The Blog I Never Use

Sometimes cooking isn't about unusual ingredients or the right spices; sometimes it is about using the normal ingredients to their best advantage. If you make a chili dog, you might use mozzarella or add some sour cream or cottage cheese, and you might add some black beans to the mix, sure, but a change in ingredients is not necessarily the way to go.

Why not take your chili (with pinto beans) and pan fry it, like refried beans, though mashing the beans is probably not the best idea, if you decide to try this, be sure to serve small amounts of chili with your dogs, the oil can be a little too much. Better yet, in my opinion, do what I did tonight:

While you are heating your hot dogs and chili, cut a slab off of your block of Tillamook cheddar cheese; it should be just a hair narrower than the length of the cutting surface on your vegetable peeler (potato peeler), shave enough slices from it to cover the surface of your hot dog buns. Put the cheese on the buns and broil them until slightly crispy. Now put a hot dog on each bun and then another layer of cheese. Now pop it in the oven again until crispy on top. This makes your chili dogs seem like a real meal, which is worth it, even if it does take a few extra minutes.

Labels: cooking, recipes