Hot Dogs...???

The first week I get to write about these special Friday Night Dinners, about our delicious, creative meals, about how we cook together and slave over the stove, and what ended up happening? We ended up with Hot Dogs.

This week we were blessed with the privilege of cooking in a nice, renovated kitchen at a home that our friend was house-sitting with the possibility of a barbecue. We had ideas of barbecuing some succulent chicken or burgers dancing through our heads, so I met my friend and we went to the grocery store in the neighbourhood. Unfortunately, the grocery store was only a fruit and veggie store which didn't help in the non-existent meat department. We decided to buy some veggies for a salad, some potatoes to bake and some asparagus to grill. At this point, our protein would have to come from somewhere and we were near ready to order burgers from the local delicious burger place. Hope came in a tightly plastic wrapped package of hot dogs from the corner store we stopped into to buy beer from. We grabbed some buns and had a debate over whether we should get a bottle of ketchup. I insisted that the house would definitely have some ketchup (I wouldn't mention this if the house actually did have ketchup, would I?). We picked up a slim-jim to munch on on the way back to the house. This was a peep into the less than healthy future of our meal...

First order of business was to get those potatoes baking in some tin foil on the barbecue. The asparagus was drizzled with olive oil (or so I assumed. I never found out what was in that opaque bottle), and seasoned with salt and pepper. Oh, the even firster (zeroth?) order of business was to check that the propane tank had gas in it which it did. We threw the potatoes on the grill with the asparagus as the smells of barbecue brought us hope that summer was coming. As I was going to put the hot dogs on the grill, I noticed that the fire had stopped.

Esso senses trouble. You were right, but you couldn't
warn me with your silent meows.

Yes, the propane tank was empty! The sweet, brain cell destroying smell of propane  ̶  nay, summer had dissipated into the air along with our dreams of the sweet taste of barbecued hot dogs. 

We quickly transferred everything into the oven and then were about to give in to the defeat of eating boiled hot dogs until we had a "brilliant" idea...

We wanted grilled hot dogs, and by golly, we were going to get them. That is a part of a grill sitting over top one of the burners on the oven. In case you were wondering, we cooked them on medium-high heat. I bet that the burning question in every reader's mind right now is "What about the ketchup???" Pictured below is our best attempt at raiding the fridge for condiments. 

From left to right: Pickled roasted red pepper, pickles, dijon
mustard, black bean garlic sauce, chili garlic sauce, spicy
horseradish, wasabi, green chili chutney.

I almost don't want to show you the final product, and not because I didn't enjoy it, but because one of my friends announced that my choice of hot dog toppings made her sick. In the end, we opted to round out our meal with some Kraft Dinner Spirals to show that indeed it can go the other way around. Hot dogs in KD? KD on hot dogs? Yes. 

It's a delicious salad: green lettuce, strawberries, almonds,
goat cheese with a balsamic vinaigrette. Oh the rest? Never you mind.

After a small break from dinner, we finish it all off with a usual Friday Night Dinner Favourite: Babka. (Provided by our favourite Torontonian's mum.)

We did not make this. Oh but we will. We will.