Corndog muffins
I make a lot of muffins. No, really, A LOT of muffins. I like making several batches during a single day and freezing them for breakfasts, snacks, etc. Omelet, blueberry, strawberry, orange spice, applesauce, cheese….there are usually at least 3 different kinds of muffins in my freezer at any given time. Beyond that, I use my muffin tin for individual servings of things like meatloaf or cornbread.
So when I ran across HungryGirl’s recipe for some “Corndog Millionaire Muffins,” I couldn’t resist, even though I rarely buy or use hotdogs. I don’t use any of her fat/calorie/sugar-reducing product suggestions, though, so trying to follow her recipe would’ve been nearly impossible. Egg substitutes, Hebrew franks, Splenda, and fat-free ‘anything’ have never even been in my kitchen before, so instead of trying to make conversions for all her substitutes, I just used this basic cornbread recipe:
Cornbread
* 1 cup all-purpose flour
* 1 cup yellow cornmeal
* 2/3 cup white sugar
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1 egg
* 1 cup milk
* 1/3 cup vegetable oil
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400F. Spray or lightly grease pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt and baking powder. Stir in egg, milk and vegetable oil until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.
As for the hotdogs, just use whatever your favorite brand is. I used about 4, and sliced them into half-inch to an inch slices. Press 3 or 4 slices into each muffin before placing them in the oven. Back for 15-20 minutes.
Tip: Make sure you press the hotdogs in a decent amount or they just pop off the tops after cooking. Make your slice thicker to have a better “dog to cornbread” ratio.
Mexican ducks invade the kitchen!
Stage Left: Peppers and Onions; Stage Right: Geography and History
Sometimes when I’m cooking, everything is neatly planned out. I’m following a specific recipe, making a specific dish, hoping for close to a specific result, and making a specific huge mess regardless.
Other times, an opportunity sneaks up on me when I least expect it, and that’s what happened when I was trying out breakfast “omelet” muffins for the first time.
As I chopped all the peppers and onions and scooted them to the side, I caught a glimpse of the Mexico flag on my cutting board. Before I even realized what I was doing, I had sent one of the girls off in search of a “plastic bird” and I got to work, pulling up the wikipedia entry of the Mexico flag.
Now I didn’t think they would find a small plastic turkey to mimic the flag’s image, but then again, I wasn’t expecting to be brought a rubber duckie either (see the cute one above with a purple crown and pearls?? lol)! I couldn’t resist placing it on the onions as the girls gave me strange looks. Within minutes, I was also playing around with a rubber lizard’s tail to copy the snake the best I could, and traded out the duck with another soaring bird.
By then, I had the girls’ attention completely, and I dove into the explanation of what I was doing. As I pointed out the comparisons between my strange looking cutting board “creation” and the flag still showing on my laptop, I also took it as the perfect time to explain what some of the things on the flag meant. They had their own questions, too, so we touched on some history and I looked up the answers for a few of their questions.
For all that we covered, it seemed like a huge detour from my cooking time, but in reality, it was probably only 15 minutes out of my time. While they searched for toys and in between looking up a few of the questions I didn’t know, I kept chopping other items, preheated the oven, took a minute to get myself a drink of water, and even took a quick phone call. That actually proved to make me giggle even more as the typical question “What are you up to?” led to the not-so-typical answer “making a Mexican flag out of peppers and rubber duckies.”
Fourth of July Cake – American Flag
This year, though, we got hit with an all-day thunderstorm that poured rain across the city. Oh no! By 6 pm, it was apparent that we wouldn’t be attending fireworks at 9. The kids were disappointed, of course.
And so I whipped up a quick yellow cake, threw on some fruit, and suddenly we were well on our way to enjoying our Independence Day in a way we hadn’t before. The little ones were excited because they weren’t expecting it at all. Even the teenager came in, grinned, rolled her eyes a little and said “Oh I should’ve known you’d do something like that, ha.”
It’s not anything fancy like I saw for weeks leading up to the Fourth of July, but for a last minute mood lifter, it went over well.
Oh, and because you can’t really cut that cake so that people can have a bit of each, I split it up as I went and the kids each got a miniature flag, too, hehe.
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