Cornbread "Gnocchi" Served with Chili and Weiners

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This past weekend, my friend Kate (that's for you, Amy) and I got together and decided to try making cornbread pasta - to be served with hot dogs and chili, of course.

(Due to time constraints, we decided not to make cornbread linguini. Next time, we plan to make the linguini out of the cornbread pasta dough and let it dry so that it can stand up to being stuck through chunks of hot dogs.)

Anyway, here's a recap of how things went down:

- We made a delicious pot of chili and let it simmer while we made everything else.

- We made a cornbread pasta dough and it turned out pretty well. We formed the dough into long ropes about 1/2-inch thick and then cut the ropes into bite-sized pieces. From here on out, the pasta will be referred to as 'gnocchi,' even though it doesn't contain any potato (which I'm pretty sure is an essential ingredient in actual gnocchi).

- We played around with some extra 'gnocchi' dough and made hot dog dumplings and what I affectionately refer to as "Weineravioli."

(We even made a fancy dipping sauce!)

- We boiled the 'gnocchi' for approximately 40 minutes because we made them too thick.

- We (finally!) drained the 'gnocchi' and assembled our dinners. 'Gnocchi,' followed by cut-up Oscar Meyer weiners, followed by chili & topped with cheese, sour cream, and green onions.

- We tasted our creations and they were all DELICIOUS! The hot dog dumplings and the Weineraviolis were a bit odd, but they still tasted good - and were super fun to look at, if you ask me!

- We ate our delicious meal and then proceeded to lay around, in food comas, watching "Megan Wants a Millionaire." Which was FAR less classy than our meal of chili-cheese-cornbread-hot-dog-pasta.

I'll post recipes soon, just in case any of you want to recreate what we did.

Thanks for reading!

I'm not sure how I would do this...

... but Peter (my step-father-in-law) suggested that I serve cornbread on the side of the chili-dog-mac. And while I think that sounds awesome, I think that CORNBREAD PASTA sounds even more awesome!

So I'm thinking I could just make a homemade pasta out of cornmeal and... egg... and flour...? I'll figure it out. But the point it, how tasty does that sound (besides very?)! I'm not sure I would have the patience to form the cornmeal pasta into spaghetti & dry it to the point where it would be sturdy enough to stick through hot dogs... but I could at least serve it underneath the chili and still put cut-up hot dogs in there, too!

Actually, you know what - no. If I'm going to do this I need to do it right. I AM going to figure out how to make cornbread pasta, and how to dry it, and how to successfully stick it through chunks of Oscar Meyer weiners. And I will then serve it as originally outlined in my first blog post.

I am determined to make this work. Thank you, Peter, for the awesome suggestion and inspiration.

Stay tuned...

Am I a Blogger?

We're about to find out!

This is my first attempt at blogging. Since I'm mildly obsessed with food, and at the suggestion of a friend, I have decided to create a food blog. I'm sure I'll occasionally write about other things, but for the most part, this will be all about food - food I see, eat, create, and occasionally photograph.

First things first. This all came about when I offered to make my husband any meal he wanted for his birthday a few weeks ago. He chose macaroni and cheese with cut-up hot dogs mixed in. Now, not to toot my own horn, but when I have the time and proper ingredients, I can whip up some pretty tasty things in the kitchen! So I was somewhat disappointed that he was serious about the hot-dog-mac (even though everything was on sale at Jewel, which made me feel better - at least I saved money). However, I honored his birthday wish and made just that, and we both enjoyed the meal while watching "Spinal Tap" on Blu-Ray.

So anyway. I of course posted this hot-dog-mac anecdote on Facebook, and my friend Amy posed the question, "Did you make him this?"

In case the link doesn't work for you, "this" is cut-up hot dog with spaghetti stuck through it. Apparently, someone came up with the idea of sticking raw spaghetti through hot dog pieces and boiling them together, and the end result is cooked spaghetti dangling out of cooked hot dog. Kind of bizarre... kind of ugly-looking... and kind of awesome. No, very awesome.

And so, these bizarre hot-dog-noodle-creations have inspired me to try to put my own twist on the idea... I'm going to make chili-dog-mac! First, I'll make a batch of chili. Next, I'll thread some tube-spaghetti through some hot dog chunks and cook that up together. Once both components of the dish are ready, I'll plate as follows:

- Chili on the bottom of the plate/bowl (a shallow bowl would probably be best for this, since the chili will be contained but there will still be enough surface area on top of the chili for some artful hot-dog-mac arrangements);
- Hot-dog-mac chunks spread out on top of the chili;
- Cheddar cheese (and perhaps raw onions) sprinkled on top of everything.

If anyone has any opinions on how that sounds, or suggestions for how it might be better, I'd love to hear about it! Do let me know. :)

I have no idea if this will work. For all I know, this could be a very bad idea. But the way I see it, I like hot dogs (occasionally). I like chili. I looooove pasta. And cheddar cheese and onions are always fine by me. So what could be the harm in combining everything together?

I'll blog again after I make this... or perhaps before then. In the meantime, thanks for reading and have a great day! :)

P.S. - Kudos to Kirsten for coming up with the name of this Blog. I do love a good sound-alike. :)