Introduction: Dog Food – All Natural Ground Beef Sliders

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About: I`m an accountant who has recently taken up woodworking as a hobby in my spare time.

I have 2 small Dachshunds; one will eat anything and the other became very picky with her food. She wouldn't eat dry food, so eventually we bought wet canned food from the vet which was quite expensive, she ate some but eventually turned her nose up at that as well. We turned to frozen raw food, and cooked it rare in the microwave for a few seconds. She loved that but it was even more expensive than the vet food.

We decided to make our own dog food. We looked at the ingredients on the raw food, and purchased a Vacuum Sealer and vacuum seal pouches at our local Costco. We added all the ingredients on the label of the raw dog food and added a bit of cheddar cheese (because everything tastes better with cheese on it and our dogs love cheddar cheese) We did a bit of research on the internet and dogs digest cheddar cheese better than say mozzarella. We experimented with the quantities of the ingredients, and came up with the following recipe. Our dogs love this food!

This recipe produced 58 days of dog food for my 2 small dogs.

Supplies

Ingredients

  • 6 cups long grain rice (12 Cups water)
  • 9 Medium Apples
  • 6 cups Baby Carrots
  • 12 Stocks of Celery
  • 2 bales of Kale
  • 9 small Sweet Potatoes
  • 4.5 cups Shredded cheddar cheese
  • Approx 17.5 lbs of Ground Beef (can substitute turkey, chicken, lamb)

Equipment

  • Food Processor
  • Vacuum Sealer and vacuum seal pouches

Step 1: Cook Rice

Add 6 cups of long grain rice to 12cups of boiling water, turn heat down and cook for 14 minutes. Separate into 3 large mixing bowls.

Step 2: Cook Sweet Potatoes

Cook sweet potatoes in batches of 3. Chop sweet potatoes into slices, add water and microwave on sensor cook for potatoes, cook until tender, then cool. These batches can be microwaved and cooled while you chop the other veggies in the steps 3 to 6.

Step 3: Add Kale

Chop kale and then finely chop using the food processor. Add finely chopped kale to the mixing bowls.

Step 4: Add Apples

Cut apples (3 for each batch) into slices then finely chop using the food processor. Add finely chopped apples to the mixing bowls.

Step 5: Add Celery

Cut celery (4 for each batch) into slices then finely chop using the food processor. Add finely chopped celery to the mixing bowls.

Step 6: Add Carrots

Add 2 cups of baby carrots for each batch to the food processor. Add finely chopped carrots to the mixing bowls.

Step 7: Add Sweet Potatoes

Add the batches of cooled cooked sweet potatoes to the food processor and blend. Then add to batch to the mixing bowls of chopped veggies.

Step 8: Mix Veggies

Mix by hand each of the 3 batches until the veggies are evenly mixed.

Step 9: Add Cheese

Separate each mixing bowl into 2 halves.

Add 1.5 cups of shredded cheddar cheese to each batch and mix by hand.

Step 10: Add Ground Beef

Add 1/6 of the ground beef (or 1/2 package as we had 3 large packages) to 1/2 of a bowl of mixed veggies. We made a total of 6 bowls. Mix the ground beef and veggies by hand until evenly mixed

Step 11: Make the Lean Ground Beef Sliders

The scale was zeroed out and Sliders of 70 grams each (the size of a large meatball) were made.

Step 12: Vacuum-Seal Beef Sliders

Sliders were vacuum-sealed 4 to a bag (2 meals a day for 2 small dogs). Vacuum-sealed bags were placed in the freezer. This batch produced 58 days of dog food for my 2 small dogs.

Step 13: Serve Up the Meal

I microwave a slider for approximately 18 to 20 seconds to cook it rare. My dogs love this food, and get excited excited at every meal and inhale this food; we use feeding mats to slow them down a bit.