Mini Corn Dog Muffins *Edited*

I'm always ready for warm weather, so the FIRST day it gets anywhere near 70 degrees, I'm ready to dig out the flip-flops and capris, plant some flowers, fire up the grill, and start making some "summer food"! Pennsylvania weather is CRAZY. Friday it was in the 70s-80s....Sunday night, it snowed! To cheer myself up after seeing those pretty but pesky little snowflakes, I decided I wanted corn dogs. Yes, I know they're just soooo healthy with their sodium packed, processed, mystery meat links dipped in a thick, sugary batter then deep-fried in fatty oil to a dark golden brown....but it's a weakness. And they make me think of carnivals and amusement parks and fairs and everything wonderful about SUMMER! Since I didn't have a stash in my freezer, I thought I'd make a mad dash to Wal-Mart to get some, but then I remembered something I had seen on-line somewhere before....corn dog muffins! I just so happened to have some corn bread mix lying around and a package of hot dogs in the freezer, so this is what I did:

Mini Corn Dog Muffins

Ingredients

store-bought cornbread mix OR homemade cornbread batter**

hot dogs (your choice of what type! and the number needed depends on the size of your cornbread recipe: I used 12 with about 3-4 'chunks' left over)

Yep, that's it!

Directions

(1) Preheat oven according to cornbread directions.

(2) Mix the batter and scoop into your mini-muffin tin(s). Fill them about 3/4 of the way. (I didn't grease my tins or use any muffin cups and had no issues with sticking!)

(3) Cut the puckered tips off both ends of the hot dogs, then cut in approximately 1 inch pieces. (I got five pieces from each hot dog....and Alexa enjoyed eating the leftover ends!)

(4) Press the hot dog chunks (vertically!) into the middles of your batter-filled muffin cups.

(5) Bake according to cornbread directions.

**I used Krusteaz Natural Honey Cornbread mix, but I don't see why you couldn't use just about any cornbread mix or homemade batter! This kind is pretty "gritty", but has a delicious sweet flavor. The box says it makes 24 mini-muffins, but I'm pretty sure we made closer to 40.

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 (4) Alexa had to help!

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 Finished Product

So, were they as good as a real corn dog?

No.....

These were SO much better! Not only are they healthiER, but they had more flavor! And you don't have to worry about biting the stick! haha This is a great way to get your kids involved with helping in the kitchen. It's almost impossible to mess these up and so what if they're not exactly in the middle?! What kid doesn't love hot dogs?! HUGE hit with my family and they disappeared FAST. My husband ate twelve in one sitting!

Other variations:

**A. Make "normal" size muffins. If you want to go this route, your best bet would be to dice up the hot dogs and mix them into your batter. You're more likely to have a better hot-dog-to-cornbread ratio that way, because one hot dog chunk wouldn't be enough and two chunks would probably be too much.

**B. Breakfast! Have you ever seen the breakfast version of corn dogs? It's sausage links dipped in pancake batter! Maybe I'll try this for our Sunday school class one of these weeks....  :-)

>>>>>>>>>>EDIT<<<<<<<<<<

I tried out the Breakfast route because I'm in desperate need of quick, easy breakfasts for every day. They turned out okay, but I DEFINITELY need to find a sweeter pancake batter....or make them with mashed bananas in the batter....let me know if you come up with a tasty idea for this!

I used pre-cooked turkey sausage and plain, store brand pancake batter, following all the same directions as above. We dipped them in syrup for a little more "oomph", since these were seriously lacking in the sugar department.

Cheesy Chicken Noodle Casserole

Cheap, quick, and easy. Ah, yes. My FAVORITE kind of recipe. You know what makes it even better? It tastes good! I got the idea for this from my mom, who got it from my aunt, who got it from....somewhere else...? It was actually a side dish involving frozen, diced, hashbrown potatoes and it's always the first thing to go empty at potlucks and parties. Just as popular with kids as it is with adults! That's another plus. I liked it so much, I decided to put my own spin on it.

Cheesy Chicken Noodle Casserole

Ingredients

1 stick of butter, softened OR melted

16 oz. sour cream

16 oz. condensed cream of chicken soup (one "family size" can)

2 cans of chunk chicken (10 oz. each)

12 oz. wide ribbon noodles

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (or as much as you like!)

Directions

(1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

(2) In a large bowl, stir together butter, sour cream, soup, and chicken.

(3) Carefully fold in the noodles until completely covered with the wet mixture. Pour/scrape into a 9x13 cake pan/baking dish and cover with foil.

(4) Bake for 45 minutes COVERED with foil. When finished, uncover and sprinkle on the shredded cheese. Bake an additional 5-10 minutes UNcovered until cheese is melted.

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 Finished Product

This is a great meal if you don't have a whole lot of extra time for prep and maybe need another family member to pop it into the oven for you. Example: I mixed this up last night, stored it in the fridge overnight, then had my wonderful husband put it in the oven about 30 minutes before Alexa and I got home today. 

**NOTE: If you do store it in the fridge overnight, add about 10-15 minutes to the bake time!

Oh, and this re-heats in the microwave really well. Yet ANOTHER plus!

Other variations:

**A. Take out the chicken and noodles, substitute a bag of frozen, diced, hash brown potatoes and you've got an awesome side dish! (the original "recipe" this was derived from)

**B. Use fresh/frozen chicken. I use canned because it's cheaper, quicker, and easier and we like it. If you don't like canned, get a pound of fresh/frozen chicken, cook it, dice or shred it, and substitute.

