Pumpkin Peanut Butter Dog Treats

This is a work in progress recipe, but for a first attempt I think they turned out alright. Getty seems to agree. :-) Though, he is biased as he will go out of his way to eat anything with pumpkin or peanut butter in them.

Most of the recipes I have found online for vegan dog treats have contained wheat flour, which we tend to avoid with our dog's diet. While we do not keep our dog on a vegan/vegetarian diet, I am primarily making these vegan because we just don't keep other ingredients in the house. The base is oat and garbanzo flour, but you could make these with other types of flour as well.

1 1/2 cups quick oats
1/4 cup chickpea flour (+ extra for rolling out)
4 tbsp flax seed (ground, if possible in a coffee grinder)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup parsley
1 cup pumpkin puree
4 tbsp peanut butter (I used organic and it was a little dry. You may need to add more flour depending on consistency)

Pre-heat oven to 350.

Run the quick oats and flax seeds (if not ground) through a food processor. The idea is to get ground flax seed and oat flour. It won't be perfect, unless you have an amazing food processor, which we don't. Add in the garbanzo flour and cinnamon (and ground flax seed if pre-processed), and run just to homogenize the dry ingredients. Add in the parsley, the food processor should effectively chop the parsley for you. At this point, I switched out the blades for a dough blade. Mix the olive oil, peanut butter and pumpkin puree, and add to the food processor. The dough should clump together into a ball as you run the food processor. You may need to add more flour or more olive oil depending on the consistency. Mine was sticky but held together on its own without spreading.

I added a bit of olive oil to my hands and the pressed out the dough on a piece of aluminum foil (1/4 inch thick) dusted with chickpea flour. Using a pizza cutter, I sliced the dough into ~squares. Then transferred each square to a baking sheet leaving a bit of room in between each treat (they won't spread when they cook). Bake 18-20 minutes. Makes a plate-full. :-) From other recipes, these should be good for ~3 weeks at room temp, or ~6 weeks refrigerated.