Amp Up Your Generosity This Year
Dec 09, 2025
Some of the best gifts don’t come from a store…
They come from the kitchen — especially when they’re made from recipes that feel like home.
There’s something extra special about giving food crafted with love, memories, and a dash of tradition. I’m not really the world’s most gung-ho cook, but I do love to take out Mom’s hand-written recipe cards during the holidays and make the special holiday goodies she made. Snowball cookies. Date nut rolls. Chex mix – extra-spicy, please! – and caramel corn and peanut patties and fudge made from marshmallow fluff.
Do you have recipes like that, too? The ones that are way too good to keep to yourself, so you make plates to share with friends and neighbors?
I like to share the recipes, too, so if any of the things I’ve already listed are things you’d like to make, let me know and I’ll give you Mom’s recipes. And since dogs are family too, here’s one of my all-time favorite “family recipes” to share — a treat my dogs have adored for years and one that comes with a Best in Show guarantee. Yep, that’s right…guaranteed to have been carried into the Best in Show ring by friends whose dogs won. This is some lucky stuff, and it won’t stink up your kitchen like baked beef liver!
It’s simple, it’s heartfelt, and it’s guaranteed to make your dog’s tail wag.
🐾 Sandy’s BIS Bait
Ingredients:
- 2 cans cheap tuna in water (don’t drain)
- 1.5 cups flour
- 0.5 cup cornmeal
- 2 eggs
- 0.5 cup cheap Parmesan cheese
- 2 Tbsp dried parsley or oregano
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Spray or grease a large baking or casserole dish.
- In a food processor or mixer, combine all ingredients. Mixture will be thick and sticky (totally normal!).
- Spread into as flat a layer as possible — it may not reach the sides of the dish, and that’s fine.
- Bake for 20 minutes ONLY. Don’t overbake; you want it firm yet soft.
- Cool in the pan, turn out onto a cutting board, and cut into tiny cubes.
- Use immediately or freeze for future wag-inducing moments. If your dog wins while enjoying this bait, please send me a picture! 😉
Giving homemade food gifts — whether for people or pups — is really like giving a page from your memories. And honestly? That’s the most wagalicious kind of giving there is.
With love and happy baking,
Sandy 🐾
