Treats to Help Dogs Beat the Heat during Summertime

Hi all,

Wordpress has been  slow lately, severely limiting my posts .  I have more posts coming, don't despair!

I found this information in the drafts folder of my e-mail, and realizing it was a few years old, I wanted to post it on here and share it with you.  If I'm not mistaken (I did not save the link) it is from MMN.  I also included Chip's picture as a treat for you.  Enjoy!

1. Grab a bowl, fill it three-quarters of the way full with water and place it in the freezer overnight. Place it beside his regular water bowl before you leave for work. As the ice melts, your dog will have a second bowl of cool water during the day.

2. Pour chicken or beef broth into ice cube trays. When frozen, place a few of these yummy pooch ice pops in the food bowl with your dog's kibble, or simply add to the water bowl for a flavored beverage.

3. Pera relies on super tough Kong toys to keep her crowd occupied. Kongs feature hollowed centers that can be filled with anything yummy. "I fill them, freeze them and then pull them out when I leave," she says. Seal the small hole of a Kong with peanut butter then add chicken broth and a stick of beef jerky. Freeze for a yummy yet messy outdoor treat.

4. Add water or broth to your dog's kibble then place the moistened mixture inside the hollow portion of a Kong or other hollow chew toy. Freeze overnight.

5. Scrub sweet potatoes, score with a fork and then bake until soft. Add mashed sweet potato, along with the skin, to your dog's kibble for a healthy dose of beta-carotene.

6. Chill a carrot in the fridge and give it to your pooch. It's a super-inexpensive chew toy that works best with indiscriminate puppies. Spoiled pooches like my Lulu are a little more finicky.

7. Mash a ripe banana and mix with one tablespoon of all-natural peanut butter. Stuff the mixture into a Kong and freeze or simply place in ice cube trays and offer one treat a day. "Give this to your dog and you've hit the puppy distraction lotto!" Pera says.

8. Thinly slice apples, bananas, carrots, sweet potatoes or zucchini and place in a food dehydrator for a chewy treat.

9. Stir a tablespoon of plain low-fat Greek yogurt into your dog's kibble. Don't use flavored yogurt, which contains added sugar.

10. Thickly chop carrots and barely cover with beef, chicken or vegetable broth. Cook in the microwave until soft then add to kibble.

11. Wash, core and thinly slice apples with the skin on. Place slices on cooking sheet and bake on low heat until crispy.

12. Mash two ripe bananas and mix with four tablespoons of low-fat Greek yogurt and a few sprigs of chopped parsley or peppermint to aid digestion and promote fresh breath. Freeze and scoop out when your pooch is particularly good.

13. Stock up on tins of sardines in spring water. Mix these oily little fish in with kibble to promote a healthy coat.

14. Buy frozen green beans and use as treats, particularly for portly pooches who need a little calorie reduction. "They have be frozen," Pera warns. "Once they thaw, my dog Shock won't eat them and gives me a look that says, 'What's that slimy green thing on my food?'"

15. Create your own cheese doodles. (Small doses of junk food can be OK in moderation.) Squeeze a little Cheez Whiz onto a cookie sheet and freeze into mini treats. "If you have more than one dog, you are in trouble," Pera says. "Cheez Whiz is expensive unless you buy in bulk!"

16. Low fat cream cheese is your friend, she says. Add a bit to your dog's favorite hollow toy and freeze overnight.

17. Get bone marrow bones from the butcher and freeze them. "One packet of bone marrow bones costs less than an actual Kong toy," she says. "They chew the bone marrow and then you can reuse the bone." Be sure to monitor your dog while it's chewing a bone to prevent any possible choking hazards.

18. Place peanut butter or cream cheese inside a marrow bone and freeze. Again, monitor your dog while it's working on the bone.

19. Steam fresh broccoli florets and use as treats or mix with kibble.

20. Dehydrate slices of cooked chicken for bite-size doggie nuggets. (Here are some good dehydrating instructions.)

Since the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention estimates that more than half the dogs in this country are obese or overweight, use moderation when adding these or any treats to your pet's diet. If your pet is as finicky as mine, trial and error may be part of the process as well.

For those who seek a treat for the feline population, Pera offers one simple solution: "I give the cats peace and quiet ... away from the dogs."

Bon appetit!

[caption id="attachment_244" align="aligncenter" width="295"] My first puppy love[/caption]

Homemade Ciabatta Bread

  Mmm!  There's nothing like the smell of baking bread.  In fact, that was my favorite part of my drive home from work in Baltimore.  H&S Bakery in Fells Point bakes bread about 24 hours / 7 days a week.  The delicious smell wafting in your car windows was well worth the traffic.  Almost.

