Make Your Own Dog Food Part 2: Puppy Stir Fry

Yes, I make our dogs' food. It's not as hard as you might think. If you haven't yet, please read Part 1 to find out how to get started with this.

In Part 1 I told you how I found meat on sale, rounded up a few things I had in my freezer, bought some store-brand veggies and blackeye peas, and a pound of rice. I had cooked the meat and rice when I left off last time.

I make such a huge batch, I got three of my big bowls and divided up the cooked meat and rice equally (eye-balling it).

I opened up the frozen veggies and peas and divided them into the three bowls, too. I added a splash of olive oil to each bowl. Okay, more like 1/4 cup of olive oil to each bowl. I find this keeps our dogs' coats soft and the dry skin at bay.

I stirred each bowl. I bought a few sets of containers with red lids just for the dog food, so we can easily identify in the fridge or freezer what is for dogs and what is for people (although, it would be fine for people to eat this stir-fry). I filled each container. All but one container goes in the freezer, the other in the fridge to use.

This batch made 13 containers, that will last almost two months. I feed our little guys 1/8 of a
container per day. They also get table scraps from messy toddlers on week days.

Until a few months ago, all I fed them was this mix. We were given some commercial dog food and to use it up, I mixed about 1/4 cup of the dog food in each bowl with the Puppy Stir Fry mix. The commercial dog food ran out, and I went back to just the Stir Fry. Well, our pups let us know that they really missed the dog food, so we made a decision to continue to mix commercial dog food with the Puppy Stir Fry.

Also, I put about a teaspoon of Brewers Yeast in
their food.

You can see in the photos that we make the dogs wait until they get the 'okay' from us before they eat. Then, of course, they gobble it up :)

Make Your Own Dog Food Part 1: Puppy Stir Fry

You read that right! I make our dogs' food. Why? Well, it started a few years ago when there were several dog foods being recalled and pets all over were getting sick. I decided to research and see if it was possible. It is!

BEFORE you change your pet's diet discuss it with your vet and do your own research. Here's more on what I did and where to start: Click Here.

There are three main ingredients: Meat, vegetables & rice. I don't think in all the years I've made this, I've made the same batch twice. I use whatever is on sale, leftovers, or whatever I have on-hand.

When I first started making this, I made small batches more often. I now make 6 to 8 weeks' worth at a time.

If you wanted to make this every few days an easy recipe would be:

1 pouch minute rice
1 pouch tuna
1 can mixed vegetables, drained

All you would have to do is cook the rice and mix the rest up. How long it would last, would depend on the size of your dog and how much they need to eat.

So, last week I wanted to make a big batch. I went shopping and there was ground turkey on sale so I got 2.5 pounds. I found some store brand frozen veggies and blackeye peas. I also got a pound of brown rice. I had a pound of ground beef and a few boneless, skinless chicken breasts on-hand.

Now to make some sense of it all!

I cooked the chicken in the microwave, but now that I think about it, I should have chopped it in bite-sized pieces and tossed it in with the ground meat.

I cooked the ground meat on the stove, siring until cooked.

For the first time, I decided to cook the rice all at once in my new-to-me all-in-one slow cooker. It turned out fine, despite the mess it made. A whole pound of rice makes a lot!

To find out how it all comes together, stay tuned for part 2.........