Doesn't Everyone Like Hotdogs in Their Soup?

Corndog Chowder Transcript

I am having the weirdest craving this week really what are you craving pickles and cheese no I'm really craving corn dogs and soup yeah like a yummy creamy chowder type of soup oh well Kristen you are in luck because I had a feeling this was gonna happen and I picked today's recipe just for this specific situation what you did I did so you may be very pleasantly surprised let's find out welcome to Mom's Wooden Spoon get your apron on and your fanny flicker ready as we cook up some Nostalgia ooh yummy

hello everybody this is Carrie and this is Kristen and welcome today we are going to cook corn dog chowder ooh yum yum and what makes this super exciting is we're gonna cook it in the microwave in the micro my grandmother my grandmother too only my grandmother okay so our grandmother a huge fan of the micro she never called it a microwave no it was always the micro yeah she was totally cool hip and cool like that that's so hip and cool yeah so the corn dog chowder hails to us from a Mary's Memo August 15 1983. and it has you know not surprising hot dogs in it does everybody want hot dog soup I mean really what is that soup that you'd make as a kid was it like rock soup isn't there a book about it it's called Stone Soup Stone Soup where everybody in the village brings something to add to the soup yes yes you start with rocks but you kind of get everybody involved and like ooh I have a little onion ooh I have a potato you make a big dish together I don't think anybody ever came and went oh I have hot dogs you don't know that's true we have hot dogs or more specifically wieners yes and then you have some spices salt pepper oregano onion and of course potatoes and corn as it is a chowder oh and bacon right well you know I wonder if our mom made this for us because the Mary's Memo is underlined well because it's a microwave dish so it automatically be easy when I mentioned to mom that we were going to be making this she said oh I remember those it was back in the day when they kept putting out recipes for the microwave because they were trying to get people to do more cooking in it yes rather than just reheating or thawing something they really really worked hard to get people to cook full meals I watched a 1980s ad on YouTube where the person said you can cook a full meal in less than half an hour and she pulls out this beef roast and potato and vegetables I mean the microwave was huge and it even had a shelf in it where you could put one thing to cook on the top and others on the bottom oh I remember those yeah yeah that's right so it worked my husband has done the cooking for years it is absolutely one of his favorite things to do yeah and when he was 10 or 11 even 12 he was cooking Thanksgiving dinner for the family really he just loved it and so when the microwave first came out and they got one he was thinking oh this is going to be great yeah I'm gonna cook Thanksgiving in the microwave it's gonna be equally as delicious and so much faster so he takes his turkey and he does all his prep and of course he doesn't have a cookbook to tell him how to cook the turkey in the microwave and he knows it's a lot faster than the oven yeah so he's thinking okay so if a turkey takes like what three hours in the oven and hour and a half in the microwave should absolutely do it that's so fast so he puts his turkey in the microwave he sets it for an hour and a half he goes about his business leaves the kitchen oh my gosh comes back to black smoke billowing out of the microwave opens it up and his turkey has become this black oily blob of nastiness and as you know one of his favorite foods oh yeah is turkey and they had no turkey that's so sad oh what a hard lesson that is a hard lesson 12 or 13 yep you know what I remember our mom she loved to cook chicken breasts in the microwave and they would just be so rubbery blubbery and just white pure white pure white and the fat oh yes on the sides of the chicken turn yellow and and rock hard it was so gross and then she'd make it even better well it's okay we'll make them flavorful we'll put salsa on the top I learned that I love KC Masterpiece barbecue sauce oh it would hide a variety of sins created in the micro yes yes it did but you know it's funny the microwave came out in the 50s or earlier right but it did not become available commercially or affordable commercially until the late 70s and even then it was expensive I was actually looking up what the cost of a microwave would have been in the late 70s early 80s and I actually found an article that said on The Price is Right they said that the actual retail price would have been 656 dollars what yes do you know what 656 dollars is in today's money no it is about 1800 dollars holy crap microwaves were still expensive I mean that's ridiculous yeah you could have gotten a nice Commodore 64 for a lot less yes you could have and played with your algorithms on it or gotten dysentery on the Oregon Trail that's what I was going with oh my gosh well speaking of Bob Barker and the Price is Right I recently found that the Bob Barker era of The Price