This particular recipe link was sent to us from Connie, who just so happens to know that I love corn-dogs. It came from The Recipe Book on Blogspot and it’s a copy-cat recipe of the famous Fletcher’s Corny Dogs. Robyn begged me to do this one on my own because she didn’t want to deal with the deep-frying. I don’t blame her because deep-frying is a huge stink-fest that is sometimes filled with skin burns and flames.
Obviously I had high hopes for this corn-dog recipe, but I have no idea what possessed me to have four motherfucking packages of hot-dogs ready. My other son and his fiance were over so that made six of us. You can go ahead and do the math if you want, but I’ll just tell you that it was too many damn hot-dogs.
I forgot that I bought some bamboo skewers a while back and bought another package (they’re like $2 at Target). Do you even care? Way to be one of thosefood-bloggers, Nance. Let me tell you the cute story about how I accidently bought too many skewers. And then I’ll tell you how you can use the extras for kebabs (of which we never eat). Or how you could use them to hold up twee signs on cupcakes. KILL ME.
I’m going to give you the quick and dirty run-down on these corn-dogs because I’m boring myself. Just know that we followed the directions.
We rolled the hot-dogs in flour because it is supposed to make the batter adhere to the hot-dogs better. We also started out using a cast iron skillet like the recipe said we could (foreshadowing). I used a tall glass to dip the hot-dog in the batter. I did everything they say you should do, dammit.
I even used a thermometer to make sure the temperature of the oil was right. I was on the ball, baby. This part pissed me off the most because Rick broke my thermometer that night. I blame the fact that he’s left-handed. Ahem.
You just don’t know the anticipation that was going on in our kitchen. For the record, three of the people in the house left to go to the store and the three that stayed were the most interested in the corn-dogs. Alex, because he also loves corn-dogs. Me, OBVIOUSLY. And Rick, because he kinda looks at this shit like science so it’s fascinating to him (nerd).
WTF?
Let me try another one and I’ll swirl it this time to try and keep the batter on.
Eventually we decided to ditch the damn cast iron skillet.
We’re bringing out the big guns. This is one of the inserts for a commercial food warmer. It is NOT made for deep-frying.
I loved watching Alex’s face when this thing started rocking back and forth because the oil was getting hot. Shit was totally unstable and we had no business using it for deep-frying, but whatever, DO NOT DO THIS AT HOME. Alex was raised in the same house as my mother and that woman lived to make us nervous about anything she could. Her particular favorites being that the furnace would blow up if I left the boys home alone (teenagers, mind you) and that the house is going to fall over the hill one of these days. Please understand now why I am insane.
Rick, who had not spent impressionable years around Crazy Shirley, handled the deep-frying while Alex and I stayed as far away from that hot lava disaster-waitin-to-happen as we could. In some parts of the country we would be called by our native name…chickenshits.
This is as good as it got.
Don’t even say it. Don’t even THINK IT.
It ended up being a huge pile of despair.
I don’t think you can ever make corn-dogs at home that are as good as they make at amusement parks and fairs. So it looks like I’ll be staying in Connie’s guest bedroom next year when the Texas State Fair opens!
Fletcher's Corny Dogs are the quintessential Texas State Fair delight. No trip to the fair is complete without a stop (or two, or three) to the Fletcher's stand located by the boots of Big Tex. The recipe is a closely-guarded secret, but this recipe is awfully good and will suffice for the 49 weeks of a year that you cannot get a Fletcher's.
Original Source/Author: The Recipe Book.blogspot.com
: Deep Fried and Full of Fat
Cuisine: All American !
Serves: 8
Ingredients
1 cup yellow cornmeal (not stone-ground)
1 cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup sugar
4 tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
pinch cayenne pepper
2 eggs, lightly beaten
½ - 1 cup milk
8 hot dogs (1 lb package) (kosher beef, or your favorite beef/pork combo)
8 Popsicle sticks or ¼" thick wooden skewers
peanut oil for frying
Instructions
A deep fat fryer is best for cooking corny dogs, but a good cast iron dutch oven or deep cast iron skillet will work just fine.
Fill fryer to the manufacturer's max fill line with peanut oil, or pour 3" of oil in a cast iron dutch oven or skillet. Insert a reliable deep frying thermometer and slowly bring the oil to a temperature of 365°F.
While oil is heating, skewer hot dogs with the Popsicle sticks or skewers, leaving 3 finger's length exposed for a good grip. Set aside.
Combine all dry ingredients in a small bowl deep enough to fit the skewered hot dogs. Add beaten eggs and mix well. Add ½ cup of milk, then add more as necessary (up to 1 cup) to make a batter that is slightly thicker than pancake batter. Mix with a whisk until just combined, but do not over beat or your corny dog will be chewy and gummy.
When peanut oil is to temperature, dredge skewered hot dogs in the batter and let the excess drip off, then gently place in the hot oil. (If using a deep fat fryer, insert the hot dog vertically and hold it a moment or two to let the batter "set" before laying it down in the fat.) Cook for 6 to 7 minutes, turning it a couple of times to cook both sides evenly. Cook until the corny dog is an even deep, golden brown color.
