Introduction: Finger Food

Rated PG, pretty gross, may cause you to toss your cookies...If eating a hot dog itself was not bad enough, this is worse.

For the ultimate gross out meal, nothing like finding body parts in your meal. Human or otherwise. Instead of serving chicken fingers, serve real finger food. The butcher was probably not paying attention and whacked his hand with a meat cleaver when I ordered this cold cut or the deli-man accidentally decapitated a few digits off in the meat slicer. You can expand on this and make Frank and Beans with Frank in the beans... Adults can make their version of beanie weenie with this.

This was concocted while raiding the fridge for a midnight snack. With a bit of easy preparation, you can create your own identifiable remains for your ghoulish feast. Just beware of the zombies that are looking for their missing digits.

Enjoy with a ghoulish Halloween Egg Cream

Step 1: What's in a Meat Pie?

For this you will need:

- some frozen french fries (aka Freedom Fries, you know, pommes frites)

- some hot dogs, preferably the ones with skins or casing, but any type frankfurter will do. A bit harder to find, but they do sell the monster size Polish-sausage type red-hots. I have not tried this with Italian sausage, kielbasa, chorizo, or bratwurst but it should also give the same effect.

- some frozen prepared buffalo-style chicken wings or fried chicken wings

- a bit of butcher's twine or cotton string or clean thread

- a bit of aluminum foil

- Optional: a can of vegetarian beans in tomato sauce or whatever variety/flavor if you want a full entree. A can of beans with that slab of pork fat works also.

- blood-like condiments, catsup, ketchup or tomatoe sauce

Step 2: Manicure and Pedicure

Take a part of a frozen french fry. You can shape it like a fingernail or just find a small piece that is pointy on one end and blunt at the other. Cut a slit or pocket into the end of the hot dog where a fingernail would be.

Take the point of the knife and create a pilot hole to insert or stuff the french fry into the hot dog. Be careful not to bulge the hot dog too much so that you end up ripping the skin. Dig out some more meat if you need room to fit the french fry.

Step 3: Diggity Dawg

Take a hot dog and break it in half. You want a ragged edge. You can also break it 1/3 of the way down. One part can be a toe and the other part can be a part of the finger.

To create a finger, wrap a small piece of aluminum foil around the hot dog. Tie a string around where the joints of the finger should be. The foil will ensure you do not cut into the hot dog and break the skin.

Compress the hot dog slightly as you tie the string. When it cooks, the hot dog will take a more natural shape and give you a ridge at the finger joint. We will cook the dog with the string on and cut them after they are cooked.

For hors' d'oeuvres, you can just bake them till heated through and browned in a toaster oven. You can also take a big pot and bring your batch of beans to a simmer. Gently place the "fingers and toes" into the pot and let them heat through with the beans. Baste with liquid and beans in the pot.



Step 4: Got a Bone to Pick?

Cut off the strings and remove foil before serving. You can mash the french fry down to form a better fingernail shape.

The chicken wings should be frozen prepared kind where they require short cooking or just reheating. Have the chicken wings defrosted so you can work with them easier. Don't do this with fresh chicken parts unless you intend to fully cook them on the side or with the beans later.

It probably is best to just use the drummette portion of the wing, the one with a single bone.

After cooking, peel or rip off most of the meat surrounding the bone, just be sure to remove any signs of chicken skin. This will allow you to skewer or insert the bone into the end of the hot dog.

For the fingers, jam in a chicken bone in the ragged end of the hot dog.

Step 5: Can Someone Please Lend a Hand?

Garnish with your blood-like condiments, Serve with a big helping of Muuuuuuhhahhahhahahhhahahh!

You can also bake with pastry dough strips wrapped around body parts and apply red sauce to look like bandages.

Or have fingers sticking out of your mom's pumpkin pie.

Hand pie, anybody?

Serve grilled with grill marks for those especially deviant. Enjoy!

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