is Right is being replayed on Amazon's Free Vee channel oh my gosh I'm addicted Tik Tok yeah and the old Price is Right I watch it every day it is so fun so I have watched a couple with Kristen yeah um because she is overly exuberant about Bob Barker I love trying to guess what what year it is or if it's the 70s or the 80s okay they have perms I'm thinking it's 80s oh oh look at her dress look at her shoes it's got to be the 70s that Prairie collar thing oh yeah but more importantly the people would get called up yes and I mean they attacked Bob they did they would attack him and kiss him and I mean like jump on it grab him oh yeah Bob had to stay in shape or those people throw his back out they would oh I have so much fun watching it and when they win a new car oh and they're so old they're ugly they are so ugly I love it so Kristen I have my weenies cut on the diagonal ooh as instructed by Mary because clearly this is not just your average microwave corn dog chowder no it's a fancy this is fancy pants yeah that reminds me of the Connect Four ad in like the 70s or 80s this girl wins she goes I win and the the little boy goes where and she goes here diagonally oh that always got you it's sneaky that diagonal okay I've cut up the bacon now and the directions say microwave diced bacon two and a half minutes in a round two and a half quart glass casserole so I'm gonna pop this in for two and a half minutes to the micro here we go and Kristen's gonna micro the bacon and I have our diagonally cut hot dogs and now I'm going to start peeling potatoes okay I'm gonna cut the onion so speaking of The Price is Right yes we would stay home sick and watch the Price is Right and then as we got older um she would put the thermometer up to the light bulb I did that so it would heat up I did that so I you could stay home and not be sick I wanted to stay home and watch the Price is Right yeah and not be sick and so I think Mom was starting to catch on and so she would say I don't want you watching any TV while I'm gone okay right because you know if you weren't able to watch TV what fun was it to stay home so guess what I would do oh I know exactly what you would do I would watch TV and then a little bit before she'd get home I'd go get a frozen pizza out of the freezer and put it on top of the TV because the TV would get warm and she would come home and put her hand on top of the TV to check to see if we were watching yep because I remember coming home and watching uh soap operas with you ooh yeah and we weren't allowed to right and so you taught me the pizza trick to fool her you were good boy I was sneaky that was so sneaky where there's a will there is my gosh I was gonna watch my soap operas there's some things a girl just cannot miss oh yeah boy that bacon is going to town over there it's got seven seconds left so I'm gonna go check it out okay what's wrong the bacon is one congealed mass oh great I think I need to get a wooden spoon to to break the pieces apart because right now the spatula is not strong enough well I say sometimes only a wooden spoon will do oh yeah oh Carrie did you love eating corn dogs as a kid did I I mean they were hot dogs and good sweetness so I remember the first time I ever had a corn dog you remember that I do where what at school oh yeah it was an elementary school and do you remember the calendars of the food that would tell you what we were having each week yes and they'd print them up on what colored paper like the Mary's Memos oh that's right and you bring it home and then do you remember r that we had a cabinet and the the monthly menu would be hung on the inside of the cabinet and then we had an old coffee tin and Mom taped a piece of paper that said lunch money to the outside of the coffee tin you don't remember this is not one oh my gosh and then in the coffee tin each week she would you know do her budget and put money in the coffee tin and each day we were responsible for going to the coffee tin and pulling out enough money for that day's lunch wow and I remember lunches costing 35 cents you are kidding me I don't remember that one bit yes problem is I was in elementary school and I couldn't always tell the difference between a quarter and a nickel and so I would get to the school lunch and I would hand um it was not the lunch lady who took the money it was one of the teachers it was Mrs Smith Mrs Smith yes who was the school's tooth puller oh yes I was scared if she saw a loose tooth I'm like no no it's not loose no no I was so afraid that she tried to yank it out she would she would say show me which one that is sweetie yes and you would and then bam out it came yeah she would reach right in yes not to me I heard the rumor I was having none of that I kept my mouth shut around Mrs. Smith do you have any loose teeth Carrie no you know I wanted to give Mrs. Smith a gift one time and I remember Mom got a gift out of she had a gift closet much like I do of course I couldn't remember what it was and I was so proud of it it's so heinous it was a a little teeny tiny glass globe filled with water with a fake rose in it of the height of beauty so gorgeous I was giving