Albondigas and Corndogs, What a Combo!

I can already feel the stress and tension leaving my body and my mind. For the past four months my co-worker has been out on maternity leave. This left me alone with all my work and most of hers and even worse...without her company and conversation. We're a two person office so when one of us isn't there it really makes a difference.

But Monday will be her first day back and while I know that she's going to be distraught having to leave her baby daughter with her mom the whole day, I really have missed her and am happier than a pig in slop to have her back!

I think that's why today for the first time in four months I felt almost festive! I put up my small collection of Halloween and Fall decorations. Then I even decided to try a few of the 2,000,000 recipes that I have pinned on Pinterest.

For lunch I made two-year old food. No! Not food that was two years old!! I mean food that a two year old would like.  See, I have a few finicky eaters in my family. The most important one my mom. She's very thin and she doesn't have a very good appetite, so I'm always trying to find interesting, yummy things for her to eat. Today I made Mini Muffin Pan Corn Dogs.



For Halloween, you could make these for your kiddies and call them Corn Dog Eyes!



Aren't these little guys adorable? And so easy to make. I got the idea from Ree Drummond, Pioneer Woman. Her corn muffins are of course made from-scratch muffin mix and mine are made with a boxed mix, but other than that they are exactly like hers. Although hers look much better! I believe it's because she pushed the hot dogs down deeper into the muffin tin than I did. Next time I make them I will try that. Let me tell you though, if you are a corn dog lover, you will love these! They taste just like a fast-food corn dog, but not greasy! Needless to say my finicky mom gave them two thumbs up!

Then for dinner I got inspired by another recipe I'd pinned on Pinterest, a recipe for Albondigas. Albondigas are a Mexican meatball soup. My mom has made Albondigas for us since we were all little kids. She makes a big pot of rice with spices and tomato sauce and then tosses the meatballs in there...her version of Albondigas. But everyone has always told me that true Albondigas have veggies in them, so I tried a Veggies version today.

Let me tell you, they were delicious! The original version came from allrecipes.com. I tweaked their version just a little bit because theirs called for beef bouillon and I had none so I used low-sodium chicken broth instead. Theirs had a jar of salsa, but I used a can of tomato sauce instead (I know my people and they won't each anything that has green and red things floating in it). And I seasoned both the soup and the meatballs with salt, pepper, onion and garlic powder. Did I tell you it was delicious? Oh yeah, I think I did but I must say it again! It was delicious, definitely a dish I will make again and again!

So today was a good day and hopefully things will get back to normal at work and I can have my life back again so I can blog and cook and blog about what I cook...lucky you! I've missed you guys!


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