For supper tonight, we experimented with making homemade “healthy”-er corn dogs. They were a huge success!! I got the idea from Pinterest (where all of my ideas come from these days.) However, the actual recipe came from “Out of the Box Food: Fresh Alternatives to Processed ‘kid food’” but, of course, I had to modify it to be GF.

Here is the recipe with my modifications (if you don’t need to be GF, then click on the above link to the website to go to the non-GF recipe.)
1.5 cups corn meal (I used Hodgson’s Mill stone ground yellow corn meal)
3/4 cup GF flour plus a little for dredging (I used Better Batter)
1.5 tsp baking powder (the original recipe recommends aluminum-free but mine has aluminum in it- once I use all of it, I will be switching to Al-free)
1/2 tsp sea salt
2T honey
2 eggs (not sure the size- ours were large)
1 cup milk
8 uncured turkey hot dogs (mine were Jenny-O)
8 skewers
Vegetable Oil (about 2 quarts) (original recommends grapeseed oil but that was quite expensive so I went with veggie)

1. First you start preheating the oil (use a large & wide pot so you have room to lay the sticks in and have about 2 inches of oil- I used our dutch oven)

2. Skewer the dogs (I had to trim my sticks so you might want to check first)

3. Place all the dry ingredients in a quart jar and SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE (Sam shook for us)

4. Add the honey, eggs, milk and shake some more and then stir to even it out.

5. Put some flour in a plate and roll your skewered dogs in it and then repeatedly dip them in the jar to coat them with the batter. (Travis wound up pouring it on the second batch because the level got too low and thus we had some funky looking corn dogs)

6. Drop the battered dogs in the oil and cook until golden brown. (The original recipe says to have your oil at 375- we don’t have a thermometer for that so we had our eye set on “7”)

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7. When they float, pick them up (duh… use something to reach in the oil that is not your bare hand) and put them on a paper towel lined plate to absorb some extra oil.

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8. Serve & enjoy!! We had ours with baked sweet potato fries and they were delicious!!

From March 2012

In some Sam news, he had his first therapy session with his new speech therapist. We like her. He goes to the local elementary school for speech this time. He also gets to interact with the school principal, Mrs. Shoals (I think) and he really likes her. Today, he held her hand as she walked us to Mrs. Stafford’s speech room. He got excited when she stopped twice along the way to show him some fish the school has. It was cute! While he was in speech, I sat in the school office and read my book I am currently reading…

From March 2012


Last night, I was really convicted by this paragraph (I hope you can read it- if not, click on the picture and it will get bigger)…

From March 2012


Ouch! That is SO what I do- I am constantly badgering Sam trying to make him behave when what I really need to do is lead him to God and His amazing grace. I definitely hope this book can help me figure out exactly how to do that because right now that feels very overwhelming to me.

In wee ball news, the coach’s wife called us tonight!! He is officially on a team! We are excited. She said that the coach with be texting us later regarding trying to get together early next week for a practice. I think it is HILARIOUS that the coach will text about practice. I guess that is what I have to deal with since Sam will be playing ball in the 21st century. HA HA! 🙂

Because, I feel like I can’t have a post without a picture of Sam in it, I will end with a couple. The house we are currently in has HUGE (please read “overgrown”) azalea bushes in front of the house. THey are in full bloom right now. I strategically placed Sam on the porch this morning to get pictures of the azaleas without the random weeds, vines, and trees that are also growing in the front flowerbeds. I don’t know if I am done taking pictures for a potential Easter card yet or not. It depends on if I find any other pretty flowers around the area. 🙂 Here are a couple from this morning…

From March 2012


From March 2012


From March 2012

🙂
Steph