Two new vegetables get the thumbs up!

Lightly steamed chunked unpeeled butternut squash [~2cm cubes] and boiled [peeled] beetroot, cut when cooked into similar size cubes.

Supposedly bought and cooked for me but I thought I would offer some to Pereg...

...and she appeared to like them as much as I do!

Hopefully neither are bad for dogs?

When I am travelling I often use these:

http://www.ciao.co.uk/Ella_s_Kitchen...Prune__7856080

Squash is absolutely fine - same family as pumpkin, which is often recommended in the USA for adding fibre or soothing upset tummies (easy to get canned over there).

Easy to get pumpkin here - it is almost a staple! Used as chunks as a vegetable with a couscous meal, or cold mashed with loads of garlic, [typical Tunisian-style]. The thing is that I love butternut squash, far prefer it to pumpkin as it has more flavour and is more substantial, and they do not normally have it in the little shop across the road, so I have to depend on my neighbour to get some for me when she can.

I [ahem] "liberated" a couple of humungous butternut squashes from the edge of one of the fields a few weeks ago while taking Pereg out on one of the tractor paths [it was the row beside the tractor path but I really should not have leaned down...] and tucked them in the back of my refrigerator. And this morning decided it was about time I steamed one of them.

Pereg had not had it before as I had not had any since probably last winter, and she was still on just kibble then. As for beetroot - I just had not thought of giving her any, but as I was cutting one up to chuck in my salad I thought why not give her some with her meal?

I am hoping that her diet is now one that satiates her while shifting a bit of weight off her. It is all so much trial and error, hopefully not much of the latter.

I cut up butternut quash whilst I was preparing a dinner of roast vegetables sunday and Chester was glued to my doing his best vulture impression the whole time, he basically sits as close as he knows he's allowed and sticks his neck out as far as possible , he only shuffled closer when I finally gave him some so think it was approved of! He was loving the sweet potato, normal potato and red pepper I was cutting up too, picked sweet potato over a pork roll the little freak, think he might have spent too much time with us veges!!

I didn't know that will have to get some pumpkin

Pumpkin has now dropped in price as the new crop is in, so I bought a 4 kilo chunk of it. Some Pereg has had raw, grated, and some I have diced, blanched and frozen. Still a large chunk in the refrigerator.

The latest is grated raw beetroot, plus the pulp from juicing it! Waste not, want not!

Ollie loved beetroot.