Kitten DIY Projects

Hello all!

I'd like to introduce you to our new little guys:

Eagan

and

Rory

Here's the first DIY I'm sharing. Cat treats! It's important to feed your pets high quality food. The old maxim "You are what you eat" holds true for animals too! Making your own cat treats is much more frugal than purchasing the pricey all natural treats.

All you need are:
1+ cup Oat flour (old fashioned oats processed into a powder)
2 TBP Ground flax seed
1 TSP Parsley
1 egg
and
TUNA! (2 5oz cans, packed in water, no salt. If the tuna is salted, rinse well)

This recipe is very simple. It's basically just a cracker recipe. Blend the dry ingredients together, add the tuna and the egg and gently combine.

Add more oat flour if needed to pull the ingredients into a homogenous mass. I also added a couple of spoonfuls of tuna water to reach the right consistency.

 Place the mass on parchment paper on a baking sheet. Roll out to about 1/4 inch thick. Use a pizza cutter to cut into treat size.

Bake about 20 minutes at 350 or until crunchy.

I left my batch too thick, so they never got super crunchy, which means they are perfect for tearing off small bits for clicker training. Next time I make these, I will also cut them into smaller pieces.


I ended up with several hundred treats using about $1.75 worth of tuna and standard pantry ingredients. For an extra special treat, try using salmon instead of tuna.

 Gratuitous snuggle shot!

 Here's the second project I'm sharing today: a more sophisticated take on the standard cat tree.

We purchased 4 shelves from Ikea. The Hubs used painter's tape to plan out where shelves would go. We planned for the kitties to jump from the back of the chair on the right side of the photo.

Here's the finished project. We still need to add felt or carpet to the shelves so the boys have something to grip with their claws.

Rory and Eagan seem to like it!

Thanks for checking out these projects. I will be posting many, many more pictures of our kittens in the coming days and years!

Life Update

Recipes I'm Loving

Banana Bread Muffins

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1¼ cups pecans, chopped finely
• 3/4 cup sugar
• ¾ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 3 very ripe bananas, mashed
• ¼ cup plain yogurt
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 6 tablespoons salted butter, melted and cooled
• 1 generous dash vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a large muffin tin with muffin papers, or grease if you prefer.
2. Toast the pecans in a dry skillet over medium high heat until fragrant. 
3. In a large bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and walnuts together. In a separate bowl, combine the bananas, yogurt, eggs, butter and vanilla. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry until just combined. Scoop the batter evenly between the muffin tins.
4. Bake until the muffins are golden brown on top, approximately 20-25 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Recipe adapted from Savory Simple. 

I originally made these as a thank-you for a coworker who gave me a ride to work when I had a transportation emergency. I had forgotten how nice it is to have muffins around the house for a quick breakfast and snacking. 

Enchilada Sauce

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp. canola oil
• 2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
• 4 Tbsp. chili powder 
• 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. cumin
• 1/4 tsp. oregano
• 2 cups vegetable stock

Instructions

Heat oil in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Add flour and stir together over the heat for one minute. Stir in the remaining seasonings (chili powder through oregano). Then gradually add in the stock, whisking constantly to remove lumps. Reduce heat and simmer 10-15 minutes until thick.

Use immediately or refrigerate in an air-tight container for up to two weeks.

Adapted from Gimme Some Oven

I didn't have any cumin, so I omitted it. The sauce was very tasty, but I found it a little too "kicky" for my taste. I am a weakling and don't really enjoy spicy foods, so alter the amount of chili powder as you like. 

Fashion I'm Loving

Leggings. I apologize to anyone I ever made fun of for wearing leggings as pants. I recently cracked and bought my first pair. They are divine and I plan to buy a couple more pairs soon. 

Things I'm Doing

Missing my in-laws. They recently came to visit and it was lovely to see them again. We went on a 5 hour hike and saw a mama black bear and her cubs. My mother and sister-in law also opened my eyes to the joy of thrifted clothing. 

Missing my bestie from college. Can't wait to visit this winter!

Clearing out the apartment in preparation for our move. We move to our new place in less than two weeks. I'm trying to keep my sanity amid all the boxes pilled in our living room. 

Listening to LPs. We finally got our record player working, and I've been working my way through the albums I brought back from my grandmother's estate. They are in pristine condition and are the best of mid-century music: Frank, Dean, Louie, and Judy. 