Anyway, I wanted to make my husband a truly delicious lunch.  He travels so much for work he deserves a phenomenal home-cooked meal! I love Italian food (and I LOVE watching Giada De Laurentiis).  I've been craving some good Italian bread recently.  Low and behold, we were all out of sliced bread at home (yes!) so I had an excuse to make ciabatta bread.  I love that it's crunchy on the outside, yet flaky on the inside.  It holds a sandwich (panini) really well without the crust being too hard.  Needless to say, I decided to make homemade ciabatta bread!

I have never made bread before, nor do I have a bread maker much less the "paddle" attachment for my hand mixer that bakers use for bread batter.  Once you make this bread you won't want to buy sliced bread.  Ever!

Since this was my first time making break, I scoured the internet for tutorials and found this one on Pinterest.  I like that they had pictures showing you what the dough would look like before and after rising.  I couldn't capture ALL of the steps on my iPhone for this project, but I will give you as many details as possible.  Where I don't have pictures, I'll include pictures from Mel's Kitchen Cafe.

Ciabatta Bread

This recipe calls for a "starter" the night before.  It's a yeast and flour dough base to give the bread good flavor and consistency.  DON'T skimp out on it!  I thought it would be harder but it wasn't.  Also, this was my first time using yeast and I had no idea there were SO many different formulations of yeast! 

INGREDIENTS:

Overnight Starter:

1 1/2 cups (6 ¼ ounces) unbleached or regular all-purpose flour
1 cup cool water
1/16 tsp instant yeast

(F.Y.I. 1 1/2 cups of regular all-purpose flour is exactly 6 ¼ ounces {I know because I weighed it}.  If you use a different type of flour definitely weigh it using a food scale, otherwise you will end up with different consistency in your dough, and you don't want that!)

DIRECTIONS FOR THE STARTER:
Mix the starter ingredients in a small bowl until well combined. Cover the starter and let it rest at room temperature overnight.

Mine ended up looking like this when I combined all the ingredients:

[caption id="attachment_338" align="aligncenter" width="492"] A little lumpy-looking, but it did grow a tad overnight.[/caption]

I didn't have a 1/16 tsp measuring spoon, but since I'm awesome in eyeballing a quarter of anything, I'm sure I measured a quarter of a 1/4 tsp correctly.  (After all, teaching quarter-, eighth-, and sixteenth-note rhythm values in your music classes makes you a pro at this).

Here's what I learned: I could have used a little more instant yeast.  I was not too impressed with how much my dough rose overnight, only because it didn't look as bubbly as my source.  But I must have done something right because it turned out delish!  I used Fleischmann's RapidRise highly active yeast.  (Their website says it is the same thing as instant yeast and bread machine yeast.  Insert confusion and frustration here!)  I did mine exactly as instructed.  However, since elevation and humidity make a HUGE difference in rise, my finished product this morning was not as bubbly as Mel said it should be.

I then (just to rule out an error) made a SECOND batch of "starter" with 1/8 tsp yeast and lukewarm water instead of cold water (per the yeast envelope's instructions).  Yeah, that was pretty much a waste of flour because it didn't do anything.  So used the original starter I made hoping for the best.

Onto the bread!

INGREDIENTS:

For the Dough:
all of the starter (from above)
1 tsp instant yeast
1 1/2 cups (6 ¼ ounces) unbleached or regular all-purpose flour
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp nonfat dry milk
1/4 cup lukewarm water (I did not have dry milk.  I used 1/3 cup organic 2% milk and a tbsp of water)
2 tbsp olive oil

DIRECTIONS FOR THE BREAD:

Place all of the dough ingredients, including the starter, into a bowl and mix thoroughly until the dough is smooth but tacky.  I do not have a flat/paddle beater for my hand mixer, so I did this with a whisk, a spoon, and some some elbow grease.  The dough was very wet and sticky in the beginning. After mixing for 7 - 10 minutes, the dough was soft to the touch, and elastic. Mine was also a little bumpy, but what I DIDN'T expect was just HOW STICKY this dough was!  My goodness!  It clung to my fingers like it was its business!

Using canola oil spray, oil your hands, and transfer the dough to a greased bowl, cover, and let it rise for 2 hours, deflate it halfway through, and letting it rise another hour.  This is where covering with a very damp towel helped me.  About an hour after loosely laying a dry towel over the bowl, nothing had risen.  The hubs suggested the damp towel and it worked!

