Vegetarian bacon wrapped Chicago dog

Yesterday while at the Saugus swap meet I developed an intense craving for a hot dog. Mainly because my mom and fiancé got the most delicious smelling dogs ever. As they were eating I was thinking about those amazing hot dogs you can get at random events in LA, you know the ones that are wrapped in bacon. Well obviously being vegetarian prevents me from indulging in such amazing food cart delicacies, but thinking about how good they were made me realized how easy they would be to make. So here is the "recipe" and my assessment of the meal.

What you need
2 veggie hot dogs I used Smart Dogs from Lightlife
4 Morning Star Bacon strips
1 onion slice cut in half
1/2 bell pepper pepper slice into strips
1 Roma tomato cut into quarters
1 pickle cut into quarters
2 hot dog buns
Bacon salt
Olive oil
Mayo
Mustard
Tooth picks

So first boil the hot dogs like normal. As those are cooking pre-heat your oven to 350 and take the bacon strips and coat them with the olive oil. This will give the bacon a bit more of a greasy feel like the real stuff, I also added a touch of bacon salt for some extra bacon flavor. When the hot dogs finish cooking begin wrapping them with the bacon, 2 strips per dog. You will use the tooth picks to hold the bacon in place and put them in the oven for about 13 minutes, or until it looks crispy enough for you. Make sure you turn them every so often so the bacon evenly browns. While those are cooking sauté the onions and bell pepper add a bit of black pepper and salt to taste. Once they are done take out the tooth picks, load it up and enjoy. Here is what mine looked like.




Assessment
This was seriously one of the best things I have made. It tasted exactly how I imagined it would DELICIOUS! Once I get a griddle I think I will fry it all together just like they do at the hot dog carts.

San Diego

Wow castle crashers on ps3.


Sweet!!

Veggie versions

Since becoming a vegetarian I have always tried looking for or making veggie versions of my favorite meat foods. Now I know some purists out there may think eating products meant to look and taste like meat defeats the purpose and to them I would like to say shut your mouth. Before I was veggie all I ate was meat, vegetables in my diet were practically nonexistent. I loved meat and I especially loved stuff meat was turned into. Things like sausages, chili dogs, chorizo, pork tamales, chicken enchiladas, etc. Every so often I try my hand at making a delicious veggie or vegan version of some favorite dishes. I have tried my hand at "pork" tamales and carnitas tacos using jackfruit, bacon burgers, chili cheese dogs, all ranging in difficulty level like some sort of video game boss. Today was no different.

It all started a few days ago when my dad came home with some pizza; yes I still live at home because it is free...for now. The pizza he got for my mom and me but he also brought home what appeared to be a meatball sub that he was gonna eat. Personally I was never really a fan but this sub looked awesome! The tomato sauce was thick and the mozzarella cheese was perfectly melted over the whole thing, so much so that I couldn't see and meatballs. As fate would have it there were no meatballs in the sub because it was an Italian sausage sub. This made me want to stuff the thing in my mouth but the thought of flesh being used to nourish prevented me from doing that. So I have been dying to eat something like this and today I had my chance. I bought some sandwich roles, morning star Italian sausages, mozzarella, and portabella mushrooms. I sliced up the sausage and mushroom and sautéed them with olive oil. After that cooked up for a bit I added some tomato sauce with some garlic and heated it all together. I cut the sandwich role and put the mixture inside of the role covered it with cheese put it in the oven for 5 minutes at 350 and this is what came out.

Seriously one of the best thing I have ever made myself.

-- Post From My iPhone

Another day

Well I am up grading papers and it's a pain in my butt. I am already super tired and all I am doing is reading this stuff!



Oh well time to stop procrastinating.

-- Post From My iPhone

Christmas Gifts In Action

Everyone knows that Christmas shouldn't be about the presents but we really can't get around it. No matter the situation the first thing family asks before the holiday is "What do you want for Christmas?" After the holiday it changes to "What did you get for Christmas?" I never really know what to ask for when it comes down to it because I feel like I have so much stuff as it is. When it comes to buying gifts I enjoy getting people practical things that I know they would use. Often I have to make mental notes of something they mentioned a few months prior and totally forgot that they wanted or "needed" it. Doing this involves paying a lot more attention to people than you may actually be use to but it though but it makes for much better reactions.

With that in mind me and my buddy Mike Sierra have been talking about making a little web series entitled Billie & Mikes Culinary Delights for the better part of a year. We both love to eat huge amounts of food, and we like to talk about food so we figured it would be fun to do. Neither of us had any means of recording though and we wanted something small enough that we could use and not have to get permission to film. I mean seriously who wants to get rejected. It has literally been months since we first talked about doing this and its is always a object of conversation especially when we go out to eat.

Then Christmas time comes around and my fiance gives me the most awesome gift I could ever imagine a flip digital recorder. I didn't even ask for it or realized I wanted it until I got it. This is basically just a small (camera sized) digital recorder with 2 gigs of internal memory, 60 minutes of recording time, a built in microphone, and a really simple interface. It comes with its own video software that can be used to save the files to your computer, edit videos into one movie, and upload them online. The more expensive models even have a pause button, super fancy. The video quality is way better than I was expecting for such a small device. It is the perfect thing if you wanted to go into restaurant's and record yourself eating and reviewing their food. So here is my first video using the flip. Its a Culinary Delights episode without Mike. I know it kinda sucks but hey it was my first go and if you have any recommendations for places I can go and eat with Mike let me know.

Scared to close my eyes!

Some adorable animals in all their anthropomorphic glory.

I seriously think that I am going to have a nightmare involving furries tonight. Who knew an octopus lap dance could be so disturbing?

In Lancaster?!

Well would you believe it Immortal Technique in Lancaster. Unfortunately I will be at PAX '08 in Seattle with The Behemoth trying to sell stuff. Everyone who will be in the state should go to the show. If you happen to be in Washington though come and visit me.