Baked Asparagus Fries *Attempt #1*

I really, really, REEEEEEALLY want to like asparagus. It's good for you and I want to eat/make stuff that's good for me and my family. But I haven't found a way to make asaparagus palatable....YET. I tried dicing it once and mixing it in with some chicken sausage alfredo....needless to say, we all pushed the bitter, mushy, stringy asparagus chunks to the side. Bleh. Once upon a time, I was browsing facebook and clicked on someone's pinterest link, one thing led to another and I spent hours looking at recipes. (This string of events happens entirely TOO OFTEN!) Ta daa! I found baked asparagus fries. I love the green bean fries at TGIFriday's (although, they're deep fried). I've also made baked zucchini fries in the past and they were pretty awesome. So, I thought maybe this would be the path to success. Well, it came close. Close enough that I want to try it again, BUT not without changing a few things.

Baked Asparagus Fries
Ingredients
1 bunch of fresh asparagus
1/2 cup flour
2 eggs
2 Tbsp milk
2 cups Italian bread crumbs
2 cups grated parmesan cheese
*Optional: Ranch dressing for dipping

Directions
(1) Heat oven to 375 degrees F.

(2) Cut off the "woody" end of the asparagus, then cut the spears in half. (If you prefer, you can also trim the tapered end....I think I'll do so next time.) Wash thoroughly.

(3) Place flour on a small plate.

(4) Crack eggs into a small bowl, add milk, and beat with a fork until the yolks are mixed in well.

(5) On a large plate, mix bread crumbs and cheese.

(6) Dredge! Take a few pieces of asparagus at a time. Roll in flour (not much will stick!), dip in the egg wash, then roll and cover in the bread crumb mixture.

(7) Bake for 15-20 minutes or until desired "doneness".

(2) This is after we were already half-way done...

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Finished Product

In the end, these were just okay. Alexa ate one and said, "Hm, I'm not so sure. Let me try another one." After her second, she said she liked it. By about the fourth or fifth, she goes, "I changed my mind," and made a funny face. So, I broke out the ranch dressing....she liked them for about five or so "fries" before she said she changed her mind again. lol

Variations that might help:

**A. Panko instead of the bread crumbs. It would give them a better crunch.

**B. Higher baking temp. After eating a few, I cranked the temp up to 425 and put them back into the oven for another 10 mins. It helped give them a better crunch.

**C. Different dredging technique! Talk about time consuming! Alexa helped me with these and to do one whole bunch of asparagus it took us at least 45 mins.

Chewy Coconut Oatmeal Cookies

I signed up to make cookies for our church's annual Easter egg hunt and COMPLETELY forgot until late in the afternoon the day before. *gasp* Don't you just hate that?! So, I open my refrigerator to see what fun things I might have and find half a bag of coconut left over from the week before from when my daughter, Alexa, and I assembled hamburger cookies. (Future post!) Off to the vastness of the internet I went aaaaaand....presto! This is what I found!

Courtesy of Hershey's Kitchens

Chewy Coconut Oatmeal Drop Cookies
Ingredients
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter or margarine, SOFTENED
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups sweetened flaked coconut
1 1/2 cups quick-cook oats

Directions
(1) Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

(2) Beat butter and both sugars on medium speed until well blended.

(3) Add eggs and vanilla, let it blend. Add flour, soda, and salt, beating until well blended.

(4) STIR in coconut and oats. (This dough is THICK so it's probably not a good idea to use your mixer for this step....I set my KitchenAid to the "Stir" setting, poured in the oats and coconut, and then shut it off to finish stirring by hand)

(5) Drop by teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet. (I pressed my dough balls down a little bit with my fingers to give them a nicer shape.) Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. (With my first batch, I had to bake 12 mins. Second batch was 8 mins.)

The recipe says it yields about 5 dozen....with my first batch, I used Pampered Chef's medium cookie scoop and got about 4 dozen. But, with the second batch using Pampered Chef's small cookie scoop I got exactly 5 dozen...plus one cookie.

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Finished Product

Verdict? I was afraid I wouldn't like the texture, but it's really not bad and the taste overrides any weirdness I would have had over texture anyway! LOVE the taste, but the look was....well, boring. I was making these for KIDS who are extremely reliant on their sense of sight. And they were kind of big. Soooo, I bought another bag of coconut (yes, I made these so I could use the half bag that was in my fridge and now I have a different half bag sitting in there. *sigh*) and, because the cookies very slightly reminded me of birds' nests, some pastel colored Easter themed plain M&M's to use as "eggs" for in the little "nests". (If doing the M&M's thing, make sure to PRESS the candies into the cookies IMMEDIATELY after removing the cookies from the oven or else they won't stick!)

Soooooooo cute! Love them! Not only did it make them more eye pleasing, but hello? Added bonus of chocolate! Oh, and Alexa approved, so I'm a happy momma.

HAPPY EASTER!!!!

Welcome!

Welcome to my brand new blog! I'm mostly doing this to share fun and/or delicious recipes I find, my tweaks to them, my epic fails in trying to recreate them, and my triumphant successes in the culinary world! Or at least my own, personal culinary world. haha I love to try out new recipes I find anywhere and everywhere and I love just throwing things together to create my own masterpieces. My goal is to post AT LEAST once a week....although if I have the time, it could be more. I may end up including some random things about my life, but the sole purpose of this blog is to share some of the awesome things that can be done with food! So, thanks for reading and I hope you all enjoy!  <3