[caption id="attachment_321" align="aligncenter" width="539"] look at the condensed water from the towel![/caption]

Lightly grease your work surface/counter, and a half-sheet baking pan (18″ x 13″) or similar large baking sheet (I put aluminum foil on my pan so I wouldn't have to clean it!). Grease your hands, as well. Very gently turn the dough out of the bowl onto your work surface with care that you don’t deflate it.



Using a bowl scraper, knife, or your fingers, divide the dough in half. You should have two logs, each about 10″ long x 4″ wide.

Handling the dough gently, transfer each piece to the baking sheet, laying them down crosswise on the sheet. Position them about 2 1/2″ from the edge of the pan, leaving about 4″ between them.

Lightly cover the dough with heavily oiled plastic wrap, and allow it to rise for 60 to 90 minutes. Midway through, gently but firmly dimple the dough with your fingers, making fairly deep pockets. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 425°F.

[caption id="attachment_327" align="aligncenter" width="568"] This picture was taken after about one hour of rising. Notice how it has expanded from the above picture, before covering with oiled plastic wrap.[/caption]

Spritz the risen loaves with lukewarm water. You’ll see that the dimples have filled in a little. Bake the loaves until they are golden brown, about 18 to 20 minutes. (I baked mine for about 25 minutes.  Again, altitude and humidity change things a bit).

[caption id="attachment_328" align="aligncenter" width="554"] I LOVE peeking at baked goods in the process of baking![/caption]

Remove them from the oven, and cool on a rack.  Voila!  Here is the end result:

Dryer Efficiency

I do a lot of laundry at my house.  LOTS.  Enough for me to say to my husband, "I'm glad we're alive during this age when technology is so abundant.  I can't imagine doing laundry for you without electricity."  I know.  I'm a hoot.

So when our "new to us" dryer started skimping out on me I started to panic.  Back in Maryland we had a dryer that worked (by work I mean hummed and rotated its basket) but didn't heat up the air.  $100 later the electrician replaced a TINY little fuse that burned out.  Yes.  $100.  I was peeved.  Well I've been experiencing this lately with this "new to me" dryer and I don't want to fork over $100 to fix it when I could use it toward a multitude of other projects.  Like this one.

Somehow I stumbled upon this link online.  It contains 17 Tips to Make Your Life Easier.  #17 in particular caught my attention.  It involved cleaning the lint filter.  (By the way, I have done #16 and it DOES work!)

What I learned from that blog post:

"Dryer sheets create a film over lint filter's mesh over time.  That’s what burns out the heating unit. You can’t SEE the film , but it’s there.  This phenomenon also causes dryer units to catch fire & potentially burn your house down with it! The electrician said the best way to keep your dryer working for a very long time (& to cut energy bills) is to take that filter out, wash it with hot soapy water & an old toothbrush (or other brush) at least EVERY six months. This extends the life of the dryer at least twice!"

Good advice, huh?

So I did it.  I took out the lint filter and brought it with me to the bathtub:

I can't see a film, but why is that water just sitting there?  Isn't that what the mesh is for?

I took some Dawn liquid detergent and my toothbrush from my oil stain removal experiment, and as that experiment went through the rinse cycle, I washed this.

A quick (30 second) brush through...and look at the water run now:

Wow.

I replaced the lint filter into the dryer and put in the next load into the dryer.  What normally wasn't dry until a second run-through (towels) in the dryer was piping HOT even before the cycle finished:

Yes...there were still a good 20 minutes left before it finished its cycle and the clothes were dry.

TRY THIS and see for yourself!  You could be saving tons on your energy bill!

Removing Set-In Oil Stains

Have you ever sat down to fold laundry fresh out of the dryer only to find this?

Oils stains: the bane of my existence.

Aggravating, isn't it?

I've been looking for natural ways to clean around the house (and save money at the same time).  While I don't think I'm brave enough yet to use homemade laundry detergent, I found myself without a stain pre-treater or spot remover today after doing some laundry.  I've read that baking soda is great at just about 1,000,000 different things.

I love my husband.  I do, really.  Don't get me wrong.  But the man has this uncanny ability of defying the laws of physics when it comes to spills and making messes.  Yesterday he managed to spill the entire contents of his coffee mug onto the floor, but didn't drop either his cell phones (yes, two) or his coffee mug.  Please explain that one to me.  Also, I have watched him be motionless with a drink in his hand and in a split second the drink is spilled everywhere.  He defies the law of physics.  Please don't try to convince me otherwise.

