Jun 28, 2009

Hotdog and spaghetti culinary terror

I'm lucky enough that after a year of writing this blog, my freinds often send me links to things that they think I would find cool to make with my kids. This link was sent to me by one of my hubs work collegues (thank you Brad!)

Can you fathom the freaky awesomeness of this? I knew the kids would love it. We're having halloween for dinner tonight children! Someone out there in the intertubes suggested calling these terrifying edible creatures "Squiddlies" and I think that's a top name for them.

Just cut up your weiners, skewer a few bits of dried angel hair pasta or spaghetti through them and then boil until the spaghetti is cooked. Add sauce. Serve to delighted children, whilst adults look on in horror.

Here are some pictures to make your toes curl...
By the way, it makes eating spaghetti much easier for the wee ones too, because they can skewer the hot dog bit and of course all the spaghetti comes with it.

I always feel a little dirty when I eat a hotdog sausage (good dirty, but dirty non the less). They aren't exactly the most natural of food products, so I thought it would be best to see if we could recreate the Squiddly with a slightly more healthy food source.

I tried carrot chunks that I'd first microwaved for a couple of minutes, which made them just soft enough to skewer, but not so soft that they would disintegrate in the time the pasta took to cook.

With this I tried regular chunks of ham and that seemed to work just fine. They don't look quite as extra-terrestrial as the hotdogs, but the kids still loved them.

It's great being able to sit the kids down to help prepare this meal. They really enjoyed skewering the dried spaghetti through things and it kept them quiet for a good fifteen minutes. If I'd let them and we had the resources then I think they would have been happy to make enough of these to feed the whole city.

We'll have to try it with mushrooms, peppers and courgettes to see if they work too.

59 comments:

Vacskamati said...

:-D LOL! It's awesome!!! I'll try it with my bad-eating daughter.. :D

SandyQuilts said...

How cool is that .... can't wait to show my GC and give it a go. Thanks. Oh and what a dollbaby.

Lynnie said...

That is just about the most bizarre recipe I've read about! I can't wait to try it! I'm sure the kids will love it, but I can also picture such dishes brought to regular old potlucks with a perfectly normal expression on your face!

Unknown said...

This is such a wonderful idea. I LOVE it!

eyeshoot said...

Great idea!

Samantha said...

haha! This is Genious!!!
I love it!
thanks for the tip!

Beth- the mama bee said...

I had seen that link too and we have tried the spghetti and hotdogs. I like the idea of using veggies too. good thinking.

Esqui e Neve said...

this is the coolest idea! BTW I just LOVE your blog - it s hysterical and soooo many amazing ideas for my 2 kiddos to keep busy! i AM IN LOVE!

Anonymous said...

This is the PERFECT way to let kids help with cooking in my kitchen - which is big enough for only 1 cook at a time. FANTASTIC!!! We may just have to do this tonight and surprise Daddy!

Andy said...

ooohh...I'm going to try this with Tofu dogs!

tracey (aka rainbowmummy) said...

omg!! this was on my to do list, I only just found it the other day!! I hadn't however thought of trying anything else, so YAY! and it also hadn't occurred to me that it would be a "not a pain in the ass was" for my kid to eat the pasta, Yay!

tracey (aka rainbowmummy) said...

oh i forgot, we will be calling them octopus dogs ;)

Connie Krebs said...

I JUST did this yesterday with my kids and it was a HUGE hit!!! :)

Next you have to try this recipe for wiggly watermelon: http://www.gourmetmomonthego.com/2009/05/w-is-for-wiggly-watermelon.html

Lindsey said...

Hee hee! That watermelon is awesome Connie! We did something similar making pirate boats with jello and oranges a while back.

Here's the post.

I'll definately try the watermelon soon though.

Bichopilotero said...

Una idea fantastica, para que coman.
Me gusta mucho tu blog.

Patti said...

This is SO COOL! We will be doing this soon. My kids loved to cook when they were smaller but now LEGOs are more important than food. They'll want to help with this one.

I wonder if sweet potatoes would work?

Heidi @ Happiness is Homemade said...

LOL we tried this awhile back, and my kids wouldn't touch it! My 3 year old actually said "Mom, that's the most disgusting EVER!"

Anonymous said...

GREAT IDEAAAA !!! Thank you! We will try it!

Karin Katherine said...

This is by far the coolest idea I've seen. I cannot wait to try this out on my picky little eaters. Of course I must admit the hot dog with spaghetti just sounds like a disgusting combo to me...I'll try the veggie version.

Vone said...

Looks cool - I will have to try it.

Cooking Dad said...

Nice recipe, I'll have to try this one, thanks for sharing!

waitingformaddie said...

Veggie here so we don't do hot dogs but mushrooms sounds wonderful!

Thanks

zenzhey said...

