Home Cooks Online

A fun, cheater's-style dinner recipe from guest author, Heather Forsyth.

This is one of the most unsophisticated "dishes" in the world.  You can only pretend it's the slightest bit good for you if you get organic, hormone-free, uncured (etc.) all beef hot dogs.  But my craving for childhood food coincided with the need for a quick dinner lately, and this was the result. Quick enough even to make for lunch.  Fun to eat, you can dress them up with a fancy sauce (smoky bbq, dijon and honey, or the like) or just dunk 'em in plain old ketchup.  If you want to go all out with convenience food, you could make the blankies from Bisquick, but I think it's just as easy, and tastier, to make up a home-made biscuit dough. They freeze beautifully, so if you make more than you can eat in one sitting, freeze them (before baking) and then just pop them in the oven when you need a quick fix for a hungry kid or spouse, or your own inner child.

Beefy Dogs in Blankets

• 8 "good" all-beef hot dogs
  
• biscuit dough (see below)
  
• 1 egg, beaten with a spash of milk, for egg wash

Preheat oven to 425.  Cut the hot dogs in half horizontally, so you have 16 shorter dogs.  Prepare biscuit dough then divide the dough in half.  Roll or pat out the first half into a round about 1/2" thick.  Cut the round into 8 wedges like a pie, then take each triangle, place a 1/2 dog on the base and roll it up toward the point.  Pinch the point a bit to make it stick, then place on a lightly greased baking sheet.  Repeat until you've used up all your triangles, and then repeat with the remaining biscuit dough and dogs.  You'll probably need 2 baking sheets.  (At this point, set aside any you plan to freeze.)  Before baking, brush a little egg wash on the dough, then bake about 12 minutes (a little longer if frozen) until they look nice and brown and slightly shiny.  The dogs are hotter than the blankies, so let them a cool a bit before giving to small children.

Quick homemade biscuit dough:  2 1/4 c. flour, 2 t. baking powder, 1 t. salt, scant 1 c. milk, 1 egg, 4 T. oil, 1/4 c. grated cheddar (optional).  Mix dry, mix wet, combine, add cheese.  Add more milk or flour until you have a dough that is soft but not sticky.