So as you can imagine, I was upset at the sight of those oil stains.  More so because he gets upset with ME when there are oil stains on his clean clothes.  Please don't bother to understand that one.  Seriously...don't.

So in searching ways to remove oil stains, I remember I read somewhere that you can "revive" old oil by adding a little more oil.  Makes sense when I think of my cast iron skillets looking a tad dull before I add oil or butter on them.  There's still a slight sheen of oil there even when bone dry after cleaning with soap (which you're not supposed to do, I know).

Here's what I did today that will remove even the oldest, most stubborn oil stains from clothes.  I've only tried this on cotton so far, but I'll let you know what other fabrics it will work on (because I can always trust on my husband to give me fresh material).

Here's what you'll need:

oil (I found some generic WD-40 under the kitchen sink)

baking soda

scrap of cardboard (optional)

Dawn liquid dish detergent

an old toothbrush

your regular laundry routine after stain removal

** UPDATE: I tried this with extra virgin olive oil and forgot to use Dawn. Oil stains were STILL THERE!***

I started off with my generic WD-40. I always buy generic when I can on everyday things. I have come back to Tide and Downy after straying, though. WD-40 might be a tad extreme, but since I had already WASHED and DRIED these oil stains on high heat, I didn't want to take any chances. (You could always use corn or vegetable oil of some sort.) I placed my scrap of cardboard underneath the stains (between the front and back of the t-shirt) and sprayed each oil stain...

...only to see that the oil spread while I gathered my other materials:

At this point I hoped my little project would work. Otherwise I'd be in bigger trouble than I started. Bring in the baking soda (see?...generic sodium bicarbonate...same chemical as the big brands). I poured a pile of baking soda on the oil stain.

I brought out the toothbrush (I didn't have an old one so I used a new one) and spread the baking soda around and brushed it INTO the oil-stained area. I didn't really let it sit there. I continued brushing and brushing and brushing...until I ended up with chunks of soda all over. The baking soda absorbed all of the oil in the fabric.

I dusted off the baking soda into the sink. Look at the oil stain and the cardboard scrap. Boy was I glad I didn't have to do this on the back of the t-shirt as well!

I wasn't done. I poured more baking soda on the oil stains and, again, brushed the soda into the fabric. Look at those little lumps. I repeated this process once more until I had next to no lumps of baking soda.



I thought to myself, at this point, Dawn wouldn't hurt this, right? I poured the detergent on there (as a pre-wash treatment) and used the toothbrush again.



I then had something that looked like this. Notice the fine powdery soda every where. This is what your soda should look like when you've taken out most of the oils.


This sat on my kitchen counter while I waited for the existing load to finish. I threw this in with other darks with my usual Tide and Downy. NO extra wash time. NO heavy wash cycle. NO extra rinse cycle.

Voila!

YAY! Go ahead. Find the stains. I dare ya! Cost? $0 as I already had all these items around the house. Try it! Also, look at my Dryer Efficiency post for a tutorial on how to remove a film from the lint catcher that can be making you spend a longer time (and more money) drying your clothes!

Living room artwork

This is a really quick post.  I have been pondering and pondering what I could purchase to make artwork for our living room.  I'm not sure I wanted a picture of Tuscany landscape (that's more for my kitchen to accompany future canvases featuring wine) or any other landscape for that matter.  I've seen that countless times and wanted to truly mix modern + traditional decorating.

I came across a pin on Pinterest (surprise, surprise) with a conglomeration of different images in one.  It looked interesting so I opened it.  I never thought that I could find inspiration for our living room in that pin.  EVER.

I came across this picture from Hannah's blog:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="385"] Isn't it gorgeous?[/caption]

Hannah and her friends made this for her dining room.  Since the paint on her walls is identical (almost) to that in my living room, and I've been on a bronze metallic constant daydream recently, this really piqued my imagination.  Why couldn't I recreate this (with help) for our living room?  We have a big empty space above our sofa only emphasized by a vaulted ceiling.  It looks pretty bare (I'll post a picture when I have finished painting).

I can't wait to invite my artistic sister-in-law from Maryland and force entice her into doing this with me.  I LOVE it!  Amanda could even use this in her art portfolio.  She just came back from a month in Florence studying art.  I have the PERFECT person to do this for help me!

Hannah did it with canvas for $60, but if I get cheap particle board from Lowe's this would cost even less.  I can't WAIT to have this up!