I just made these and they were a HIT! I also skewered fresh peas on the pasta before cooking. Alien eyes you understand! Served with a bit of alien blood (ketchup) my boys were in heaven! Thank yoU!

SAKT Homestead said...

Brilliant!!! Thanks so much for the idea! I'm definitely gonna try that :D

Gypsy at Heart said...

All the superlative adjectives have already been used but I had to leave my two bits anyway. Utterly fantastic. My kid is going to flip!

Christina said...

Too cool! My daughter is too young to eat this yet (she is only 9 months) but I am going to file it away for when she is old enough.

Anonymous said...

Looks amazing! sounds like a good way to get you kids involved in things too!

J Crafton said...

This is genius. LOL

Unknown said...

Thank you so much for this. I am sure my two 5 yr olds are going to enjoy being involved in the cooking preperation!

Seth said...

These look like a lot of fun for the kids. I'm going to give this a shot! Thanks!

http://pennyforyourdebt.blogspot.com/

Santa Cruz Specials Admin said...

I just tried this, it was good, but I told my mom about it and her response was "Wow, those are neat! But, what about doing it with meatballs?"

*doink! Why didn't I think of that. That's only natural. Get cooked frozen meatballs, thaw 'em, stab 'em, boil 'em.

Add sauce, spaghetti and meatballs in a delightful form.

Anonymous said...

LOVE IT!!!!

Unknown said...

I have no kids, but I soo want to do this for myself and my g/f. It'll be right up there with green pancakes and pirate birthday cakes.

Marina said...

This recipe is the perfect way to make spaghetti less messy when eaten by kids or anyone! That's my favorite part of it.

TechScribe said...

It's super. Thanks a lot for posting

Claudiu said...

nice one :) sky is the limit for imagination:) multumesc este super!

whaong said...

Good idea. I like it

Anonymous said...

Wow!

I bet that if you skewered a whole bunch of peas on a spaghetti strand and then cooked it. . . . it'd look a lot like a catepillar.

I wonder if that would work? (Wanders off to the kitchen.)

Anonymous said...

Cute idea. I'm going to try a veggie version with tempeh in place of the hotdogs tonight.
-Auburn

Jennifer said...

This is absolute GENIUS. I love it!

Anonymous said...

I had made these awhile ago for a potluck, and we called them Squidlets. It made me smile to see you guys call them a similar name. They are great tossed with olive oil, garlic, parsely, basil, oregano, etc.

Deb said...

Inspired by your post, found via a tweet on Twitter... I tried this with my nieces and nephew this past weekend. They loved it! (I actually did too!)

There's a picture on my blog:
http://www.definitelydeb.com/
posted just this morning.

Thanks for the inspiration!

A Daft Scots Lass said...

Absolutely Awesome!!!!

Kyla said...

My friend and I made this with our daughters, they loved poking the noodle through, and LOVED eating them! One with nothing on them, and the other with marinara, they came back asking for more! We thought that it would work well with meatballs too! We are calling them, Flying Spaghetti Monsters! RAmen! lol!

Katie B said...

What a cute and gross idea! :) We'll have to give it a try. It might even be great for school lunch! Thanks for sharing!

Katie B said...

Do you mind if I share it with my facebook friends? I know lots of moms who would be interested in doing this with their kids.

Nikki said...

I found courgette works great too!

Anonymous said...

I have finally found something that my 3 year old will eat all the time. She loves putting the s'getti in the hotdog, cooking it and then the fun of eating it. Thank you!!

janimal said...

Another awesome post. Love your blog. Very cool idea to use carrots, will definitely try that and I think I will try this with the vegetarian no nitrate soy dogs. (They sound gross but taste not half bad and healthier for my kid than regular yummy hotdogs)

MSoto said...

love your blog and thanks for the idea! Just tried it this week with my picky eater and it was a big success. http://www.bachmansoto.com/2010/07/sausage-and-pasta.html

KPB said...

I'm kinda impressed but horrified all at the same time. I get it. I think it's really clever. But it's just wrong. WRONG!

Pinkie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
MichelleSF said...

Awesome! Gotta remember this for Halloween.

Robin Gage said...

Where do you come up with this stuff??? That is so disgusting and completely awesome. You are a genius.

Bronwen said...

These are fabulous and also great with soya sausages

Dizzy said...

I bet they'd be great with a Skyline twist ;)

Pour some hot chili and cheese over a pile of these scary things and I bet they'd be great!!

Dizzy said...

I bet chili and cheese would be amazing on these!

Margot said...

What a great idea, I found them on Dabbed webiste and then I followed the link here. We made them for Halloween using black spaghetti ;)

Ronnilynn70 said...

Making spaghetti tomorrow night to take to my dad and mum's house. I think I'll get my 5yr old niece involved told her about it today. She said, I had spaghetti for dinner tonight. I said not like this. She'll be horrified I'm sure but it'll be fun