her a fake rose in water I thought that was the coolest gift ever prettiest wow pretty Kristen that's gorg what she must have thought when she got that oh I mean I'm sure she was just thrilled that's true well okay so back to giving my not enough money so they'd say okay sweetie I need the rest of the money what do you what do you mean well you gave me a dime and a nickel that's not a quarter total panic I'm sure they could see like the total panic and then they'd always say it's okay honey just bring me the rest of the money tomorrow and I I would wow but yeah I remember saying something to my mom like I I gave the wrong money because I was horrified and that's what I learned that quarters have ridges and nickels are smooth on the outside edge wow and that's how I learned how to tell the difference so now you know today Carrie well it is a good trauma that makes you remember remember things that's right that's probably why I don't remember the the money jar at all the money can because I can't I didn't have trauma over it yeah and by the time we stopped using the money can there were dollars in there like lunch had gone up yeah and it was now like a dollar and a quarter oh gosh or whatever yep directions say to put in the chopped onion which I have chopped right here good job I'm popping it in the bowl and then the wieners so I'm going to take your wieners here and put them on my cutting board and go pop those in the microwave dish so it says add weiner slices and onion and cook for four minutes stirring once halfway through so I'll put them on for two okay and then we'll cross our fingers and stir them up all right and I am going to continue the slow tedious process of potato peeling Kristen just peeled nine potatoes in the time I have peeled half of one which is pretty remarkable as we only needed four potatoes I know right I'm just gifted hey did they sell corn dogs at Cedar Point do you remember that I do not but you know I was hyper focused on the funnel cake oh yeah and the fries with vinegar oh my gosh we had we never ate them that way at home it was special I didn't know you could oh so good you know if you ask my husband who grew up near Sandusky where Cedar Point is about Cedar Point the first words that come out of his mouth are oh the french fries it is if you've never been I would go as far to say the if not one of the best amusement parks in the country oh my gosh yes now I have absolutely not gone to all of the amusement parks of the country so it's definitely a biased perspective yeah but oh the rides are fabulous it's right there on the water it's amazing you kinda get that breeze in the summer so it wasn't it was hot but it wasn't just awful do you know what ride opened in 1983 in Cedar Point wow take a guess Demon Drop yes shut up really you got it right it was the Demon Drop oh my gosh I was too scared to ride that I was way too chicken I I finally rode it did you I didn't care for it I like the corkscrew where you go upside down I thought I was so cool when I did the corkscrew oh my gosh you go upside down oh you were so brave yes I noticed on this memo at the very end of the memo Mary has a little section to bake your own wedding cake and save bake your own wedding cake can you imagine doing that today no I mean in all of the wedding preparation that you're doing in the last minute details of making sure that everything's correct you're going to be in the kitchen baking your wedding cake oh my goodness yep but apparently this was not necessarily just a an idea that struck her there was actually information that had come out through Betty Crocker Kitchens on how to do this and they had a little like um recipe flyer and you could mail away and get this 12 page instructional pamphlet on how to bake your wedding on how to best bake your own wedding cake and save oh my goodness yeah and so that got me thinking in the 1980s yeah the number of things that you could mail away and get oh yeah so I scoured the interwebs for some interesting things in the 80s that you might get oh fun and I found really what I thought was the very best of all and I'm upset that I didn't have it what um they had Skittles or Starbursts belts what and they were for free whoa 3.75 value they were high quality and all you had to do was mail in some UPC codes whoa from your Starbursts or Skittle either or and they were like those nylon belts oh yeah and they were all rainbowy with Skittles and Starbursts and you remember those nylon belts would have like that claspy thing yes oh that was it and the clasp would have like the logo of Skittles oh I mean they were so beautifully 80s yeah I thought that was great a 3.75 value because I mean if that wasn't the deal of the century I mean I don't know what it was all right I have my potato in and Carrie's finishing dicing up hers okay so the wiener slices and the onion are done and then we have to add water potatoes and then cover the casserole with a lid and microwave 10 to 12 minutes turning one half turn and stirring after five minutes okay so so I'm gonna go put the water I think it's only a cup of water okay so I've got the rest of the potatoes all right