20120325 (sun) - comic strips for sun, 25 mar 2012

Mince for Romana #1
This recipe is for Romana's lunch & evening meal each day. She also gets a handful of Pedigree "Real Beef & Vegies" or "Real Minced Beef" dry kibble to "snack" on during the day.
Romana is a neutered (spayed), long-coat female chihuahua. At time of writing this update she weighed in at 2.5Kg and was 13y 10m 02w 00d old (Sun, 2012-05-20). She was diagnosed with a heart murmur in Nov 2011 and this has now been referred to as "congestive heart failure" for which she is now on medication - "Prilium 150mg" which is an ACE inhibitor and "Urex M 20mg", a small tablet. Urex is a diuretic with the active ingredient, Furosemide. Prilium contains "Imidapril" which undergoes de-esterification, mainly in the liver, to provide the animal with the active agent, "Imidaprilat". She gets her Prilium dose once daily with her evening meal and her Urex 2 days a week only, with each dose 12-hours apart - 10mg/dose on the Saturday and Sunday of each week. The Prilium is reconstituted to 30mL or 5mg/mL and given to the dog as a aweight based dose of 0.05mL/Kg using included syringe.
1Kg Lean Minced Beef1-1.5 Cups Brown Rice (I use SunRice Sunbrown Quick)0.5-1 Cup Macaroni (I use either San Remo Macaroni, Small Shells, Rissoni or a mix of two or more of these)1Kg Frozen Mixed Vegetables (See end of Instructions Page)2Kg Birds Eye Frozen Carrots (1Kg Julienne & 1Kg Rings)1-4 cloves of Garlic, depending on size (no more than 4 at most)Vegetable Oil (Canola), as required to brown and seal the mince - ideally omega-3 enriched, hence the Canola.
Freezer bags for portioning and freezing (See end of Instructions Page) 1. Prepare the brown rice and pasta before you need it. If overnight, allow to cool in the fridge before use. Follow the directions on the packets, remembering that you have both the brown rice and paste in the same pot of microwavable vessel. (About 30 minues) 2. Brown the mince in a deep saucepan, using a small amount of the cooking oil, until the mince has been nicely brown and no pink mince remains. Do this in several batches, if necessary, to prevent meat from stewing. Ensure that the mince has been broken up completely.
3. Combine the meat, rice and pasta, mixing thoroughly (but gently) to evenly distribute the rice and pasta through the mince.
4. Thaw the vegetables out in the microwave or overnight in the fridge before adding them to the saucepan (drain excess water off first) and again mix the ingredients together thoroughly. Leave to simmer for about 30-45 minutes, stirring occasionally to ensure even distribution of the ingredients.
5. Take off the heat and allow to cool with the lid on, for about 15 minutes and then place in the fridge until cool enough to distribute into one, two or three meal servings in freezer bags using a paddle pop stick, wooden ruler, etc, to push the mince mixture into a tight sauage before rolling each bag up and placing them into the freezer until required. [I use Multix 25cm x 20cm freezer bags) 6. Remove from freezer and place into fridge to thaw for the following night when tonight's meal is given to the dog - always have a meal (mince, c. wing or c. neck, etc) in the fridge thawing out for the following night.
7. Empty desired portion of mince (if its a mince night) onto a plastic picnic plate, spread out evenly and place into a microwave oven for between 30 secs and 1 min at 30% depending on microwave power. Stir to distribute warmer and cooler patches and then place into dog's bowl, ensuring that it isn't too hot for your dog to eat.
Details of Frozen Vegetable That I Have Used: I use a frozen Vegetable Mix with a minimum of 4 different vegetables. 1) Logan Farm Premium Vegetable Mix containing - Peas, Beans Carrots & Corn 2) McCain Mixed Vegetables containing - Carrot, Swede, Peas, Broccoli, Beans & Corn 3) Heinz (Classic) Mixed Vegetables containing -Carrots, Peas, Green Beans & Corn Websites, in sequential order, are as follows:1) ""m"2) "ccain-vegetable-mixes_mixed-vegetables-500g_198.aspx3) "ductID=285&ProdCat=Frozen+Vegetables&ProdRangeTitle=Frozen+Vegetable+Mixes&prodRangeId=123&keyword=Heinz+Mixed+Vegetables%2c+1KG" Ratios used can be as follows: 1) All of a single brand (ie entire kilo); or, 2) 50:50 of any two of the brands (ie 500g each); or, 3) A third each of all three brands (ie 330-340g each) Portioning for Freezing and Storage: Serving size used here is for an adult Chihuahua - each freezer bag holds meals for up to three (3) days @ 2 meals/day each serving weighing around 40-50g/meal or 240-300g/bag. I portion the meals into Small (25cm x 20cm) Multix Freezer Bags which come in packs of 120 bags (dispenser bag code colour - Pink). For Romana, this makes 29 portions (ie bags) or 87 meals at 3 days per bag and, excluding rice, pasta & garlic (which would be normal pantry items), this come in at around $0.28/meal (2 meals/day) for the batch made on Sun, 2012-05-20.
Note 1: The final weight of a batch is about 5Kg, so the saucepan should be at least, but ideally larger than, 6L in volume. A batch, when alternated with a chicken wing one night and some chicken necks on another, should last be between 4 & 6 months depending on whether you rotate the evening meals or not - I rotate as per the details in the above "Description" section. For Romana, the chicken wing has now been cut out of her diet - she only eats the mince meals plus some Pedigree (dry pellats) for small dogs for "snacks", a small handful lasting about a day.
Note 2: Photos were last updated on Sun, 24 May 2009. Photos are of Romana (top) taken in 2002 and the finished meals before and after packing (bottom).

Source: http://pmyers.pcug.org.au/K9Pets/RomanaMince.pdf