Friday Food Craft: Hotdogtopus!

I am in the great land of Wisconsin with my two adorable little nieces, and what better thing to do for a food craft than Hotdogtopus, the hot dog octopus! This is a super easy way to make meal time fun for the little ones. Honestly, it's about the only reason I would ever want a hot dog, but the kids love 'em. ALso, you have a lot of serving options, and they are easy enough to make that you can do these special for the kids while you have some more adult fare on your own plate.

You will need:

Hot dogs (I prefer the "bun length" as they give you more room to work with)
a sharp knife
pot of boiling water

See? I said it was easy.

Take each hot dog and cut 2/3 into "legs". Just slice in half, turn slice in half, until you have 8 "legs", these do not have to be perfect by any means. Place your hotdogtopus into a pot of boiling water and watch the legs curl up! If you are like me, you can't eat a plain old boiled hot dog, so I arranged my hotdogtopi on a baking sheet with heads up, resting on their legs to brown a tiny bit and crisp up those legs! Finish by making a little face with toothpick pricks, or a knife. These are great served in a sea of mac 'n cheese, or surrounded by tater tot "coral".