I'm gonna pop them in and set the timer for five minutes so speaking of mail-in things I have one more thing okay boy you are on a roll today there was not a free rebate oh but did you ever do the records it was Columbia House publishing I did but I didn't get records I got tapes you got tape cassette tapes yes I got CDs really yeah I thought I'd try to be super cool and get all the super popular you know people so I ordered Purple Rain I ordered something from Madonna and then I realized oh I only like their songs that are popular on the radio I don't like the rest of this album it's not my thing yeah you know I did the same thing I was such a music nerd yeah in the fact that I didn't know what I'd like I did not either as a matter of fact I realized that I liked Billy Joel because I was riding the bus and they played a song of his and they said and that was Billy Joel and it was I think from his Innocent Man album okay and then they played another song like Still Rock And Roll to Me and I was like I know that song I like that song I think I might like Billy Joel and that's the moment I began to like Billy Joel because I was like oh I'm familiar with this but our parents didn't play popular music at all no not at all I yeah I had no idea I there was a person I knew who was adamant about their taste in music and so he would mention albums that he loved and so that's what I bought oh I didn't have any that I loved I didn't have a clue as to what I would like okay do you remember what you got on Columbia House I don't but I do remember my first favorite band really it was DeBarge Iloved them do you know what oh yeah you did and you had their tape yes and you know how tapes used to get stuck in the tape player yeah and all unravel that happened to you and you got your teenage angsty and a fit of teenage rage you threw it in the trash stupid DeBarge ruined and um your sneaky poor little sister snuck into your room and is like I can fix this and so I took it and I did I untwisted it I was use my pencils yeah the cassette thing until I had a perfect DeBarge tape which you then immediately said you needed back because it was yours of course I did I was like I don't think so back off and so that was my new it was the only tape I owned I had an album of Disco Duck oh I remember that and a DeBarge tape

I remember when our cousins came to visit from New York oh they were so cool so cool Beth and Lisa yep and they allowed us to keep their single cassette tape of We Are the World what and Billy Joel was on it oh my gosh I loved that I played it over and over and over I forgot about single cassette tapes wow oh my gosh you know what 1983 had the best music oh I just in that general area but yes 83 in particular 83 in particular I was looking it up because you know this recipe comes from 1983 and I wanted to come up with what's the top song and I started looking and I went down through the top 100 hit singles for 1983 and I knew every one of them and really liked every one of them oh that's awesome I know right so here's what I did for you our lovely listening audience and me too and Carrie of course okay so that you guys can join in on the pleasure that I had listening to all of those while I was working on well Mom's Wooden Spoon I made you all a Spotify playlist with the top 100 hits from 1983. oh I love it yes and so you guys can get the link to that or the code for that on our website momswoodenspoon.com and it's really cool you can listen to Spotify on your phone just by going to Spotify and scanning this little code that we'll have up on our website it'll take you right there or if you want to listen on your PC you can just use the URL for it how cool and you can listen to us on Spotify yeah you know what's funny I thought I could maybe search for Mom's Wooden Spoon for this playlist because it's called Mom's Wooden Spoon is my channel there and then I called it MWS 1983 Playlist right and I would search for because I heard you can just search for your friends on Spotify yeah and then if they've made their playlist public yeah you can listen to it you know every time I searched all I got was our podcast oh but we're like one stop shop we are I love it wow yeah so guys have fun with that oh how could you not I'm so excited it was great it was great I'm not going to list them all because there were just too many well I bet they were about a hundred of them you're hilarious and guess what Billy Joel had two of them no wonder you loved it that's why I didn't stop at like oh I don't know 20 or something like oh I gotta get Billy Joel gotta get Billy Joel on there I love it yeah oh I wonder if there's other years oh I wonder oh now I'm all excited I want 1984 and 82 yeah the first five minutes of micro cooking has completed all right why don't you get your camera let's take a peek I'm gonna take the lid off and do the big revealed ooh it's hot as heck I'll bet I'm gonna take the lid off and it just it looks a lot like potatoes and hotdogs okay that does not look like soup uh well we still have a lot to add okay the creamed corn I feel like if we started with stone soup and the first people who gathered had