August 19th, 2024

Hot Dogs. Frankfurters. Franks. Weiners. Sausage. Brat. Footlong. "The Legendary Tube Steak". Whatever name they go by in your house, hot  dogs are pretty basic and ain't nothin' wrong with 'em.  There are a lot of different brands of course and some manufacturers get kind of fancy and have different additions  - cheese, jalapeno's, various herbs and spices.   None of them are wrong but I'm sure you favour one sort over others if you have the choice.  

We lean toward all beef hot dogs that are big enough that the bun/doggie ratio is balanced.  Don't want too much of one thing in each bite.   Tim prefers natural casings hot dogs which we find at our local farm market and he absolutely loves them cooked on the grill.  

I don't usually make them very often, even though they are easy peasy for a meal.  I try to get as much variety as possible in the menu rotation which means that good old hot dogs just somehow don't happen very often.  And because of that,  I usually do not have proper hot dog buns on hand, which further means that I would have to make a special grocery store trip to buy them for that one  meal.  And therein lies the issue.  I just don't want to go to the market for One Item.

I don't want to grocery shop at all. I just don't care for it very much.  And quite honestly, I think it probably has more to do with the current price tags than anything else.  Sticker shock at the end of each trip is jarring.  It has gotten to the point where I have stopped looking at the total. I just zoopzoop my card and head out the door with my few measly bags. Avoidance technique.  It's working for me.

The point here isn't to whine about the high cost  of every freakin' thing in the world right now.  It 's about getting creative with something as basic as a hot dog.    Over the weekend, I thought hot dogs would be a great idea for dinner.  I never know for sure what we are doing on the weekends so a dinner that is quickquick and easypeasy sounds like a smart plan, right?

When it came time to cook the hot dogs I realized (a little belated and shame on me)  that what I thought was a bag of hot dog buns from the freezer was actually a bag of hamburger buns.  Dang.  Sometimes I move too fast and don't investigate enough. (which is why, on a number of occasions, I've returned home with raspberry jam instead of strawberry. Right brand, right size, right colour, wrong flavour)

It's not and "end of the world" level problem.  It's easy enough to cut the doggies in half long ways and use the hamburger bun, right?  But then I remembered a little video I happened to see recently and yay!  Fun!  Perfect opportunity to give it a whirl.

The idea in the video was to make the hot dog go into a circle so it fits round on the round bun.  "But how?",  you may be asking yourself.   Well, it turns out to be much like a carpenter puts a lot of tiny cuts into a straight piece of wood to curve it.  Put a lot of tiny cuts into the hot dog.  So Clever!

So here is what it looked like...tiny cuts, then bent round and secured with a toothpick that I soaked in water (so it wouldn't catch fire):

,Obviously I had a little difficult determining how far apart the cuts should be AND how deep they should be.  Experimentation  eventually led to better circles :)

Once I had them all cut and secured, I put them on the grill, just like an ordinary hot dogs and in short order (one of the best parts about hot dogs is that they cook quickly) they were ready !  Here they are hot off the grill:  Tim loves the char!

The next part, putting them on the bun of course was easy.  Tim likes his with mustard and pickle or relish.  I made the executive decision to use pickles this time so there would be something filling that middle bit of the circle:

Then I served them with deviled eggs and baked beans.  It was a perfectlyeasy summer dinner and so dang cute too.  Come on, aren't those adorable? :

I am constantly amazed at other people's creativity!  AND I learned one more new thing.  My dad always told us to learn at least one new thing every day.  This was my one new thing on Saturday!

And if you've never heard of the idea before, now you have learned one new thing too. Whether you ever try it or not, you know it now. One new thing a day!  Done!