Homemade Organic, Vegan Juice Pulp Dog Treats

They ARE just waiting for me to drop some of the mixture so that can gobble it up!

Ok, as promised the follow up to yesterday's juice post... what to do with that pulp... first thing is DON'T throw it away!  It can very easily be made into fabulous healthy, yummy, vegan doggie treats that your pups will beg you for.

You can make these treats with any juice pulp bearing in mind that there are a few fruits and veggies that are not safe for dogs to eat, mainly onions, garlic and grapes most of which I don't think people are putting into their juices... unless you're making a savory tomato garlicy type juice, in which case DON'T use that pulp to make doggy treats. 

I try to always use organic fruits and veggies when I juice, in addition I use organic pb and oats so these treats are organic and vegan, IDK if you've priced organic dog treats but boy are they expensive! So making your own and using that juice pulp instead of throwing it away really makes these treats easy on the wallet!

Homemade juice pulp doggy treats:

The juice I made the most recent batch of treats from was the first juice in yesterday's post: 1 large sweet potato, 3 large carrots and 2 oranges. After making my juice I was left with about 3-4 cups of pulp. If you have more or less pulp you can adjust your other ingredients accordingly.


Place the pulp in a bowl and add 1/2 cup peanut butter, 1 cup oats and I added 1/4 cup ground flax seed. 

Approx 4 cups of juice pulp

Use your hands to squish, mix and combine well. 

Roll into balls appropriate for your dog's size. Mine are about 1 inch balls. 

Bake at 300 for 1 hour turning once half way through. 




My dogs LOVE these, in fact they love to just eat them raw, kinda like how I love eating cookie dough raw lol. 

What a little beggar! lol

Charlie approves these treats and gives them a lip-licking-good review!

So save your pulp! Nothing wasted and your pups yet a YUMMY, healthy treat!

Orange Juice... sorta

My husband and I juice quite a bit.  It seems to happen in waves, we juiced pretty heavily when we first got our juicer, a lovely Value Village find for $50.  We both have done cleansing juice fasts and lost weight and felt much lighter and cleaner inside as a result.  We have not fasted in a while and our juicing tapered off for a while towards the end of the year.  But we're back in action again, refocused with the start of the new year. 

I wanted to share a couple of quick and easy juices with you.  They are orange in color but are not your typical OJ. 

The first is one of my faves:  Sweet potato, carrots and oranges.
You need 1 large sweet potato, about 3 or 4 carrots and 2 oranges.  Wash and peel the sweet potato, wash the carrots and chop the potato and carrots into whatever size pieces your juicer can handle. Cut the rind off the oranges leaving most of the pith (white part) but removing all of the orange peels.  Juice it all and serve over ice!  Makes about 32 oz of juice depending on how big your veggies/fruits were.  I know you are thinking juicing a sweet potato seems weird but it is sooo good it makes a thick kind of creamy sweet juice... just yum! 

Don't toss out your pulp!  I am going to share a super easy recipe for doggie treats using this pulp tomorrow.

The other "orange" juice I like is: Grapefruit, carrot and ginger.
You need 3 grapefruits, about 4 carrots and a 1 inch knob of ginger (if you have never juiced ginger before maybe cut that in half, ginger packs a punch!).  Wash your produce, peel the ginger if you wish (some people do, some don't) I just wash the heck out of it.  Cut the rinds off the grapefruit removing the colored outer rind leaving the pith.  Juice and serve over ice!  This one makes about 24 oz of juice depending on how big your grapefruits are.  So yes it's going to be a bit sour and yes that ginger is going to have some bite to it but once you've been juicing for a while you come to appreciate unique flavor combos such as this and even crave them.  The pith of the citrus fruits hold a lot of vitamin C and antioxidants. This particular juice is known as a natural energy drink due to the ginger/grapefruit combo. 

Check back tomorrow for the recipe for dog treats that will make your pup the happiest on the block, using your juice pulp. They seriously LOVE these treats... they are lick-your-doggy-lips-good!  Charlie says so!

Birthdays, Pizza and Eyeglasses

So I made a goal (not a resolution!) to be more active on the blog this year, even if it just means posting silly daily stuff rather than a recipe every post. 

Today was Bella's best friend's birthday party.  It was a Chuck E Cheese party which the kids were soooo excited for, I totally get it... Chuck E Cheese is an AWESOME place for kids.  Not so much for a vegan mama, it's difficult to have to say "No" over and over again to them. But we love our friends and knew it would be a crazy fun party so I had to figure out a way to make it work. 

Per Peta, Chuck E Cheese's crust and sauce are vegan, so a quick call to talk to the manager and ask if I brought in my own bag of Daiya would they make us a vegan pizza?  He was very kind and accommodating and assured me it would not be a problem.  When we got there I asked at the counter for the manager and he took our vegan cheese in the back and made our pizza himself.  It was not bad as Chuck E Cheese pizzas go.  I didn't get a pic... sorry.  The kids had me pretty distracted, but I did manage to snap a couple pics of the pretty princesses.

The party was a princess theme and all the girls were encouraged to dress up as their favorite princesses.  Bella of course always one to go against the grain decided she wanted to be a fairy (Tinkerbell).  I think I managed to pull off a pretty respectable Tink outfit for her.  It was an awesome party and the little princesses (and the big bros) all had a great time.

So.... if your little one's have invitations to a Chuck E Cheese party, never fear... make a call to your location and ask to bring in your own vegan cheese, and kick back and enjoy the party.

My little Tinkerbell

Brandon and some of the cool swag he scored with his game tickets

 After the party we came home and had some family reading and writing time.  We are working hard as a family to get our kids more excited about reading.  So at dinner we pass around the kindle and each of us takes turns reading out loud to the family.  Right now we are reading book one of Harry Potter.  It's slow going, as reading aloud is something both of the boys need some focus on, but I'm hopeful that the added benefit of time spent doing it together as a family will help.

After reading everyone took sometime to write in their journals before bed.  The boys write stories about their toys, or just about whatever happened in their day and Bells practices her name, numbers or drawing pictures.  Daddy works on a fantasy story he is writing and I have decided this is a perfect time for me to work on the blog :)

Oh one more exciting tidbit to share... The first born got glasses yesterday.  He's pretty stoked about them and had a lot of fun with me going to the different eyeglass places to try on frames and find one he really liked.  We went with these ones.  They were only $50 for frames and lenses at Vision Works in our local mall.  The second photo (the bolder frame) are the ones he really really wanted but they were $139 for the frames plus another $30 for lenses.  So we told him if he does a good job of taking care of these we'd consider getting him a more expensive pair in the future.