Adventures in dinnertime

      Dinnertime at the Hamilton house and I'm looking through the pantry wondering what to make that the kids will actually eat. Hmmm... Got it! Boiled octopus with octopus eggs! Well, not exactly... Jillie and I made the octopi from items most households already have. Here, I'll show you.

Everybody loves hot dogs. Even the Arrogant Worms! http://www.arrogantworms.com/music/hot-dog-song/
We have hot dogs in abundance. Spaghetti is always plentiful. Olives? Yup, we gots olives. And last but not least, string cheese. Cut a couple hot dogs into sections and break a small bundle of spaghetti noodles in half.

Take your little spaghetti spears and skewer them into one end of the hot dogs in a circle. You can put as many or a few as you like, but Jillie insisted that octopus have eight legs so we stuck to realism.

these guys seem a bit stiff to you?

invaders from planet Frankfurter

Bring some water to a boil (if I have to tell you how to do that, just stop reading now. Walk away from your computer and go stand in a corner) and drop the little fake cephalopod's into the pot. Jillie made little "No! Help me!" noises as she mercilessly drowned the poor things, but you don't have to if you don't want to. Let them boil for about seven minutes. You may need to gently separate them with a spoon occasionally to prevent tentacle tangling. Once the tentacles soften up, your octopi should start swimming around. It's kind of hard to see through the steam, but ours spun in circles like aquatic wind socks.

While they boiled away to their hearts delight, I cut some string cheese into little wedges and stuffed them into the hollows of the olives to make inky eggs. When time is up, gently remove the little guys from their bath of doom and plate them up. Jillie doesn't like spaghetti sauce, so we didn't make any. You're perfectly welcome to add sauce to yours but it may make the plates look like a scene from CSI: Pacific Coast.

Jillie and Gavin devoured them with glee, nibbling off tentacles and squishing gooey yolks. Dinner and a show! Let me know if you try this with your own monkeys. Happy Eating!