Happy Halloweenie! Mummy Hot Dogs

Are these a crack up or what?? My kids love them and so we usually make them sometime around Halloween. And really, who can resist a hot dog wrapped in a cresent roll?  It really only takes those two ingredients...hot dogs (I picked up bun-lenght for serious mummy's) and crescent rolls. Mustard is an optional ingredient.

Preheat the oven to 375°F. My generic package of crescent rolls contains 8 rolls. I pressed them into four flat rectangles, by combining two rolls together. I thought using a rolling pin would be a good idea, but don't try it. It's a sticky mess, fingers are the best bet.

Now you want to cut the bandanges, aka strips of crescent roll. I used my pizza cutter wheel, but you could use a knife. These don't have to be neat or even even. I managed to get 7 - 8 strips out of each rectangle. You don't want them too thin or they will break when picking them up off the counter. You don't want them too thick or they look funny on your mummy *groan*.

Wrap pieces of dough around each hot dog to look like "bandages," stretching dough slightly to completely cover hot dog. About 1/2 inch from one end of each hot dog, leave a space so hot dog shows through for "face." If you have gaps in your strips or overlaps, it only makes the mummy look more interesting and rustic.

On ungreased large cookie sheet (used my wonderful generic silicone mat as usual), place wrapped hot dogs. The naked ones look mighty chilly!

Bake 13 to 17 minutes or until dough is light golden brown and hot dogs are hot. With a toothpick of mustard, draw eyeballs and even a mouth if you like. How seriously easy is that????

Woooooo! Happy Halloweenie!!

Apple Pie Soup

Yea!!! Apples are here. We took the kids apple picking up in Ellijay (Georgia's apple capital) and had another wonderful time. We go to R & A Orchards owned by Richard and Ann, who still drive the tractor and hand out the picking bags. They are a caring couple who's kids and grandkids can be found out in the orchard working with them. I love seeing a family business succeed, so I'm happy to support them.

Their apples are priced very reasonably and taste waaay better than store bought. We picked two pecks and bought another peck that was filled with seconds (smaller apples I used for apple sauce, apple butter, and apple muffins). Can you tell we REALLY like apples around our house? I had trouble getting the kids to let me cook with them because they just wanted to eat them straight out. My husband loves them best like this.

Apple Pie Soup is a recipe worth the small effort. It's delicious! It comes from a combination of a recipe I learned at the Whole Foods Cooking School, where I volunteer, and a recipe out of the Palmetto Palate Cookbook. Both of those recipes serve this as a chilled soup but I really like it warm. When it's warm it reminds me of apple pie...delicious! Serve it however you like, no matter, you and your kids are going to love this one.

 

Apple Pie Soup

12 apples, peeled and sliced or chopped

3 c apple juice or cider

3/4 c sugar

1 cinnamon stick (or you can use 1 tbsp ground cinnamon)

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp vanilla

2 c half and half

Cook apples with juice, sugar, cinnamon and ginger in pot. Bring it to a boil with the lid on, then turn down the heat and remove the lid, let it simmer for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally and break up the apples as they get mushy. Take out the cinnamon stick if you used it and add the vanilla extract. Puree the soup in a blender or with an immersion blender (my personal favorite kitchen tool). Where you go from here is your choice. Put back in your pot or chill in fridge. If you want to serve this warm, you add the half and half slowly bringing the soup back up to a warm temperature. If cold wait until the base is well chilled and then when you are ready to serve, add the half and half and mix well. Serve in bowls with a few slices of apple and some cinnamon sprinkled over the top as a garnish.

 

I finally broke down and got an apple peeler this year and now all I'm thinking is, "what took me so long"? These things are great! It makes fast work of getting an apple peeled, cored and sliced and the kids can even do it with me.

Chocolate Acorn Treats

 

Ohhh, fall is just around the corner and I really can't wait. I LOVE fall. I love being outside, camping, playing, walking, anything. I love using the sunroof on the van and having the kids shriek, "close the windows!!" because it's so windy back there. There is something about a fall day that makes me feel Alive with a capital A. I cannot imagine living in a climate without all four seasons, if only to appreciate spring and fall when they come. When we went on our honeymoon in Alaska, nine short years ago, we went in September for two weeks. Those two weeks were the sum total of Alaska's fall season. Two short little weeks!! I'm so glad our's lasts a little longer here in the south. Fall is glorious! 

When I saw these adorable treats in Family Fun magazine (can you tell I really love this magazine?), I knew I had to make them. They are sooooo cute and perfectly autumnal. They were seriously easy. The kids did them without my help. They ended up with a little extra icing in strange places, like the shoulder of a tee shirt and inside an ear, but they had a great time and they were so immensely proud when we served them to friends.

If you need a little fall in your life, you must make these. Here's what you need:

• Hershey's chocolate kisses (you must buy Hershey's since purchasing those products benefits the Hershey School which we learned all about when we went to Hershey Park and toured the town)
• mini Nilla wafers (do not buy generic, they are not small enough, this I learned the hard way)
• thin pretzel sticks
• icing (really this should be chocolate brown, but I was lazy and already had leftover white) 

 

Unwrap twice as many kisses as you'll need because invariably someone will come along and pop several into their mouth before you realize what is happening. You'll only need a few pretzel sticks, so you can use the rest for enjoying with homemade hummus.

Put a tiny bit of icing, store bought is just fine, just buy chocolate or at least a cream color. The brown blends in so much better that it really won't matter how much icing the kids slather on, unlike my white icing, which shows up when it oozed out. My kids went a little nutty with the icing. I had to get that in :)

Stick the flat side of the kiss to the underside of the vanilla mini wafer.

Put a dab of icing on the top of the cookie and break a tiny bit of pretzel stick off. Put the pretzel in the icing. These need to set up for an hour or so. You can speed up the process by putting them in the fridge, but it might make your cookies a little soft (and the kiss really hard).

You can assembly line them if you want to make bunches. Assign each kid a job and you can make massive amounts for teacher gifts, preschool snack, grandparents day, Thanksgiving dinner. You could set up a table to entertain the kids during Thanksgiving and put the supplies for chocolate acorns and the gumdrop turkeys.

Tell the kids they can play a little trick on the grown ups and have them put some real acorns collected from the yard on the table with the chocolate acorns and see if the adults notice. Everyone will get a kick out of that!