30 Rock's Buffalo Chicken Shake

All that wingy deliciousness, now with significantly less of that annoying chewing.

As previously mentioned, WGN America invited me to New York for a 30 Rock Superfan roundtable last month. However, they had an ulterior motive for extending an invitation to this Superfan in particular -- three days before I flew out, WGN America issued me a challenge.

Make the Buffalo Chicken Shake.

You read that right -- the Buffalo Chicken Shake. It's from the beginning of the 30 Rock episode "Khonani." Liz Lemon sees a sign on the door of a restaurant that says "The Buffalo Chicken Shake Is Back!" It’s onscreen for maybe three seconds. I told WGN America that clearly when 30 Rock’s writers put that sign in the show, what they were doing was daring me to make the Buffalo Chicken Shake a real thing. I accepted the challenge.

Here’s the video from WGN America of me and 30 Rock writer Tracey Wigfield making the shake. Keep reading after for the recipe and how I came up with it.

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"BBQ Makes Everything Better"

The only thing that could make this book meatier is if it was printed on bacon.

I cook most of our dinners on the grill. I especially love to grill in the winter when there’s a little bit of snow. Makes me feel in control of the elements. Mother Nature’s not going to tell me when I can or can’t have a steak.

Thus, I was excited to receive a review copy of "BBQ Makes Everything Better," by Aaron Chronister and Jason Day. They’re two-thirds of Kansas City's Burnt Finger BBQ team, the duo behind BBQAddicts.com, and the inventors of the Bacon Explosion.

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Carny Surprise

It was between making this or Funnel Cake au Gratin.

Did you hear about the Casserole Party hosted by Emily Farris at Pryde's Old Westport last week? Sounds like it was wicked awesome, but alas, we weren't able to be there. Besides, the only casserole I've ever made is a little something called Carny Surprise, and since it's a modification of Taste of Home's Corn Dog Casserole, I doubted it was eligible for the big night.

True, the rules of the Casserole Party state that you can manipulate a pre-published recipe to make it your own. And while I've made a few changes to the Corn Dog Casserole recipe that might technically allow it to qualify, I still feel obligated to add a disclaimer that Carny Surprise is perhaps best described as a “straight-up rip-off.”

The deal is thus -- there are three big differences between Carny Surprise and Corn Dog Casserole. First, the Taste of Home recipe calls for a scant one-and-a-half pounds of hot dogs. Knowing there's no way that could ever even come close to possibly being enough, however, I double that.

That's right. Three pounds of hot dogs.

I don't use just any hot dogs, either. In order to more authentically evoke the seedy flavor of carny folk heritage, I go for “Old-Fashioned Wieners” from McGonigle's Market. Sure, at $4.99 a pound, they're mighty expensive, but they're worth it for both the delicious taste and unbeatable snap. Everything else in this recipe is dirt cheap, though, so it evens out.

The second difference is that Carny Surprise is to be served with a barrel of yellow mustard for topping.

The third difference is that I cut down the celery and the green onions to one cup each. I'm not quite sure what celery is bringing to the party anyway.

So it was a bummer to miss the casserole party, but it just so happened that this month's agency luncheon here at the office had the same theme -- and that was all the excuse I needed to get my casserole on and whip up a batch of Carny Surprise.

Ingredients

• 3 lbs hot dogs, cut into coins (I recommend getting the best quality dogs available, if possible from the meat counter)
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup sliced green onions (two bunches should do it)
• 1 cup diced celery
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• 2 packages Jiffy corn bread mix (8½ ounces each, 17 ounces total)
• 1½ cups milk
• 2 teaspoons rubbed sage
• ½ teaspoon pepper
• Barrel of yellow mustard

Recipe

1. In the largest pan you have, saute celery in butter for 5 minutes on medium heat. Add onions, and saute for 3 more minutes. Place in a bowl and set aside.
2. In the same pan, saute the hot dogs for 5 minutes or until lightly browned. Add to the bowl with the celery and onions. Stir it all up real good, and set aside 2 cups.
3. In the largest bowl you have, combine eggs, milk, sage and pepper. Stir in the cornbread mix, and add remaining hot dog mixture. Add 1½ cups of cheese. Spread into a 3 quart baking dish. Top with the reserved 2 cups of hot dog mixture and the remaining ½ cup of cheese.
4. Bake uncovered at 400 degrees for 30 minutes or until golden brown.
5. Serve the Carny Surprise alongside the yellow mustard barrel for topping.

