This Cooking for Dogs recipe is more for you then your dog but your dog can certainly enjoy part of your hard work with.
Is there anything better than a cold glass of iced tea on a hot day?
I’m not talking about that bottled junk either. I’m partial to real brewed tea, chilled and served with all sorts of added tantalizing flavours. I know sweet lemon tea if the traditional favourite, but you can’t have that all the time! I drink tea at my desk all day long and if all I had was sweet lemon tea, I’d be bored out of my mind.
Beat the heat (and the boredom) with fruity flavours for your water or tea.
I love a nice glass of chilly tea, lightly flavoured with fruit. I know lots of folks recommend chopping up fruit, freezing it and using the fruit chunks as ice cubes. Sounds brilliant, right?
I was totally disappointed.
The fruit chunks make a nice tasty treat, but they didn’t add much flavour to the drink itself. My solution? Fruit or herb puree ice cubes. Since you’ve broken it up, the fruit/herb mixes with the tea perfectly as the cubes melt adding just the right touch of flavour to your drink. As a cool added bonus, my dogs LOVE the fruity ice cubes. Whenever I go to the freezer with my glass of tea, both dogs are under foot, just begging for an icy treat of their own. I can’t resist those eyes, so they usually get one.
Want to make your own fruity tea? Here’s what you need:
Water
Your preferred tea
Your favourite fruit or herb
Sweetener, such as white sugar, simple syrup or stevia
* Chop your fruit of choice into small pieces and place in the blender or food processor. Blend until smooth.
* Spoon into ice cube trays and freeze. (Why did I use those fancy ring ones? Every other tray in my house had pupsicles in it. Yes, my dogs are spoiled.)
* Give a fruit cube to the dog to make sure they taste OK.
* Bring water to a boil and set tea bags to steep. For best results, use 2 bags for every 3 cups of water. If you prefer a stronger tea, I highly recommend adding a few extra tea bags instead of allowing the tea to steep longer. Steeping releases tannins which came make the tea bitter if you leave it too long. Don’t make too much! The flavour of iced tea starts to dissipate after a few days, so only make what you can drink in a day or two.
* If you’re using granulated white sugar, add it to the hot tea and stir until dissolved. (Adding granulated sugar to cold tea will leave you with a gritty, unevenly sweetened drink.) You can add simple syrup or stevia to the chilled drink or leave it out and let each person sweeten their glass to their own taste.
* Allow the cool to tea on the counter. I know, if you’re as impatient as I am, you’ll want to pop it right into the fridge, but don’t do it! Putting hot tea in the fridge will result in a “cloudy” chilled tea. No one likes cloudy tea, right?
* Chill and serve
The flavour possibilities are endless
So far I’ve tried cherry & orange, blueberry, raspberry & lemon, ginger & peach, lime & hibiscus, blackberry, and mango. I’ve got mint cubes in the freezer, but so far I haven’t screwed up the courage to try them. Think I may have been a little over aggressive with the amount of fresh mint in them! (No really, the whole freezer smells like mint.)
Note from Two Little Cavaliers: If you are going to make this and share more then just the frozen fruit / herb ice cubes with your four legged friends consider green tea over black tea (black tea has more caffeine). Green Tea is used in some supplements for dogs. I wouldn’t allow them to have very much and certainly not their water bowl full but a lick or two would be just fine and might even help with dental issues and help boost their immune system. Of course if you are looking for those benefits for your dog I would look for something that is veterinarian formulated. If you want to make them a special bowl of water you could certainly float a few of the fruit and mint ice cubes in their water bowl just make sure that doesn’t make the water too cold.
Cooking For Dogs
Jodi is a canine nutrition and small animal naturopathy student hailing from beautiful Vancouver, BC. (That’s in Canada, eh?) She loves to experiment in the kitchen, creating tasty (and healthy) treats for her two dogs, Felix & Kolchak and the rest of her family. Jodi’s blog, Kol’s Notes follows the antics of the irrepressible Kolchak as he celebrates good food, good friends and the good life.