potatoes and hot dogs that this is in fact what your stone soup would look like yep I have stirred it and then am I supposed to turn it like a little bit I don't know I think the turning is crazy but yes okay I turned it a little bit I'm gonna put that hot hot lid back on and we're going in for our second five minutes so this is okay potentially our last five minutes unless we decide we want to cook it for 12 minutes is that correct okay yep okay and I think in the meantime we can we get like one of those little food prep bowls and we can just dump all the spices in there so we'll be all ready oh that's a great idea yeah you can be my sous chef I will we're going to make mise en place oh my gosh you're so fancy I am I don't know what we're doing with meese but okay and you it's the plural of mice or moose mooses

and you gave me one of these awesome little poppy things that make the triangle in the top or the triangle the triangle are you fancy or maybe you're Southern the triangle I don't think so okay so it makes the triangle which I recall as a kid like pineapple juice and you pop the little triangle yes or a big can of Hi-C fruit punch yes

that is actually called a church key really that tool is called a church key interesting okay so I'm gonna church key the heck out of the evaporated milk can shake well first okay but I think maybe we need something else for the cream corn yep I have a can opener oh there she goes yeah okay because I didn't I'm gonna shake yeah shake it up shake it up baby now shake shake shake shake your evaporated milk okay half a teaspoon of salt we're gonna pop that in the mise en place no mise en place means everything in its place and so that's what you do when you're prepping for a recipe you have everything pre-chopped we don't do that on this podcast no we actually chop while we chat cook as we go type of podcast so one triangle with my church key and then the key ha ha is another triangle on the other side so you can let the air in that's right otherwise ain't nothing gonna happen right otherwise you'll have limited glugging yes all right quarter teaspoon of the black pepper ooh you did it thank you it took a lot of muscles and I'm going to measure the rest of the spices and I'm going to let you open the can of corn okay yep okay so all I did was the salt and pepper and so here's the sweet basil and oregano and the oregano I'm so glad that we're not using sour basil I know man that would be horrible right do you know what super famous show ended in 1983. I'll give you a hint it was the highest rated final episode of the highest rated viewing of a show ever basically MASH MASH oh my gosh I remember our parents watching that I do too and hating every minute of it I did too but now as an adult I love it okay and then super exciting growing up in small town Northwest Ohio oh yes Klinger the actor who plays um Klinger Jamie Farr is

from Toledo Ohio yes so Jamie Farr is from Toledo and what is in Toledo that we love to go to and that my son insists on going to every single time oh yes the restaurant is called Tony Packos thank you I'm like there's hot dogs and stuff yes and they have all these famous people have signed the hot dog buns and they're all over the walls you know guess who signed one that I found and took a picture of Billy Joel what no do you get the feeling that Kristen really liked Billy Joel I love him okay so I am stirring this up and I can't tell if the potatoes are breaking down or if that's pieces of mushy bacon but we are where we are I think we'll stop at the 10 minutes so let's see what the further directions are we're gonna add the seasonings the corn and the milk stir it again okay and just to serving temperature ooh wow I'm gonna get a fork and test these potatoes to make sure they're tender all right and we don't want to boil it so three to five minutes is what suggested and do not boil does it specifically say do not boil in all caps okay well it's probably because she doesn't want it to oh shoot so Kristen pulled a potato out to check how it worked put it on the cutting board and then promptly squooshed the potato onto the floor A the potatoes are slimy from the bacon grease and B I don't think they're tender enough yet I'm assuming if when you go to cut it with your fork it goes flying onto the floor that in fact is not cooked enough listen to this oh listen to nothing as she can't cut through the potato all right two more minutes it is right

