Meet Toby.
Toby is a six and a half year old English Bull Terrier (like wot Fagin had in Oliver Twist).
He likes: strawberries (nicked straight off the plant), yoghurt coated bananas, peanuts and apricots from Scoop Wholefoods in Lerwick and the super-crunchy, scrummy, can't-get-enough-of-them dog biscuits his human companion ever so kindly makes for him.
He dislikes: having showers after he's been digging up tatties in his human companion's garden.
You see, his human (Alan Crowe) loves gardening. Toby lives in a small village on the rural west side of Shetland and he has all sorts of raised beds and poly tunnels to play in and dig up. In addition to the usual garden produce like potatoes, turnips, onions, strawberries and tomatoes his human grows things you wouldn't expect would grow in Shetland's harsh climate such as cherries and plums. There is a 15 year old wild cherry tree in the garden, outdoors, bearing fruit for the first time ever this year.
Toby keeps watch over his garden
Toby's human companion - Alan Crowe
The plums are too high to reach, so Toby can't nick them (the strawberries at ground level are considered fair game). He watched the person who wrote this article pick and eat one of the ripe plums and it was clearly the loveliest, juiciest plum she's ever tried.
Toby is lucky though, for if he stares long enough at his human companion with his big brown puppy dog eyes he might just get a dog biscuit (or two).
Alan Crowe's Dog Biscuits for Toby
Course: Main
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 45 minutes
Ingredients:
- Plain flour - 9 oz
- Wholemeal flour - 4 oz
- Polenta - 4 oz
- Dried skimmed milk powder - 2 oz
- Beef stock - 0.5 pint
Instructions:
- Combine ingredients together in a large bowl (or electric mixer) and knead well until thoroughly combined. (Alan uses the dough hook on his electric mixer.)
- Divide dough in half. Roll each half out to 1/4 inch thickness and place on two baking trays.
- Score into 1.5 inch squares or, alternatively, cut with shaped biscuit cutter before placing on the baking tray.
- Bake at 180 C for 20 minutes, then remove the trays from the oven, turn the biscuits over and around and bake on the other side for 20 -25 minutes longer.
- Switch the oven off and leave the biscuits to cool and harden inside overnight.
- Store in an airtight container. Makes enough dog biscuits to last approximately two weeks.
Elizabeth Atia
I am a self taught home cook, feeding my family on the west side of Shetland with as much local produce, flavour and love as I can. I am no expert by any means, but I do enjoy learning and writing about food, flavours and techniques.