Reupholstering Chair Seats part 2

This was a much more productive run!  Amazing what can happen when you have all the right materials at your disposal! Last time I sat down to reupholster a seat for my dinette I had a chair pad (foam) that was several inches too narrow on all fronts.  How frustrating!  I went back to JoAnn a few days ago and swapped those chair pads for squares ones that were 22" on each side.  They only had three 1" high density foam pads, so I had to get 2" thickness, praying that I had enough fabric (I did).

 

These covered the widest part of my seats (20").  My seats taper towards the back, so I will have to do some extra cutting.

These were my tools: a permanent marker and my bread knife.  You can be fancy and use an electric meat carver, but I don't have one.

Trace your seat with the permanent marker.

 

(This picture was taken at an angle so the seat looks square. It is not).

When you are cutting, MAKE SURE YOU MAINTAIN AN UP-AND-DOWN MOTION.  Do NOT cut at an angle.  I learned this the hard way.  Your seat will be lopsided and you will have to conjure up a way fill in what you've cut out.  (This high density foam is NOT easy to cut, so cutting small pieces to make up for mistakes won't happen).

 

Using an upholstery adhesive, you will glue the foam to your wooden seat for easier upholstery.  Trust me, you're gonna want to go outside for this.  This stuff sprayed out  like Spiderman's webbing shooting from his wrists. ( I wish my "spidey" sense had forewarned me). It was white, sticky, and came out in a vertical line as opposed to the usual conical sprays.  Do this on cement or anything you don't want to preserve, like grass.  It can get messy quick, if you're not careful.

Follow the instructions EXACTLY as printed.  I sprayed both foam and wood and waited about 30 seconds (under the hot Georgia sun) for it to dry to a "tack."  To me that meant no longer translucent.  Then I placed the foam onto the seat.  Note: this WILL be permanent so proceed carefully.  If you feel like you might have to reposition your foam for whatever reason, DO NOT spray both sides.  When they say "it is a permanent bond" they MEAN IT!  Once I set it down it would not budge.

Once you have your foam glued (should take less than 30 seconds--really) you lay your seat (foam side down) on cotton batting.

Staple the center edge on the first side.  Pull the batting tightly; and wrinkles or folds in the batting will create an uneven base for your fabric.  Work your way around and staple the center edge of the remaining 3 sides.  If it's not as snug as you need it to be you can always remove that one staple and re-tighten.  The cotton batting will smooth out  the transition from the foam's edge to the wooden seat.  In my case, the batting also provided padding for the uneven cutting of the foam.  I had to cut extra snippets and place them in the gaps to make up for my mistake.  Live and learn.

Work your way around the seat and staple the batting to the seat.  I used my permanent marker and circled the nail holes underneath the seat to remind me of the space I needed to have clear.

 

I played around with different folds until I settled for this one. I found this the least bulky under the fabric.  Trim off excess batting once you've stapled it all the way around, and staple your corners.

Then placed your seat base under your fabric so you can see exactly how you want the fabric's pattern to lay across your seat.  I was worried about the extra height of each seat and the 2.5 yards that I purchased.  I thought I would not have enough.  Thankfully I was able to take some time and carefully plan how I would maneuver my fabric so that the design would be centered on each seat.  I found that I could make two seats using the 54" of width of the fabric as opposed to picking a location along the 2.5 yards where the pattern looked nice and end up wasting fabric.  Smart, I know.

 

This ended up being a few degrees crooked (in my opinion) but, since the print is so busy, it hides well and I can live with it.

 

My faithful companion, Chip. I just love him!

Carefully lifting your seat with the fabric, staple the fabric onto the wood with one staple in the center of the seat's side.  Once I knew I had it where I wanted it, I stapled one on either side of that center staple.  I had not cut out my fabric yet so I wanted to be careful.

 

Work your way around the fabric, stapling and trimming until you get a rough square shape that's easier to work with.  While you're at it, take a tape measure and measure the width of the fabric so you have a general idea of how much fabric you'll need for each seat.

This was my first time reupholstering ANYTHING.  I know I could have measured the length + width of the seat, added 3" to each side (2 for the height and then 1 more to fold over), and then cut a square of fabric for that measurement.  However, I did not want to mess up the pretty damask pattern for the sake of simple arithmetic.  I also did not know if I estimated the correct yardage.  I ALSO was hoping to have enough fabric left over for a window valance for the kitchen and perhaps a scrap for an idea I have for an oven door towel.

 

I gathered the corner like the original seat's corners were. This lends to a nice rounded corner. If you want a square corner you would have to do a simple fold like I did with the cotton batting.

