Posted by Susan on January 12, 1998 at 23:49:28:
In Reply to: All Natural Doggie Biskies posted by Karen Upright on January 10, 1998 at 23:27:24:
: Chloe once stole an 8 oz. prime CAB tenderloin off the dinner table. Had it down her throat before we knew what had happened... Foster's favorite food is Butter. He even knows the word.
Good puppies -- got their priorities in order! We've been syringe-feeding one of our cats (a fluffy black male, 12 years old) three times a day since mid-December, when he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and secondary diabetes. Thank God, he began eating again last Saturday! (Science Diet H/D prescription cat food) Our vet was not impressed when I first told him that one of the things in that syringe has been high-calcium chicken soup, made from the recipe in Anitra Frazier's "The New Natural Cat." However, he's now a believer and I'm planning to have a few bowls of it myself the next time I get sick ...
High Calcium Chicken Broth
2 to 3 lbs. chicken (preferably thighs)
1 lb. chicken necks and backs
Water to cover
1/4 cup tomato juice (*not* V8 juice)
Put all chicken in soup pot large enough so that chicken fills pot only halfway. Cover with water until water is 1 to 2 inches above chicken. Cover pot loosely (tip the lid). Bring to a low simmer. Simmer 3 to 5 hours, occasionally breaking up the chicken and adding more water, if necessary. During the last hour, remove the lid and let water cook down until the chicken is barely covered. Pour off broth (now deliciously strong) and cool to room temperature, then store in refrigerator.
While broth is cooling, pour enough cold water in pot to cover the remaining chicken. Let meat cool until it can be touched with your hands. Knead, squeeze, and stir chicken around in the water to get all the good out of the meat and into the water (which will begin to look milky). Finally, take handfuls of chicken meat, wring out the liquid into the pot, and throw the meat away. (The hours of simmering have succeeded in transferring the usable nutrition from the meat into the broth. At this point, what little nutrition is left in the meat would be largely indigestible.) Leave the bones and the broth behind in the pot.
Pour this broth off, then store it with the first batch of broth. Transfer the bones into a smaller pot. Crack them up so that they form a fairly compact mass in the bottom of the pan. Cover the bones with water and add tomato juice. Simmer 30 minutes to 1 hour.
Pour off this broth, again combining it with the other broth. Throw away the bones. Store about 2 cups of the broth in a jar in the refrigerator. Freeze the rest in pint-size containers. To thaw, stand the container in a bowl of hot water. (Actually, we freeze the broth in ice cube trays, then store the cubes in freezer bags. Thaw in glass bowl in microwave for 3 minutes on DEFROST.)
Chicken Super Soup for Kitties
1/4 cup high-calcium chicken broth (see recipe above)
1/16 teaspoon ascorbic acid crystals (250 units of vitamin C)
1/2 teaspoon food yeast (flaked, brewer’s, or tarula)
1/16 teaspoon feline digestive enzymes
(Good for people, too, just leave out the feline digestive enzymes ... )