Meaty Muffins and Pralines

As mentioned earlier, my carnivore friends Mini and Leo both feed on meat. Since Mini doesn't get canned cat food anymore she's doing well. No more gastro-intestinal problems. Her fur has become extremely soft and shiny and she even has gained some weight. I'm still a bit sceptical whether this really was the cause for her problems during the last six months, but she seems to be fine now.

Mini mainly eats cooked chicken now. Without the rice but with some nutrients added which I've got from my vet. This is the same stuff I'm adding to Leo's food from the beginning on. And this makes sense. In nature, both cat and least weasel feed on the same thing: mice and voles. I'm starting to understand why canned food is so bad for cats (and maybe bad for dogs, too). It's full of carbohydrates and caramelized sugar. The first because it's cheap filling stuff, the latter because it turns the grey mush into something more appealing to the cat owner. Mice contain neither carbohydrates nor sugar apart from tiniest amounts in their stomach and gut.

So I'm cooking chicken now. Boning the cold meat is the worst of all. I'm trying to do large batches so that I don't have to do it every other day. I'll then put the cut chicken into muffin pans and freeze it. One 'muffin' equals one good serving.

Leo gets raw beef which I cut into very small pieces. These are formed to small pralines and also go into the freezer. For Leo exact measurements are crucial. He needs around 30% of his body weight in food every day. With a current weight of 108g he needs around 35g fresh meat daily. Each praline is exactly 20g of which Leo gets two.

And that's what these delicatessen look like coming fresh from the freezer.

Oops, I forgot the parsley!!!

Flowers for the Lady of the House

On Sunday friends and family came over to belatedly celebrate my birthday. I've got this gorgeous flower bouquet from my very best friend. She knows that I love flowers, especially white ones. Thank you so much, G.!

Normally I would have placed the flowers on the dining table. But I can't do this now because of Leo. Instead I've put the vase in my office. Great idea! I'm spending many hours in my office daily, much more than in the living room, and this way I'm getting most out of these beautiful roses.

On Saturday I had started to prepare some food for Sunday of which I wanted to post the recipes. But Saturday night I realised that my fridge was broken. It didn't cool anymore. That's really a disaster. How can you do without a fridge? Gladly, it was cold outside, and I put all the stuff outside on the patio. Protected against wind and rain and against roaming cats which might have tried milk, butter and cheese. I also had fresh chicken for Mini in the fridge. To avoid this going bad I cooked it immediately (which I hate). So, instead of having some relaxed time for decorating the table and finishing the food, it all of a sudden became a chaos.

Posting the recipes has to wait a bit now. I'm currently trying to find spare parts for this fairly old fridge. Keep your fingers crossed for me, please!

Leo - Pleased as Punch

OK, I'll do it! I'll show you some very bad photos. In terms of quality. But unusual in terms of content.

Aquarius!

I told you that I'm a member of Etsy team 'In the Making'. This week's team challenge was about the Chinese New Year: 'what's your sign? - make a treasury out of it'. Pey, the team's captain provided a link to a website showing the different signs and the years they applied to.

I was always told to be born in the year of the monkey, but I was not told that the Chinese year changes around my birthday at the beginning of February, one year just before my birthday, in another one a few days later. In the year I was born, the sign changed to monkey just a few days after my birthday (now you can try to figure out, in which year I was born, he he ...). So, in fact I was born in the year of the sheep. But neither monkey nor sheep really fit me - in my opinion at least ;-) However, I made a treasury for both the signs, but wasn't too fond of it whereas other team members created gorgeous collections of their signs. You can watch them all here.

Yesterday I remembered my western zodiac, Aquarius and I created another collection. For this. I loved to do that because it's all about water and the sea. Clicking on the image will lead you to the original from where you can click through to all these beautiful finds.

If I could choose, I'd live directly in front of the sea. With the woods at the back ;-)

Waiting for Spring - Again!

Two weeks ago I wrote this. So, what now? This morning I had to shovel snow again :-( Makes me longing for fresh green even more.

What on Etsy is a treasury is a collection on Artfire. A selection of (hopefully!) beautiful items, grouped together nicely. Collections on Artfire are much easier to create than treasuries on Etsy - technically. But when it comes to good photos - uh, there is still some need to catch up!

But I've found what I wanted, lovely fresh spring green ♥

Click on it to see it in full and to be able to get to the beautiful finds.
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Veggie Serves Meat Eaters

I'm a vegetarian for around 17 years now. Sometimes I miss fish badly but usually I'm not having any problems with this diet.

I've always had cats, too.