as legumes, corn has an external fibber skin, and therefore, is not digested by our furry friends. That is why it will be present in the fices.
Do not worry, everything’s fine!
If your dog suffers from digestive colitis problems, we suggest you to over boil the corn in order to make it more digestible.

Vegan Lasagna

Ingredients:

• Aubergine
• Courgette
• Rice Mozzarella
• Red Pepper
• Olive Oil

Guarnish:

• Basil

Preparation:

• Clean the aubergine removing the skin.
• Cut it into thin rectangular slices.
• Wash the courgette and cut the edges.  Repeat the previous step cutting it into thin rectangular slices.
• Now it is the turn of the rice mozzarella: same shape and size.
• Cut two flowers of red pepper.
• Grill all the veggies. The aubergine slices have to be very well done because raw is toxic for dogs.
• Serve alternating layers of aubergine, courgette and rice mozzarella.
• Add a drizzle of olive oil.
• Guarnish with basil and the red pepper flowers.
• Now you can serve it!

Tips: at serving you can cut it into pieces for an easier canine approach. Furthermore, you can keep the leftover veggies in the fridge for an upcoming doggy meal. If you wish, you can prepare this lasagna for you as well, but remember to add salt only to your portion. Salt is toxic for dogs.

Forbidden Food: Raw Potatoes, Leaves and Sprouts

Potato is part of Solinacee.They contain a substance called Solanine that dogs do not metabolize and can cause serious problems. If ingested in high dose, in fact, it can lead to death.

The solanine is located in the RAW potato, in LEAVES , in SHOOTS and the area below.

But do not panic: cooking, fortunately, neutralize the alkaloid!
It should, therefore be washed well, peeled and all the shoots must be removed before cooking.
Boiled potato, in fact, is particularly healthy and appreciated by our furry friends and is especially recommended for dogs with food intolerances and allergies.
If cultivated, keep your friends away from the plant.

For us too solanine is harmful. If we eat raw potatoes and feel a bitter taste it is because our body warns us of the high concentration of solanine. Our bodies immediately refuse it. Fortunately, our body is full of sensors.

Dispelling thus the dismissive phrase ‘the potato dogs no’.
Cooked potatos is an excellent food!

Forbidden Food: Green Tomatoes, Leaves and Sprouts

We often hear that the tomato is bad for our dogs, but it is appropriate to look better into what and why it is harmful to them.

The green part of the tomato  is toxic to dogs, the one with which it is attached to the plant, leaves, sprouts and green tomatoes. They contain a toxic substance called Solanine that dogs, unlike humans, can not metabolize.

The ingestion of large amount of Solanine can cause significant gastrointestinal problems and damage the central nervous system. It can also cause tachycardia, tremors, anxiety and restlessness. If taken in very high doses it can even be deadly.

However, the part of the plant used for human consumption, that is the ripe tomato, is not toxic.

The level of toxicity of these plants depends mainly on the composition of the soil, the temperature and the humidity degree in which they are grown.

In tomatoes Solanine content is inversely proportional to the degree of ripeness: the more they are mature, the less they contain Solanine. Cooking helps to inactivate any residual of the alkaloid.

If you want to use the tomatoes you can do it but choosing them with great care. It is better to use it rarely because it’s a little sour food so not really digestible. The thing is very simple: choose carefully the tomatoes and clean them from leaves, buds and green parts.

Sometimes we give our furry friends small pieces of ripe cooked tomato mixed with other vegetables cooked in a pan just to give that little bit of taste. The tomato sauces you can buy in the shop are very harmful because during the processing they macerate ripe and unripe tomatoes with leaves and sprouts.

So if you want to use tomato sauce to season a meal, choose a very ripe tomato, clean it well, remove the peel and chop. Do not, however, give it raw, nor often.