You can see that my fabric is not even around the seat--this is deliberate.  It was more important to me that the print was centered on the seat.  Once you have stapled the fabric snugly (but not too tightly) around each side, make sure your screw holes are exposed.  If not (see below, bottom right corner) you will have to trim back some fabric and/or batting to expose them.  You don't want the layers of batting, fabric and then the dust cover getting wound around the screw.  That would be a nightmare.

I brought the dust cover back out and lined up the holes from the screws in the wood to their corresponding parts on the dust cover.  As you can see, this dust cover is pretty see-through.  Remember, no one sees this side of the seat except maybe your dogs (and an extremely nosy relative).  If it bothers you, you can always buy black dust cover material at Joann.  I think it's $7.99 for 5 yards.  That was an additional $8 I didn't care to spend money on, so I reused what I already had at my disposal.

After all my work was done, I screwed the seat back onto the chair and admired my work.  Note that I already spray-painted the chair brown.  Might as well get that done while the seat was off, right?

Baked Blueberry-Banana Oatmeal with Pecans

adapted from Ambrosia Baking

This is by far the easiest, most scrumptious breakfast I have ever made.  My husband's face lit up when he saw this.  When he tasted it, he told me it was "So. Good." through a mouthful of oatmeal.  Haha.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup rolled oats


• 1/4 - 1/2 cup pecans (or walnuts, or sliced almonds... whatever you like)


• 1/2 tsp baking powder


• 3/4 tsp cinnamon


• pinch of salt


• 1/4 cup honey


• sprinkle of dark brown sugar (for topping)


• 1 cup milk (I had 2%)


• 1 egg


• 1 tsp vanilla extract


• 2 ripe bananas


• 1 cup blueberries

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375° F.   Lightly spray a 9"x9" ceramic or glass baking dish with cooking spray or melted butter.  I used a Giada brand oval ceramic casserole dish because I wanted to make an affair of it :)  Set it aside for a bit.

Slice your bananas and arrange them in a single layer at the bottom of the baking (or casserole) dish.  Sprinkle half of the blueberries, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, and 1 tbsp of honey on top of the banana slices.   I actually did not measure these.  I sprinkled the cinnamon until it just barely covered the layer of bananas and blueberries.  I drizzled the honey to taste.  This is the only sweetener the oatmeal will have besides the naturally occurring sugar in the fruit.   Cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes.  This will warm your bananas and blueberries (and your heart!) and start the caramelization process.

[caption id="attachment_216" align="aligncenter" width="720"] Is that 1/4 tsp cinnamon? I don't know. It just looked "right." Do you like that drizzle of honey?[/caption]

While that is "pre-baking," combine the oats, half of nuts, baking powder, remaining cinnamon, and salt; stir together.

[caption id="attachment_205" align="aligncenter" width="549"] Oats, half of nuts, baking powder, remaining cinnamon and salt[/caption]

In a separate bowl, whisk together the remaining honey (or as much as you'd like), milk, egg, and vanilla extract (be careful with vanilla extract; too much can be sour).

[caption id="attachment_218" align="aligncenter" width="488"] Honey (I added more than recipe called for), milk, egg, and vanilla extract.[/caption]

Remove the bananas and blueberries from the oven, then pour the dry oat mixture over the fruit.

Pour the milk mixture over the oats, making sure to distribute the mixture as evenly as possible over the oats.  Sprinkle the remaining blueberries and pecans over the the top.  Add even some more pecans if you'd like!

I almost put this baby into the oven when it occurred to me that looked a little bare.  This dish has not had anything fatty or unhealthy in it (no butter!) SO why not sprinkle some dark brown sugar on top?  As you can see it wasn't a lot.  This is totally optional, but it gave a little more color and a little more taste with each spoonful.

[caption id="attachment_204" align="aligncenter" width="685"] I couldn't help but see the need for brown sugar here! I mean, c'mon![/caption]

Bake the oatmeal for about 30 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the oatmeal has set. Serve warm from the oven.

[caption id="attachment_206" align="aligncenter" width="712"] YUM![/caption]

[caption id="attachment_203" align="aligncenter" width="430"] Chip is always begging, but for a non-meat dish? This breakfast was THAT good! That's Daisy on the right. She's new to our pack, but she's already the boss![/caption]

The hubby loved this breakfast.  I loved that it not only tasted good but it was also healthy!  I plan on making this again, but perhaps with apples or peaches instead of bananas and blueberries.  The possibilities are endless!