Corn Dog Muffins

I think this may officially go down as the very best kid food item I have ever made.  I have always loved corn dogs, and my kids love them too.  I love the idea of making them at home, but I don't have a deep fryer, and I have no intention of getting one.  So when I came across this idea of making corn dog muffins I just knew we had to have it.  It's super easy - basically just good homemade cornbread with a piece of hot dog.  Cooking in the oven as muffins means no mess from frying, and I loved that I could make different size options using different size muffin pans and cutting the hot dogs.  

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Fried Green Tomatoes

This is what I had for lunch today.  And there's no way a picture can do it justice (even if it was a good picture).  It's just one of those things that tastes so much better than it looks. These were tomatoes fresh from the garden, mostly green but just barely starting to get a little color.  These were the big yellow heirloom tomatoes, so the color they were starting to get was just a touch of yellow. I looked around at fried green tomato recipes, and they all seem to have milk or buttermilk, and flour.  And I can't really figure out why any of that is necessary - maybe with ordinary tomatoes it is.  I love the crunch of the cornmeal, and I didn't want to add flour to that.  And the tomatoes are so juicy that dipping them in something wet doesn't seem to make any sense.  All I did here was slice, and dip in cornmeal that had been seasoned with a little salt, garlic powder and onion powder.  I think one important part of what made these so good was the quality of the corn meal.  I use Bob's Red Mill Organic Cornmeal, Medium.  This is cornmeal that actually tastes like corn, and it has some texture to it.  Then I fried them in a little olive oil until golden, and I ate them with just a few drops of Tabasco.  Even I was surprised at how good these were - sweet and tangy and crunchy and buttery.  I ate three whole tomatoes.  yes - three.  I cooked two, and loved it so much that I went back and did another tomato.

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