I Love Presents

Don’t you just love getting presents?  I do.  I signed up for subscription to StrideBox so that I could get a present in the mail every month.  It’s a present from me to me and for $15 a month, I’m all for it.

Stridebox is a company geared toward runners and each month they send you a box with various products geared toward running and fitness.  For those who have never heard of it, I’ll give you a run down of what happens when you get your StrideBox in the mail:

• First, you go to the mailbox.   When you see your StrideBox box, you do a happy dance.

• Second, you carefully open the box.

• Third, you excitedly, but carefully, remove contents from the box and arrange them so they look pretty enough to photograph.

• Fourth, you take everything out, examine it, read about it, add up the value of the StrideBox contents to see if your $15 was worth it, figure out what looks tasty and what looks not so tasty, then decide if you are going to share the energy foods with your spouse who is training for a century bike race.  Okay, maybe that last one is just for me but either way, you can decide if you are going to share with anyone or not.

• Fifth, start sampling the goods and take notes on items you would purchase in the future.

July’s box was pretty cool and included:

• A water bottle and samples of 6 different hydration drinks.
• Sample of magic sports tape.  I’m totally intrigued about the magic part.
• A full size PR Bar energy bar – apple pie style.
• An energy gel.
• An energy bar by Bearded Brothers.  Fabulous Ginger Peach…sounds tasty.

The subscription has been fun so far and if I get tired of it or can’t afford it, I can stop at any time.

I love presents which is awesome because July is my birthday month!  Yessssssss!

I Made a Birthday Cake for My Dog

I always wondered what kind of person would bake a birthday cake for their dog.  I guess I’m the kind of person who would do such a thing.  Part of the reason is I like to think I’m a pretty crafty chick (I’m not saying I’m a pretty and a crafty chick…I’m saying I’m a chick who’s pretty crafty).  It was Finn’s 1st birthday so what better time to test out my canine culinary skills?!

I found a doggie birthday cake recipe on allrecipe.com and a frosting recipe from The Daily Pup (yes, I made frosting).

The recipe calls for an egg, 1/4 cup peanut butter, 1/4 cup cooking oil, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1/3 cup honey (optional – I did not use), 1 cup shredded carrots, 1 cup whole wheat or white flour and 1 teaspoon baking soda.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 6 cup ring mold.  (I used a square brownie pan).
2. Combine the egg, peanut butter, oil, vanilla, and honey, if desired, in a large bowl; blend well. Stir in the carrots and mix thoroughly. Sift together the flour and baking soda and fold into the carrot mixture. Spoon cake batter into prepared pan.

The “batter” looked something like this (blah): 

   3.  Bake in preheated oven for 40 minutes. Let cake cool in pan for 10 minutes; then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Don’t be surprised when your “cake” turns out 1 inch thick and is the consistency of shortbread.  It pretty much looked like an epic dog cake fail.  That’s when I decided frosting was necessary to hide the flaws (actual frosting recipe link here).  I used a light cream cheese base, added peanut butter and a dash of canola oil so I could spread it on the shortbread…I mean cake.  Since the cake was so flat, I cut it in quarters and stacked the layers.  Here’s the finished product.  You’re probably digging the fancy carrot pile on top of the cake, aren’t you?  That’s the crafty part of me I mentioned earlier.

 

Truth be told, I only frosted the 2 sides of the cake that you see in the photo.  My perfectionist side lost the battle to my frustrated, the-dogs-won’t-even-give-a-crap-about-what-the-cake-looks-like side.  When baking for dogs, you need to know when enough is enough.

I decided to keep my day job and not pursue a career in canine baked goods.  But if times ever get real tough and I need to rely on my mad canine culinary skills, at least I know this cake was puppy approved!

Happy first birthday Finn!

Have you ever baked goodies for your dog?  Was it an epic success or an epic fail?