Recycling with hot dogs

Husband had a hot dog & leftover mac and cheese.

Daughter had leftover mac and cheese, olives, homemade pickles, leftover fruit (pears, pineapple & papaya) and a hot dog served open-faced on the leftover spinach pizza dunker with pizza sauce instead of ketchup.

And me?

I had a hot dog on a jalapeño bagel with wasabi mustard, mozzarella, extra hot habanero salsa, jalapeño slices, and homemade dill pickles.

Easy dinners

This weekend groceries are low and I threw my back out hand-washing pizza pans at work. 

Last night my husband fried some hot dogs and tossed out some chips, made more palatable by special condiments like wasabi mustard and my own homemade pickles from dill that I grew in my own garden.

Tonight I made a sauce of garlic, sesame oil, honey and low sodium soy sauce for some frozen sugar snap peas. We served these with boxed mac and cheese made with coconut milk and adding bits of bacon leftover from a bacon-and-egg dinner Thursday night.

Charlie's

Today was a special day. I took my daughter and my friend Gayle to see the dinosaurs in Alpha, N.J. I figured no visit to Alpha was complete without a trip to Charlie's Pool Room for hot dog's with Grandma Fencz's secret sauce (since 1925!)

Charlie's Pool Room offers hot dogs, served with or without special sauce, with or without pickles. There's a possibility of a side of Doritos, some candy or a can of soda, but don't expect much more choice than that.

The brothers who run the place remembered me-- despite seven years since my last visit!

There's one table and customer's eating in share it, taking turns when chairs fill.

We got some quarters and played pinball, Galaga and I kicked butt at Ms. Pac-Man.

7 dogs, 3 cans soda, 1 package candy and some video games = $20.

Meat Bagel with sesame sautéed asparagus

For lunch today I fried some beef hot dogs in the skillet, with lots of asparagus spears from the freezer.

I cut the dogs in half length-wise so they would lay flat on a open-faced bagel sandwich, each sandwich requiring 3/4 of a hot dog sliced in this manner.

The meat itself was a gift from a friend.

I toasted a half bagel for each of us, put ketchup on it for the child and husband (horseradish mustard for me) and put the slices of meat on top. Then I sprinkled on some shredded "Mexican blend" cheese and warmed it slightly in the microwave.

I removed the meat from the skillet (it had been cooking with the asparagus) and added about a teaspoon sesame oil to it. I also sprinkled four color pepper and garlic salt on the asparagus and cooked it until thoroughly hot and brown on one side.

Despite the perceived kid-friendliness of these open-faced sandwiches, my daughter thought they looked awful and smelled worse. She picked at them for a half hour and then announced she didn't like the beef knotwurst or whatever it was.

I have the only kid in America who loves meat, loves sausages, loves bacon, but hates anything remotely hot dog-ish.