Books I'm Reading

Goebbels: A Biography by Peter Longerich

This book is very interesting, but slow going. I'm on page 245 of 707. I've had this book from the library for three weeks and I'm generally a swift reader! If you're interested in this sort of topic, I'd highly recommend this book. All the German phrases and terms are a bit overwhelming, and I wish I had more of a background in post-WWI German government, but overall,  pleasant before-bed reading (is it weird to call a book about a Nazi a pleasant read?).

Life at the Grooming Salon...

Shockingly, working at a grooming salon doesn't mean my days are fully of wiggly puppies and doggy kisses. There are ups and downs, just like with any job. Yesterday illustrates this perfectly. I worked on a really nice lab who was super sweet and gave me lots of kisses. However, I also had a dog bite me while I was working on his toenails. And, (this is the weirdest thing that's happened to me so far), a dog peed up my arm and into the sleeve of my smock because he was angry with me.

I'm sure I'll have many more stories from the salon to share with you as time goes on. Thanks for stopping by!

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

As promised, here is my first recipe post: Cream Cheese Pound Cake!

This cake pairs wonderfully with ripe fruit and fresh whipped cream. It's also fabulous on its own, or served slightly warm with chocolate or fudge sauce. The perfect simple summer desert. 

 This is all you need for a luscious, creamy, rich pound cake: 1.5 cups butter & 1 cup cream cheese (softened), 6 eggs, 3 cups sugar, 3 cups sifted all purpose flour, 2 tsp vanilla and a dash of salt. With just a little work, provided by the ubiquitous Kitchenaid mixer, these components form the best pound cake you will ever eat.

 A pre-chaos shot. Please excuse the mess in our living room, we are getting ready to move. Grease and flour a 12 cup bundt pan. Preheat the oven to 325.

 Cream the softened butter and cream cheese together until combined.

 Increase the speed to medium and mix in the sugar slowly. Beat until fluffy. Decrease the speed to low and mix in the eggs, one at a time. Wait until each egg has been incorporated before you add the next egg.

 Next, slowly add in the flour. Once the flour is completely incorporated, add the vanilla and the dash of salt. (Note, I use salted butter, so I don't add much salt. If you use unsalted butter, you may want to increase the amount of salt you add). The batter will be reminiscent of soft serve vanilla ice-cream.

 This batter is very stiff. I've found that simply rotating my bundt pan and plopping dollops of the mixture ensures a fairly even distribution.

 Smooth out the surface of the batter.

 I invite you all to admire my thrift store vintage bundt pan in all its glory!
Give your pan one good wallop on the counter to remove any large air bubbles. Don't wallop any more than that though, or you may end up with a off-puttingly dense cake.
Bake at 325 for 1.25-1.5 hours, until a toothpick inserted all the way comes out clean.

 Here is the finished cake. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 15 minutes before removing. I find that slipping a thin rubber spatula around the outer edge of the cake gives me a smooth, rip free removal.

Top with a dusting of powdered sugar. Allow the cake to cool a bit more before devouring.

Thanks for joining me for my first recipe post. Not all of my recipes will be quite so deliciously unhealthy, but they will probably be close!

This recipe adapted from the Brown Eyed Baker. 

 http://www.browneyedbaker.com/cream-cheese-pound-cake/

Inaugural Post

Welcome!

The news may surprise some of you who read this (if anyone does), but I'm leaving graduate school. I didn't like my program. And the stress was killing me. That's not an exaggeration. For the last several months I've been in and out of doctor's offices and trying out different medication regimens. So I've opted out.

Jonathan (my husband) and I still live out West. We're not planning on moving back to the Midwest. We love where we live. So that's one fabulous thing that came out of this year-long ordeal. We also made many awesome friends in this town and would hate to leave them.

If you've met me, you will know that I'm very hard on myself and like to be the best at everything. I struggled for many months with feeling like a failure. But lying on the doctor's table in Urgent Care one Friday morning in the midst of a panic attack was enough to convince me that leaving wasn't just the result of a crappy attitude. No amount of pulling myself up by my bootstraps was going to be enough to get me through the grueling years of study and research ahead. And quite frankly, why would I want a PhD in something I wasn't passionate about?

So this blog is my way of staying engaged and continuing to write (in some capacity) while I take a step back and enjoy my early twenties. I'm now a professional dog bather and in a few months, I hope to be sent to Grooming Academy to become a trained Groomer. Being a Dog Groomer may not be as prestigious as being a Cognitive Neuroscientist, but at least I've got my sanity and my health back.

And hey, keep an eye on this blog as I test and share new recipes! Baking is an actual passion of mine and I've been known to whip up some pretty tasty treats.

Thanks for joining me on this crazy ride.