Thursday night, Jessi and I were brainstorming an easy and cheap meal based on ingredients we both had in our kitchens. She found this potentially horrifying (though intriguing) recipe, kind of a corndog/T-Day stuffing hybrid. We had to modify it because we only had TOFU dogs. Then, it turned out that there was no milk in my fridge. And not so much cheese. And was the batter REALLY Frankenstein Green? Were we imagining that? We sure weren't imagining the desperate flight of my new furry roommmate, fearlessly darting from under my fridge to under my stove, angrily squeaking mousy epithets and scaring the living Bejeebus out of both of us.
"What was I thinking? This was a bad idea," Jessi said apologetically.
"Please go in the other room. Just case I blow us up," I instructed her, crawling inside the stove with a lit match and trying to forget the image of my grandmother with no eyebrows. Boldly go, young Ben...
45 minutes later, we pulled the monstrosity out of the oven, and though my unlevel stove provided one thin burnt side and one thick barely-cooked side, it was not green and... well, it was dang delicious! In fact, I'm eating the leftovers right now! (here's the original recipe, from "The Homesteading Housewife" on recipezaar.com)
--1 cup Celery, chopped finely
--1 Large Onion, chopped finely
--2 tbsp Butter
--2 packages Hot Dogs, cut into 4ths lengthwise, then each strip cut into 4ths again
--2 (8 1/2 ounce) packages Cornbread Mix
--2 cups Shredded Cheddar Cheese
--2 Eggs
--1 1/2 cups Milk
--1/4 cup Sugar (I recommend substituting in some Honey)
--1 1/2 tsp rubbed Sage
--1/4 tsp Black Pepper
Preheat oven to 400°F. In a skillet, combine celery, onions and butter. Saute until cooked, then set aside in a medium bowl. In the same skillet, saute hot dog pieces until lightly browned. Mix with the the celery and onions and allow to cool. In another large bowl, combine eggs, milk, sugar, sage, and pepper. Add 1/2 of the hot dog/celery mixture and 1 1/2 cups of the shredded cheddar cheese. Mix in, then add the corn bread mix. Spread the mixture into a greased 13x9 baking dish. Top with the remaining half of the hot dog/celery mix and sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup of cheese over the top. Bake, uncovered for approximately 35 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
2 comments:
I am reading a book that mentions "mousey meat," although I believe they were referring to a possum dish.
This recipe makes me feel faint. Any mixture containing hot dogs and honey would be a little scary, but then you add mouse and burned-off eyebrows...
Let's just say that this sounds like something for someone far younger and more adventurous than I.
My story misrepresents the recipe quite a bit. Jessi and I felt pretty horrified and faint at the time too, tasted a lot like the sausage cornbread stuffing that you sometimes make on Turkey Day, except with hot dog instead of Italian sausage. It's not quite as adventurous as you might think.
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