Today we’re cooking for our furry friends. Because we know that they love food almost as much as they love us, we will bake them some sweet potato treats. These treats have all the benefits that one could ask for, they’re natural, made from healthy whole foods, no added supplements or other creepy stuff that you find on the market and, as a big bonus, they’re chewy – taking our dogs longer to eat them makes this treat a great one by regulating his system in times of need, namely, during indigestion or other bad times like that.
• What you’ll need:
• Large sweet potatoes
• A sharp knife
• Cutting board
• Baking sheets
• Oil for greasing the pans
• The actual cooking part!
First things first, you need to preheat your oven to the lowest setting. Around 175 degrees should be just fine. Take your sweet potatoes and slice them up lengthwise into about 1/3 inch thick slices. You don’t need to peel the skin off, as you want them to be thick for the dehydration process and this also helps with the chewiness.
Now comes the long part of this process. Since we want to dehydrate the sweet potatoes, we will need to grease the baking sheets, arrange the slices on a flat surface and then place the pans on the top racks inside the oven, where we will let them do their thing for… pretty long, actually. Eight hours, to be precise. Yep, that’s dehydration for you. If you really want to get it over with, you can crank up the temperature, but the outcome won’t be as good and fleshed out if you’d let it properly do its thing.
Here’s a tip:
If you want the treats to be softer, you can leave them for less time in the oven, that’s make for some chewier ones that break a little harder, something close to the texture of taffy, but if you want them dryer and tougher, leave them for a longer amount of time. We found that the best ones are left for longer in the oven, turning it off when they were almost fully dry to the touch and letting them in the oven overnight – perfection greeted us the next morning.
• Time to feast!
Is it morning already? It’s treat time for the doggy! Call him to the kitchen; let him feel the smell, then serve him the delicious goodies you spent so much time making him. I’m sure he’ll love them, Rover sure did and he didn’t leave any for his brother, Spot. Oh, well, I guess the early bird gets the worm. He thanked us with a big grin on his face. I must admit, I was really tempted to try some, they looked and smelled absolutely delicious but I had to restrain myself. And I barely could.
That’s it! A simple recipe for some delicious dog treats that are sure to make his tail wag. Bon appétit!
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