Did I Say Healthy?

Lately there has been cooking of extravagant proportions at our house. Recent dinner party menus have included:

Homemade fried chicken (OK, that's not really extravagant, but definitely not low-calorie)
Duck confit w/ parsnip puree
Lobster poached in butter w/ candied kumquats and braised baby bok choy

Menus where the ingredients must fall into one (or more) of the three essential categories: local, sustainable or organic. All delicious, but time-consuming dishes requiring a minimum of 2 hours prep and cooking time (with a whopping 12 hours for duck confit which actually gets cooked overnight).

However, last night I was tired of it. I'm prepping for another dinner party this weekend where the menu is no less complicated; so the thought of cooking a mid-week dinner was about as appealing as getting a skin exfoliation with a vegetable peeler.

As I'm rummaging through the fridge about to declare it official cereal night I spot the perfect dish! It fit into the local and sustainable category perfectly. A quick trip to the grocery store and I could procure the necessary accompaniments.

Delicious, if not nutritious, grass-fed beef hot dogs!

They were prominently displayed at the Whole Foods and Michael and I stared at them skeptically. Should anyone mess with the hot dog and use actual meat? What would we think if the dog wasn't brimming with nitrates and at least 15 ingredients no one can pronounce? Am I comfortable knowing exactly where this hot dog came from?

Yes. Delicious. Yes.

A quick grill, some toasted buns, spicy mustard and sauerkraut (if you're me) and we were enjoying hot dogs...and still living our principles. Even while eating a hot dog, the quintessential junk food. Albeit gaining a few pounds while doing it.

The moral: go ahead and trust those homemade hot dogs you might come across in Whole Foods (or other butcher shop). They're delicious.