wow so all the in and out in this micro is to me not time saving no I mean you think about it's 10 to 12 minutes in the microwave we could have just been cooking this on the stovetop for the equal amount of time right and we wouldn't have to have gone back and forth and add this and then add this and then add this and opening and closing it would have just been there yeah just boiling away on the yeah I don't know that this is an improvement although I don't know how long you boil potatoes until they get soft is 10 minutes enough probably well it depends on how small you cut the pieces but it takes so much time to get the water up to boil on the stove true right but you could be doing other things prepping for this you could be doing your mise en place while you're waiting for the water to boil right I just wanted to sound all fancy and French didn't you yeah say that again Oui Oui okay so we're gonna wait for that to keep on cooking yeah I did think of one of the CDs I bought you did I did Credence Clearwater Revival what so it turns out the that was an excellent suggestion oh yes I do love CCR CCR is great oh so good it was it was a good uh steal of a favorite band from somebody else when you don't know what you're doing yeah um that one worked there are others that obviously I can't recall because I didn't like them right and so but I got a lot of duds but you know so it goes and then my mom always told us to be very careful because you know it's all a trick the Columbia House thing oh yeah you get in and then they start sending you stuff and then you have to pay for it if you don't cancel soon enough on a record album of the month exactly so in an act of fear I went in I picked my you know 12 for a penny my required three others and immediately canceled right and then of course you know a month later two of my favorite bands came out yeah and I was no longer enrolled yeah yeah that's what I did I bought as many as I possibly could of the famous bands yeah that I thought would be made me cool yeah me too we were such nerds such nerds it is awful yeah all right well this looks more like soup now that you've added in those ingredients it smells yummy it smells like a chowder it really does it looks like a chowder yeah okay so I'm gonna put the lid on and then we'll microwave it or maybe we should not microwave it with a lid on so we can keep an eye on it because it says do not boil uh yeah I'm gonna leave that up okay how much milk do you want potentially splattering in your microwave well and you know I thought we had a big enough container but now that we've added everything it's almost up to the edge yes it's it's pretty full this is a lot of chowder we've got going in here it is I hope we like it all right I'm gonna click two minutes and we'll see how hot that brings it up I sure hope the potatoes are done yes that they're not crunchy yeah okay so add seasonings corn evaporated milk stirring well microwave just a serving temperature oh it suggests three to five minutes okay no boy no boil yes okay so I find that one of the best parts of the corn dog is the fact that you can eat it on a stick I mean it's just the best oh yeah so the question is why why does the stick make it so fantastic food on a stick is fun it's always better yeah yeah so I don't understand what the point is so I thought okay let me look and see so apparently there's a thing called retronasal oh like us retro olfaction retronasal olfaction oh nice and apparently it is when you smell your food it tastes better oh yeah and so somebody's actually done studies where they make you plug your nose right and eat it and then you unplug it and it tastes better so the idea is is when it's on a stick and you shove it up to your face you get more of the food closer to your nose oh my gosh and so you smell it better as you eat it right and so it does actually taste better when it's on a stick crazy who would have thought oh my goodness well I'm gonna go over the microwave oven we're going to stir this we're going to dish it up and we will see you guys in just a few minutes

we have a nice steamy bowl of corndog chowder sitting here in front of us fresh out of the micro hot dog soup as I'm gonna start calling it I think you should and so I think because you developed the fabulous name you go first oh okay well you know what I like hot dogs I like corn I like corndogs so let's try this my only concern is the bacon but it looks to me like it has kind of broken up a little bit so let me get a little bit of potato a little bit of bacon and a little bit of hot dog well of course because that's the perfect bite okay I'm gonna take the bite the potatoes are still not cooked enough no alright so apparently I cut the potatoes too big yep if you're going to make this cut them smaller they don't cook in 10 minutes time no all right so you give us your impressions and I will go in for my bite well you know what the flavor's good I'm just not used to having a hot dog in my soup or chowder you know but the chowdery part of it is yummy and I think that a kid would really like this it would be a very family friendly kind of food yes and I certainly will not avoid eating the leftovers we're going to eat it and I think we're going to enjoy it all right well that is it for this episode thank you all so much for joining us please out our website for lots of goodies and don't forget to add some feedback if you like what you heard but don't write anything corny get it corn dog chowder corny okay bye

thanks for listening to Mom's wooden spoon if you like what you heard don't forget to subscribe if you want a copy of this recipe or to check out our blog click on the link to our website in the podcast description if you'd rather you can get to our website through Facebook Twitter or Instagram pick your poison don't say poison we're making food