Fall is one of our favorite seasons and it’s a great time of year to share vegetables with our pups. Many of your dog’s favorite foods contain fall’s bounty, like pumpkin, sweet potato, carrots, and squash. Adding butternut squash to your dog’s diet is a good way to help him get vitamin A, beta carotene and potassium.
Butternut Squash Dog Treats
Ingredients:
1 Medium butternut squash (or 1 cup of fresh or frozen)
2 Cups of flour + 1/4 cup of flour for rolling the dough
1/4 Cup of peanut butter
2 Eggs
1/3 Cups of water
Cooking Spray
6 Old Mother Hubbard Treats, chopped
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Cover two baking sheets with tinfoil and spray with cooking spray.
3. Cut the fresh butternut squash in half, scoop the seeds out with a spoon.
4. Remove the squash’s skin with a vegetable peeler. Be careful! These are slippery veggies!
5. Add all of the cubed, peeled squash to one foil-lined baking pan and roast for 30 to 40 minutes. (A medium butternut squash should result in about 3 cups cubed so why not save the other 2 cups for your dinner or give it to your dog in his or her food bowl throughout the week?)
6. Take the cooked butternut squash and puree one cup of it in a blender or food processor.
7. Turn the oven down to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
8. Crack the two eggs into a bowl and beat. Then add the pureed squash and peanut butter and mix. (You might find it easier to use a hand mixer or a stand mixer.
9. Then add the two cups of flour slowly until the ingredients are mixed well.
10. Add the water a few tablespoons at a time if the dough looks dry and keep mixing.
11. Grab the regular flour and sprinkle it onto a surface for rolling the dough. Add flour to a rolling pin and start rolling out the biscuit dough until it’s about ½-inch thick.
12. Use a knife and cut the biscuits into squares or rectangles or use a cookie cutter for shapes. Depending on the size of your treats or cookie cutters, you might get 20 to 25 treats out of this recipe.
13. Use a spatula to add the biscuits to the other sheet pan, spreading the treats about 2 inches apart from one another.
14. You might need to add a clean piece of foil to the butternut squash tray and spray it with cooking spray as well if your dough makes about 25 treats.
15. Sprinkle the chopped bits of P’Nuttier in Nanners treats over each treat.
16. Bake in the oven for about 25 minutes, until they are hard.
17. Let the treats cool on a wire rack.
18. Serve a cooled butternut squash dog biscuit to your dog as a replacement for his or her regular daily treat!
Note: If you’re short on time or don’t want to put in the effort of cooking fresh squash, start with prepared squash that’s peeled and cubed. You can often find fresh versions your grocery store’s produce section or get a frozen bag and follow the directions on how to cook the squash. If you start with fresh, use 3 cups of cubed squash and then follow the directions above when you put it in the oven.
Store these in an airtight container on your counter for about a week or freeze some of the extras! Make sure to tag us in your Old Mother Hubbard pup bakery treats on Instagram!
Please note: Treats should be kept to 10% of your dog’s daily food intake to keep nutritional balance.