The founder of Dragonfly Dog Bowl shares her popular recipe for baked beef liver muffins that will make any dog’s tail wag. 

By Chantal Rice, Photo courtesy of Felicia Reed Photography

Allison Teegardin has been cooking for as long as she can remember. In fact, she jokes she’s been coming up with unique recipes since she could reach the kitchen counter. And she was following her mother around the kitchen, soaking up the techniques of meal preparation, long before that. Her culinary mastery has even piqued the interest of celebrity chefs like Bobby Flay, Wolfgang Puck and Rocco DiSpirito, as well as Good Housekeeping magazine. 

But it was when one of her cherished pups was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease and required a special diet that Teegardin discovered a new culinary love: cooking for dogs. 

“What started out as an act of necessity quickly became my passion, and I started to cook for other people’s dogs and enrolled in a pet-nutrition certification program,” Teegardin says. “I have painted in my kitchen the quote from Julia Child, ‘People who love to eat are the best people,’ and have added, ‘People who love to feed their dogs healthy food are the best people.’ ”

Here, Teegardin shares her recipe for a hearty, healthy and drool-worthy dog treat. 

“I love this recipe because it is nutritious and easy to bake. The best ingredients make the best treats, so I always use local grass-fed beef liver and farm eggs. Beef liver is an excellent source of vitamin A, iron and zinc, but since too much of a good thing is not always a good thing, I feed these sparingly as special treats. The eggs are a high-quality protein which provide choline, vitamin D, B6, B12, as well as zinc, copper and iron. And the garbanzo-bean flour keeps them wheat- and gluten-free. This recipe is an adaptation of my famous treats all the dogs begged for when I was a vendor at the Downtown Buda Farmers Market.”

ALLISON TEEGARDIN

BAKED BEEF LIVER MUFFINS

Ingredients 

1/4 pound beef liver

1 cup garbanzo-bean flour

1/2 cup water

1 egg

1 tablespoon dried parsley

Pinch of ground ginger

Directions 

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

2. In a food processor, blend the raw beef liver with the egg and water.

3. Once it’s fully mixed and there are no large pieces of liver showing, add the garbanzo-bean flour, dried parsley and ginger. Mix well in the food processor.

4. Using a large paw- or bone-shaped silicone mold, spoon 2 tablespoons of the batter into each cavity. (If you don’t have molds, you can line a glass loaf pan with parchment paper and bake, then slice it into small squares. Or use muffin tins with liners so the batter doesn’t stick to the sides.)

5. Bake the treat mixture for 35 to 40 minutes.

6. Let the treats cool before removing them from the mold and serving. (They should be stored in an airtight container and kept in the refrigerator for maximum freshness and fed to your dog sparingly.)


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