Food on Friday

It seems there is quite a demand for My Mummy's special catnip jelly recipe! Anyway since she made us a big batch of it this morning I thought I'd better make notes so I could tell everykitty all about it as it's so darn yummy on a hot day, well on any day really... ;)

500g Chicken or Turkey meat - other meat works too if you have a preference or just some spare
2 tbsp Pudding Rice - any rice will do really
3 pints Water
4 tbsp Dried home-grown Catnip leaves, cut that to 4 tsp if you're using the finer cut up commercial dry catnip or you'll all wind up like Tigmut'hep! ;)
3 packets of gelatine or enough to set 3 pints of fluid

Cube up the meat and put in a large pot of pressure cooker (Mummy has special little baskets for her pressure cooker, each basket holds about 250g of cubed up meat the right amount for one tray of turkey terrine or chunks in jelly). Add the rice, water and about 1/2 of the catnip. Cook until the meat is nice and tender and the rice is done, allow to cool a little and add the remaining catnip leaves to the stock/tea. Remove the meat and most of the rice and put in a container or two, next take 1 pint of stock/tea at a time and add 1 packet of gelatine to each - stirring until dissolved. Pour in enough to cover the meat in it's containers and then take the rest and pour that and any remaining rice onto the other containers (nice flat bottomed shallow ones make it easy to cut off bits and serve without it sticking) . Now just leave to cool, once cool refrigerate until set. Serve as desired or freeze some for a later date (defrost before serving).

This recipe gives enough for 2 containers of meat jelly or terrine (just liquidize the meat and rice in the stock/tea and jelly solution for terrine), and 3 of jelly that is great as a treat in the summer to assist in keeping your cat adequately hydrated and cool. It also makes a good placebo meal for a cat who's living with kittens and wants to join in at every meal time without causing them to gain too much weight! If you want to feed your cat like this on a regular basis you need to add a good quality vitamin supplement to the jelly, containing turine, biotin and the like. It's also a good idea to add in a little processed cooked carrot to help achieve a more balanced meal including dietary fiber. As the recipe is it's just good as a hydrating treat and the meat in jelly or terrine can be used along side a top quality dry food as a part of their daily meat.