Hot Diggity Dog

Corn Dogs were the first recipe I was to tackle (hence why Adam chose this book). I love corn dogs, but they aren't exactly figure friendly, but the deal was to cook from start to finish every recipe no matter what. All the ingredients were simple and I could get them on our normal grocery shopping trip to Kroger. Of course, once I get to Kroger, though, they are completely out of jalapeno's and the produce stocker barely speaks enough English to explain to me that they won't be getting more until the next day and to just get serrano peppers that it would be just as good. I was a little frustrated because I wanted all the recipes to be exact, but didn't want to drive to another store for 1 jalapeno. Another thing I didn't like was the price of the peanut oil...GEEZ!! It costs a lot to get fat these days! Luckily Kroger brand saved us some money and 1 gal was "only" $10. Good thing I don't have a deep fryer, because the peanut oil for that was $45!! Anyway, I think I was most excited about buying a thermometer. Of course corn dogs are fried and we aren't "fried food eaters" so I have never purchased a thermometer. Now I have my very own...not sure how much use it will get but just cool to have one (yes I'm a dork). I get everything home and I start to prep anything I could ahead of time. Not having experience with serrano peppers I wore latex free gloves to cut it and de-seed it. Good thing I did because I cut off a piece to taste (you have to taste what you're using) and it had a little kick. If you know me, I have an immunity for spice, so it was to my liking. I chopped the onion, mixed the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet in another, poured the peanut oil (which I hear is the best oil to use to fry) in the pan and clipped on my new handy dandy thermometer and then I waited. Once it was time to fry, I turned the burner on high to heat up the oil. This was the only tricky part I encountered! I needed the oil to be at 375 degrees and of course it shot up past 400, so I had to wait for it to come down. Once the temperature came down I was a little nervous because I didn't want the dogs to splash and burn me and didn't really know what to expect because I have never fried something in 1 gallon of oil before. I made Adam come in the kitchen to stand with me for the first "dunk". I skewered the hot dogs, dipped them in and out of my batter and in the oil they went. It wasn't as dramatic as I thought it would be at all! It just bubbled a little bit, no burns, no explosions...everything went smoothly! Of course once the first cold dogs went into the oil, the temperature dropped again and I had to keep tweeking my stove to make it hot, but not too hot. After the first few I finally got it down and before you knew it the dogs were done and golden brown! Our first victim, I mean guest was my Mom because I knew if it was a disaster she would still eat it and smile and tell me how delicious they were! Luckily, I don't think anyone had to lie and overall the corn dogs were a success. For dessert I threw in some white chocolate dipped pretzels with strawberries (I would recommend getting the pretzel sticks for this, it makes less of a mess when dipping)!

Recipe Rating: Easy
Good leftover: Only if heated in a toaster oven, otherwise you get soggy dogs
Tip: Use the left over batter to make hush puppies. Great compliment to fish!
Stay tuned in 2 weeks- French Onion Soup.

*Sorry, the only picture I got was the day after when Adam heated them up for lunch! Too bad he used a microwave...soggy dogs! UGH!

You can find the corn dog recipe here:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/corn-dogs-recipe/index.html