Heather says:
It’s time for another Fearless Friday where we invite our readers to push their boundaries in the kitchen. It’s easy to get caught up in a routine and never try new things, so each Friday we invite everyone to share what they’ve tried. We want to hear the successes and the failures. Blenza, the site that created Mr. Linkies is having technical difficulties. Tell us or link to your Fearless Friday adventures in the comments. If you’d like the badge, cut and paste the code in the box into your post or sidebar. It’s not a requirement, but it does help spread the fun.
This week I fully intended to push myself into posting a pie crust tutorial. It’s not that I can’t make a pie crust, it’s simply not an activity I find enjoyable, so I’ve put it off for over two years. Unfortunately my allergies conspired against me and there was no way I could have rolled out dough yesterday. Well, it may have been rolled out, but it would have been unfit for human consumption. Instead, I’m pulling out a project I had intended to use around Halloween.
While I have three small children, I’m not big on gimmicks to get kids to eat. I have some weird half-baked theory that kids will eat when hungry. So it’s rare that I One day I was meandering around the old interwebz and stumbled on squidlies. Mr. Heather was just as tickled; we scrapped our dinner plans and set to work. This was the result. Was it difficult? No, but it pushed my personal boundary of avoiding gimmicky foods on some imaginary principle. If I’d serve them stove top macaroni and cheese with hot dogs, is this really any different?
Ingredients:
- 1 package hot dogs
- 1 lb dry spaghetti noodles
- 1 batch of simple cheese sauce
- blue food dye – optional
Prepare a large pot of water for pasta, just as if you were cooking spaghetti.
While the water is heating, slice the hot dogs into coins 1/2″ – 1″ thick.
Break the spaghetti noodles in half and poke into the hot dogs, don’t pierce all the way through, just enough to lodge them firmly. When the water reaches a full boil, add the hot dogs and cook for the full time recommended by your brand of pasta.
While the pasta is heating make the basic cheese sauce. Before serving stir in the food dye, if you’d like. Arrange on a plate and serve.
There is a catch, my kids became enamored with these goofy things and now frequently request them.
Now, what did you do for Fearless Friday?
Great photo !
I like your way of presenting macaroni and cheese with hot dogs.
I’m sure it’ll make kids more interested in eating it and enjoy the meal 🙂
Heather, I just came here to tell you that stock in Kimberley Clark (the makers of Kleenex) closed yesterday 43 cents above the previous days close, and I’m sure it was solely due to your mentioning their product on Home Ec 101. You should demand a kickback.
That’s what I came here to tell you, but I couldnt type the above until after I stopped laughing at your goofy octopi. Too bad my youngest is 16. Maybe I’ll do it anyway. Ooooh, yes, when he’s got friends over. They all think I’m nuts anyway.
This reminds me of when my kids were little, and for their birthday meals they’d ask for a meal all in their favorite color. My daughter’s was green, that was easy. My son, however, wanted all blue food. That took some doing, but he loved it. The veggie I came up with was hearts of palm, marinated in a heavily blue tinted Italian dressing.
Fearless Friday-wise, I planted some blueberry bushes, so I can be fearlessly creative next year with the fruits thereof. And today I’ll be preparing to serve breakfast bright and early tomorrow morning to a volunteer crew coming to help us with clearing our woods and cutting down trees. I’ve never done a crowd-size breakfast before. Wish me luck!
That is hilarious, I’ll get right on it.
I made beef stroganoff with cream of mushroom soup. I can not add pics or links because something is being bad and closing my browser down ever time I click on those buttons.
What browser are you using? Firefox?
I have no idea, I just pretend to be computer savvy and have a few great guys that know what their doing come along behind me and fix things.
Oh my, they are goofy! I may have to try them next time my son comes home for a visit.
For this week’s fearless Friday, I finally bit the bullet and made sangria. Red AND white!
http://darksideofthefridge.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/frosty-summer-beverage-anyone/
love the hotdog faces! 🙂
I did some experimenting with making marinade.
You can read it here….http://glimpseofsonshine.blogspot.com/2009/05/versatile-homemade-marinade.html
I made those for my kids a few weeks ago after seeing it online too. We served it with spaghetti sauce though, it was pretty good! Maybe next time I’ll make the cheese sauce.
Oh yeah, and my boys call them Squidetti-dogs. 😀
oooohhh i saw those the other day on a web site, my children really want to try them.
this is my ‘weekend off’, the children will be at their dad’s, and so i’m going to try to make hummus from scratch — i soaked the chickpeas over night and am getting ready to stick them in a crock pot for a few hours till i’m ready to mash them up
i’ll make pita chips to go with, and maybe some thing with curry
My nephew would LOVE those.
My husband first tried to make collards last year, and struggled with making them tasty, despite the simplicity of the recipe. He’s gotten pretty close to perfect, for more details see our Fearless Friday post (can’t get the badge to work on our site, will have to tinker with it some).
http://www.somedayagoat.com/2009/05/collards-and-pork-hocks.html
I LOVE those!!!!!
Fearless Friday (well, Saturday, actually, but I get the general idea) — I bought some herb plants to pot and place outside my kitchen door. Rosemary. Parsley. Sweet basil. Wish my black thumb good luck!
BTW — I LOVED the squidetti dogs ….. I’ll have to remember that when my grandson is old enough to eat them. He will love them and his mother (my daughter) will squeal!