Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Recipe Recommendation: Sloppy Dawgs by Rachael Ray

Liesl’s Pasta Fagioli and Peasant Bread recipe reminded me that I haven’t posted a recipe recommendation in a while. Honey Bear and I made this one again just last week, and I remembered how full-flavored it is. If you’re looking for a way to reinvent your hot dogs, this is it.

The sloppy dawg takes the idea of a sloppy joe and trades the ground beef in for cut-up hot dogs. Here’s Rachael Ray’s recipe, if you’d rather click through to her site, and here it is again, with a little extra commentary:)

Sloppy Dawgs

1 tablespoon olive oil (extra virgin, if you’re Rachael Ray, although Curtis Stone says extra virgin is a waste of cold-pressed oil if you’re just going to heat it up)
1 pound hot dogs, chopped or thinly sliced
1 medium onion, chopped
1 small bell pepper, chopped
2 tablespoons tomato paste
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar (Rachael Ray reminds you that you can eyeball this amount, but heck, it’s cooking--you can eyeball everything:) )
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 8-ounce can tomato sauce
Salt and pepper
4 hot dog rolls, toasted and buttered (if you want to give yourself more work)

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the hot dogs to the pan, and cook until golden brown, about 4 to 5 minutes.

Add the onion and bell pepper to the pan. Continue cooking until the veggies are nice and tender, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add the tomato paste to the pan, and cook until aromatic, about a minute. (Rachael Ray is fond of saying, “Your nose will know when it’s done,” and that’s really the case with this tomato paste. As soon as you can smell it, you’re good to go.)

In a medium bowl, combine the brown sugar, red wine vinegar, and Worcestershire and tomato sauces. Add that mixture to the pan, season with salt and pepper, and simmer until thick and saucy, about 5 more minutes.

Pile the meat sauce onto the buns. Top with tomatoes, pickles, and mustard, if you like.

When we made this last week, Honey Bear and I were a little short on hot dog, so we added some fresh eggplant from our garden (Honey Bear’s idea). It turned out great, so feel free to improvise.

What have you been cooking lately?

12 comments:

A.L. Sonnichsen said...

Ooh, this sounds good. I'm going to have to try it. I love eggplant. I wish I had some in my garden.

I've been attempting to cook a lot of Chinese food lately. I think I'm homesick. :)

Amy

Esther Vanderlaan said...

I made meringue the other night. Everybody loved it.

Holly said...

I'm a vegetarian, so here's a cold rice salad I like to take to work (and no measurements -- just toss what you have in a bowl):

Medium or short grain brown rice (I like Lundgren's)
Black beans
1 chopped avocado
A few chopped radishes
A chopped tomato
Sea salt to season

My tomato plants are still producing tomatoes. There's nothing quite as good as a tomato from your own backyard.

lotusgirl said...

Meatloaf. No vegetarian here. I do use a lot of ketchup though.

Alex said...

Holly you seem like a sensible eater.

That recipe above is like sodium, sugar, and death in a bowl.

I have a similar recipe to yours with the same eyeball the doses approach. Though I use a 16 bean mix instead of just the black beens.

It's nice how the tomato's ad moisture isn't it. No need to smother it with olive oil.

I usually do some green peppers and celery for crunch to mine as well. I'll have to give the radishes a go today though :)

Krista Van Dolzer said...

Oh, to be homesick for China, Amy. I wish my life were half so interesting:)

Meringue is fun to make, Esther. Although I wonder how those poor French chefs managed before the advent of electric hand mixers:)

Thanks for the recipe, Holly! It sounds fabulous. My tomato plants have just started to produce again. Southern Nevada has a strange growing season: You get a good yield in the spring (because you can start planting in, like, January), and then you try just to keep the plants alive through the summer, and then you get another good yield in the fall and even on into the winter. Crazy, huh?

Lotusgirl, I love meatloaf! (Sorry, Holly and Alex.) When I was a freshman in college, the cafeteria was serving two entrees one night, meatloaf and something like sweet and sour chicken. When I got up to the counter (late, because I worked four or five hours a day in addition to taking sixteen credit hours every semester), I asked for meatloaf, and the server, who was already reaching for the sweet and sour chicken, did a double take and said, "Really?" "Really," I said:)

Alex, I would like to point out that you can totally control the amount of sodium by using no-salt-added canned goods. You don't have to add the sugar, either, if you don't want to. There's not much you can do about the hot dogs, I suppose, but when you're cooking for kids, sometimes you have to play the lesser-of-two-evils game. (At least it's not McDonald's, right?) Also, I really think a meaty vegetable, like eggplant, could completely substitute for the hot dogs. In fact, I should give that a try sometime.

Myrna Foster said...

Thanks for the recipes, Krista and Holly! I think I'm making pizza and peach custard pie tonight. I've just about used up the produce from my last Bountiful Basket, and my family's probably going to cheer for not having salad again. Do you get Bountiful Baskets, Krista?

Krista Van Dolzer said...

I don't, Myrna. I heard about them for the first time a few weeks ago, and someone offered to set me up, but honestly, I'm worried about not being able to use all the produce before it goes bad. Have you had that problem?

Alex said...

Krista, maybe it's that I'm young and poor. Or maybe it's that I'm young and not yet jaded by the outlook on food and nutrition held by the American public today.

But I really try and encourage others to do their best to avoid over processed and canned goods. High Fructose Corn Syrup is still High Fructose Corn Syrup, until it becomes Corn Sugar, and then it could probably be labeled"Natural" and shucks natural is practically Organic.

Deciding to avoid buying the foods that are putting such a strain the health care system today is one of the easiest and smartest ways to be the change you wish to see.

Krista Van Dolzer said...

Alex, you're right. A lot of America's health care problems would be drastically reduced if we all started eating healthier. Whole - and especially raw - foods are always better for you, which is one of the reasons my husband and I have tried every year to make a garden grow in the deserts of southern Nevada.

Processed and canned foods aren't as good for your system, but I do think suppliers are trying to improve even those products. A lot of canned fruits and vegetables these days are just the fruit packed in fruit juice or the vegetable packed in water (the ones I buy, anyway - I'm a chronic label reader). The tomato sauce in this recipe probably doesn't fall into that category, but I figure as long as we're moderate in our consumption of those types of foods, we'll probably be okay.

Myrna Foster said...

Yes, I always have something that goes bad before I use it, but sometimes I have that problem when I garden too. I love the price and variety, and we eat almost all of it.

Krista Van Dolzer said...

Thanks for answering my question, Myrna, and that's good to know. I might have to try it sometime.