Corn Dog Corn Muffins with Cheese

The reason that I blog is because so many of the best memories of my life are strongly associated with foods (and I want to keep track of said memories and foods)! Sweets with Pap-Pap, cafeteria lunches with grade school friends, dinners with Mom and Dad, holiday meals with our whole family, and so on. One of the earliest of my food memories is ritually getting a corn dog at the mall with my Mom. It's the little things in life, right?! I'll have to ask her exactly what mall it was that had the prized corn-dogs and just how many times we enjoyed shopping and high-class dining together, although that may just ruin my happy little memory!

Fast forward to last weekend - we were going to our annual Penn State tailgate at Aloha Stadium and I needed a food offering that was liked by many yet easy to transport and eat. That's when I found Iowa Girl Eats' take on a mini corn dog muffin! She, too, agrees that these are a football food. (In case you missed it, Penn State crushed the Iowa Hockeyes this weekend! Iowa Girl I hope you're not a Hockeyes fan.) I un-mini-ed her muffins, added cheese, and used Lil Smokies.

Corn Dog Muffins with Cheese

Makes 24 (standard size) muffins

Pumpkin Spice Kissed Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

Pumpkin Spice Hershey Kisses have been around for years (at least since 2008) and I just learned of them this year. Once aware of their existence, I was inspired by equal parts hunter, gatherer, and glutton to make them my own. After searching at 2 drug stores and 4 grocery stores I was beginning to feel defeated. 

That's the thing about Hawaii: new, trendy, seasonal mainland things aren't easily available here. Rice cookers, SPAM, musubi, and chop sticks can be found in every home and convenience store but apple cider and Pumpkin Spice Kisses are like unicorns! The real irony here is that Hershey's candies are from my home state of PA, the state that I left - willingly - 4 years ago.

I had to get strategic and think about where such a timely item would be found... my instincts lead me in the right direction: the commissary. The military bases are where the traditional-nuclear-families with 2.5 kids, 1 dog, 1 cat, and a picket fence would go for such a fall oriented treat, duh. My boss brought me 3 bags from the Navy/Air Force commissary and there are 3 more bags waiting for me on the Marine Corps base.

Oh Pumpkin Spice Kisses, how I've searched and longed for you!  

After all the anticipation I was truly scared to eat one, for fear that my hopes were set too high. The wrappers are an adorable fall-ish display of colors.

Halloween Oreo Mini Cheesecakes

All year long when I need a cupcake wrapper I only have these:

Finally it's time to use them! While we're getting festive, despite the fact that it's barely October, be sure to grab a package of unnaturally colored Halloween Oreos.