For Halloween this year, I tried a new idea, that I had gotten from the most excellent blog, Filth Wizardry. She did this as a fun project with the kids, and I thought it looked like a lovely and disgusting item for the Halloween buffet, especially for the kiddos. Now those of you who follow me on Twitter may remember this for the Dot Cooks “Live Tweet”, where I documented all my Halloween food prep (if not, you can see the summary here!).

So why am I showing you this now, since Halloween is a whole year away?  Well, I think it would be a fun (though not overly healthy!) kids meal any time of year, and what an awesome food to serve at a kids party..!

Here is the tutorial/experiment! (And stay tuned tomorrow for an even weirder take on this!)

I decided they looked an awful lot like cephalopods or sea creatures of some sort , and figured we’d play around with different configurations of noodles and see what we got.

Exhibit A: Octopuses (now Jellyfish)

For the first batch, I used the ends of the hotdogs only, and stuck the noodles in one side only.  I was thinking octopus, so 8 noodles per piece, each noodle being about 1/2 length.  (For future, I would shorten the noodles to make them easier to eat.)  Once I put these in to boil, I decided they were much more like jellyfishes than octopuses, especially the way the floated on the water, so that is what they became. (See pictures at the bottom)

Exhibit B:  Tentacle Creatures (or spiders, or cephalopods)

These were the original version, with the hotdogs (slices this time, rather than endpieces) stabbed through with the dry noodle.  So 4 noodles means 8 legs.  The length of these legs was a little better than the Jellyfish, I think.

Exhibit C:  Sputnik

As I was doing these, I was thinking worms, but with the dry noodles still sticking out of them they looked like a Tinkertoy, or maybe a Russian satellite!  These really showcase the creepy aspect of the noodle just sticking out of the hotdog.

How-To

Not much recipe needed here: Just hotdogs (big fat ones) and dry spaghetti.

See the Notes below, and under each of the pictures for more detailed info.

Click on a photo below to see larger or to view as slideshow.

Notes:

• Put your biggest pot on to boil FIRST! That much water takes a while.
• And enlist the help of children if available, this can be time consuming!
• Boil 5-9 minutes, according to pkg directions, or until your spaghetti is done enough for your tastes
• For a more ‘adult’ version, smoked sausages might be a nice touch