Remove from the fat and drain on a rack over paper towels. Serve hot with yellow American mustard.
Every week we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was McDonald’s Cheeseburger Recipe. Printable recipe can be found at the bottom of this post. The original recipe was submitted by reader Kris.
Robyn’s Take:
This week’s recipe was submitted by reader Kris, who submitted it wayyyyyy back in May. I’m not kidding when I tell y’all that we have a backlog, so if you’ve submitted a recipe and we haven’t made it yet, that certainly doesn’t mean we aren’t going to. Be patient – it’ll happen one day. Or not. You’ll just have to wait and see.
I worked at McDonald’s as a teenager, and to this day when I go into a McDonald’s (or, more accurately, drive through), the onions-and-pickles smell makes me nostalgic.
(And then I thank my lucky stars that I no longer work there. I worked there for three years, and can’t believe I made it that long. On the other hand, I think every kid should be required to work in the service industry for at least a year. It might cut down on the number of ASSHOLE CUSTOMERS out there.)
So I was all for giving this casserole a try, even though I don’t eat fast food burgers any more because every time I consider it, I think of the “pink slime” stories and my whole body just says “UM, NO.” (No, I’m not providing a link. You’re ON THE GODDAMN INTERNET, do your own search. I don’t want to have to look at that shit again.)
I don’t eat fast food all that often, really (except for the occasional Egg McMuffin), but when I do it’s usually something from the poultry side of the menu (I KNOW, I KNOW, caged, factory-farmed chickens, shot up with hormones, living terrible, miserable lives, I DIDN’T ASK YOUUUUUUUUU.)
Okay, let’s do this. Your ingredients:
Lean ground beef, chopped onion, chopped dill pickles, ketchup, yellow mustard, American cheese, an 8 oz. can of crescent rolls, milk, and sesame seeds. Not pictured: water.
Regarding the chopped dill pickles: the recipe calls for 1/4 c. chopped dill pickles, and when I bought pickles at the store I grabbed one of those big jars of the huge dill pickles because they were the SAME price as the much smaller jars. What’s that about, I ask you? It only took me one of those dill pickles to get 1/4 c. of chopped pickle.
I love pickles. I can’t make a decent pickle to save my life, but I’ve always got a jar or two of pickles on hand. Dill, bread ‘n butter, sweet gherkins, I love ’em all. (I do make a mean sweet pickle relish.)
This is a pretty simple recipe (you know how I love that!) First, brown your ground meat and onion.
You’re also supposed to add salt and pepper to taste, but I spaced on this part. I don’t think it made a difference, honestly. Salt and pepper are overrated. Unless I’m having a salt craving, and then it’s like “WHY SO STINGY?”
“My nipples and I would like to know if you’re EVER going to make something that doesn’t have onion or chocolate in it, so that the kitties can partake. Would that be so much to ask?!”
That’s my foster kitty Livia. She and her nipples are supporting 7 (yes, 7!) 2 week-old kittens at the moment. My hat is off to Livia, because she’s making it work even though I’m ready and willing to step in and bottle feed if the need arises. They’re fat and sassy little things, and Livia is doing a bang-up job. You go, girl!
Drain the fat off your browned meat and onions. I’d show you this part, but I didn’t get a picture of it. Imagine a whole mess of browned meat (and onions) in my fancy-bitch collapsible colander, which is awesome. My only gripe is that it doesn’t come in red or yellow, so it doesn’t really GO with my kitchen, but that’s a minor gripe. It’s not like I really decorate with it (let us take a moment to guffaw over the idea that I “decorate” with anything), it sits in the cupboard unless I’m using it, so that’ll just be our secret, the way the colander doesn’t match my kitchen colors.
Throw your drained, browned beef and onions back in the pan and then toss in your chopped dill pickles, water, ketchup, yellow mustard. Mix together well.
On a side note, Kris mentioned that the measurements on these ingredients is really more of a guideline. If you are a particular fan of pickles or ketchup or whatever, go ahead and toss in more. It’s all up to you.
Spread your meat-and-other-stuff mixture in the bottom of a 9×9 pan (or if you don’t have a 9×9, use an 8×8. That’s what I used.) Cover with slices of American cheese.
Clearly I really wanted to get it all well covered with cheese. Hey, I like cheese.
Then take the crescent roll dough and pinch it together the best you can to form a crust to cover the entire pan. I ended up overlapping the dough in the middle.
Yeah, I know. Kinda ugly. Make small slits in the dough to allow steam to escape. Brush milk over the dough, and then sprinkle generously with sesame seeds. On a side note, I just want y’all to know that I know that McDonald’s cheeseburgers do not have sesame seeds on the buns. But I like sesame seeds, so I used them. McDonald’s cheeseburgers start with pink slime, too, so I guess we’re not being 100% authentic here.
Bake for 25 – 30 minutes.
Kinda looks like a giant cheeseburger, doesn’t it? Check out that cheese, bubbling up from the side.
And here it is, scooped out onto a plate.
It’s impossible to take a really good picture of any casserole.