Here's a warning -- after standing over a pan while sauteing three pounds of hot dogs, you will absolutely smell like hot dogs for the rest of the day.

Did I say warning? What I meant was, “Here's the best part.”

30 Rock's Cheesy Blasters

Don't leave us hanging, Meatcat!

What is a Cheesy Blaster, you ask? Watch this and find out.

They sound awesome, right? And while we've waited and waited and waited so patiently for Meatcat to arrive on his magic skateboard and bring us Cheesy Blasters, he's totally giving us the cold shoulder. Not cool, Meatcat. Not cool.

Clearly, we had no choice but to take matters into our own hands and make a batch of Cheesy Blasters ourselves. Here's how we did it.

Ingredients

• Hot dogs
• 8 oz bag shredded jack cheese (NOT pepper jack, just plain jack)
• 8 oz bag shredded mozzarella cheese
• Can of pizza sauce
• Pepperoni
• Tube of thin crust pizza dough

A note on the hot dogs: We used Johnsonville Stadium Style Beef Franks since they were the biggest I could find, hence more room for jack cheese. Once the Cheesy Blasters were assembled, though, we had a leftover pizza lump, so I think this recipe could easily accommodate any standard 8-to-a-pack hot dogs. Unless they're turkey dogs, the inclusion of which in Cheesy Blasters would be nothing less than morally wrong. Same goes for turkey pepperoni. I wish we'd gotten a picture of the leftover pizza lump -- there was something truly disturbing about it. It looked like it might start to scoot away of its own accord, like the raisin concoction John Cusack's mom made in Better Off Dead.

Recipe

1. Preheat oven to temperature stated on the pizza crust directions.
2. Assemble pizza. We went in the order of pizza crust, pizza sauce, cheese and then a protective barrier of pepperoni in hopes of minimizing mozzarella/jack co-mingling.
3. Cook hot dogs on stovetop according to package directions.
4. Cut a slit lengthwise in the hot dogs, and stuff with jack cheese.
5. Cut pizza into strips, not quite as wide as the length of the hot dog. You want some hot dog overhang coming out of each end.
6. Roll a hot dog in each pizza strip. If at all possible, try to roll it so that the seam of the pizza ends up on the bottom but the jack cheese in the hot dog faces upward, thus preventing too much cheese from oozing out as it melts.
7. Bake according to pizza crust directions, until golden brown. Don't forget to spray your baking sheet with Pam.

Boom! You got Cheesy Blasters!

No shocker, they turned out pretty delicious -- at least the sum of their parts. It probably helped that by the time our Cheesy Blasters came out of the oven, we were a couple of Old Styles into the evening. If there's anything bad to say about the Cheesy Blasters at all, it's that I envisioned them looking somewhat more cylindrical, and not so much like Hot Pockets.

Actually, here's the worst thing about Cheesy Blasters: It's nigh-impossible to get the jingle out of your head. Seriously, it's starting to drive me batty.

Meatcat, please come hang out with us. We'll even sweeten the deal with all the Old Style you can drink. How can you turn that down?

Bacon Explosion

How I hickory smoked downtown Lawrence.

By now I’m sure you’ve heard of the Bacon Explosion, created right here in Kansas City by BBQ Addicts. It’s a bacon tapestry layered with sausage, more bacon, barbecue sauce and rub, that’s then rolled up and hickory smoked before being finished off with a barbecue sauce glaze. Nick and I had been talking about making it for a while, so we seized the opportunity at last week’s company picnic at South Park, down the street from our agency. We actually made two Bacon Explosions, cooking the bacon for the interior and performing the assembly in our lunchroom, which does still and may forever reek of bacon.

Rather than drag a smoker down to the park, we used a gas grill, setting a smoker box of hickory chips on the grate and indirectly cooking the Bacon Explosion. Admittedly not ideal conditions, but we made it work. You could smell the hickory smoke a good 50 feet away.

My favorite moment of the day happened while I was embarrassing myself playing a game of washers. Nick came up to me and said, “The Bacon Explosion is on fire -- and I’m not sure how long it’s been on fire for.”

So the ends got a little bit charred, and by charred I mean crazy burnt. But the Bacon Explosion was still delicious, if on the salty side -- we followed the measurements for everything in the recipe pretty close, and three tablespoons of rub is probably a bit too much. As with all recipes, I figure the first time is practice. The next time will be perfection.