The verdict? I liked it. I liked it A LOT. Fred liked it, too, although he was hesitant to give it the full two thumbs up because it’s not the healthiest thing in the world. I bet it’s healthier than the actual McDonald’s cheeseburger, amiright? We are absolutely going to be eating this again – Kris had mentioned that she doubles everything to make a 9×13 pan, and I was wishing I’d done that, too. We had leftovers for dinner the next night, and it was even better than when it was fresh from the oven. Two thumbs up from me, one and three-quarters thumbs up from Fred.
Thanks for the submission, Kris!
***************************************
Have a recipe you want us to make? Check out this page (there’s also a link to that page up there under the banner) and follow the instructions to submit a recipe!
***************************************
Nance’s Take:
Because I am all about full disclosure you need to know that my 19-year-old son works at McDonald’s. This means absolutely jack shit to me, but it may matter to some of you (Amanda). We’re just not fast-food people anymore, but I do love a cheeseburger. And rumor has it that this recipe could do the trick. I’m in, but I’m guarded because you know, casserole.
Another disclosure: We were HUNGRY and ready to eat! Rick and I were scrambling to get this thing in the oven so we would know whether or not we had to order pizza.
I put Rick to work browning the ground beef. Pretty hard to fuck that up, right?
I went to work chopping those damn onions. I am just like Rick on this subject. We like onions in recipes, but you’re never going to catch me eating a raw one on purpose. I wanted these bad boys to be small because I know how we are. That’s one of those clear plastic mats that I’m cutting on. They suck.
I finally gave up and decided to use the electric mini chopper so I was sure those onions would not be heavy on our tongues. We are a bunch of pussies. Sigh.
Here, you don’t need to see everything I put in it one single item at a time. Just know that I put in all the shit that the recipe called for and as you can see, I stirred that shit.
A made a decision to change the recipe. I had bought a two pack of crescent rolls so I decided to do a top and a bottom bun. Somebody that wasn’t me opened this bad boy up because I’m kind of afraid of them. I will do it if I have to, but if someone is available, it’s their job. Those man hands are really Rick’s! He was really in a hurry and ready to kill me about this time. I was dawdling. Conehead. I par-baked the bottom crust until it was light golden brown. With my oven it was 6 minutes at 375 degrees. Then I dumped my fixings in it. We decided to stay true to the recipe when it came to the “guts” of the casserole (this ain’t no Burger King up in here).
There’s a reason that the cheese on the bottom right is missing a chunk, but the reason is so stupid that I’m not even going to tell. Roll the top crust crescent roll dough over the top and pinch those holes closed. And then add a few slits for steaming. Which, I suppose, would have worked just as well if you didn’t bother pinching those perforations, but what the hell do I know? This is what it looked like. Rick was snapping my picture. As you can see, I have good veins. You could also probably see that I completely forgot to add the sesame seeds. And, for once, I had them! I didn’t get a good picture of this, but it was delicious. Seriously. Not only is this one a keeper, but it’s definitely going into rotation. Everybody in the house loved it. ALL FOUR PEOPLE. Miracle. A motherfucking miracle.
The leftovers microwave beautifully. I was surprised because I expected rubbery consistency, etc., but it did great. I had some for breakfast!
Winner, winner, winner!!!!
McDonald's Cheeseburger Casserole - Nance and Robyn make the same recipe
American cheese slices to cover hamburger mixture (it takes about 4 slices)
8 oz can Crescent Roll
1 T milk
1 - 2 T sesame seeds
Instructions
Brown ground beef with onion, add salt and pepper to taste. Drain off excess fat. Add the chopped pickles, water, ketchup and mustard to the beef and onions, and stir until well mixed.
(If you want to add more of any of the ingredients except water, go ahead and do so - it's a matter of personal preference.)
Spread the beef mixture into the bottom of your pan. Cover with slices of American cheese.
Take the crescent roll dough and pinch together as best you can to form a crust to cover the entire pan. Make small slits in dough to allow steam to escape. Brush milk over the dough and sprinkle generously with sesame seeds.
Bake at 375ºF for 25 - 30 minutes, until golden brown.
*Recipe can be easily doubled; use a 9x13 pan, but do NOT double the amount of water, just use the ½ c, or you may end up with a runny casserole.
*Note: If you prefer to have a bottom "bun" in addition to the top "bun", use an additional can of crescent dough and layer it on the bottom of your pan. Parbake it at 375ºF until golden brown, about 6 minutes. Then pick up with step 3 (spread the beef mixture in your pan) and go from there.
I spotted this recipe at Deep South Dish a few months ago, and had to try it. It’s since become our go-to honey mustard recipe, excellent for dipping oven-baked chicken fingers in!
Ingredients:
Mayo, yellow mustard, dry mustard, dry minced onion, honey, and black pepper.
I didn’t think to take pictures of the putting-together of my batch of honey mustard, so imagine that I did. It’s pretty simple (I say that a lot, don’t I?): whisk everything together, taste, and adjust as necessary.
If you’re making this last-minute, I’d leave the minced onion out because unless it gets plenty of time to sit, the onion is kind of crunchy, and I don’t care for that.
Voila! Honey mustard sauce, ready for the dippin’.
