Mexican-Style Hot Dogs

While I miss the variety of food that was available in my old hometown of Chicago,

I did find one very interesting gem here in Colorado. - Marcos Hot Dogs.

Grilled, bacon-wrapped hot dogs, topped with beans, tomatoes, mayo, onions, ketchup and cheese, with add-your-own extras including hot sauce, relish, grilled jalepenos, and pickled jalepenos are hard to beat.

Pretty, aren't they?

Corned Beef Patties

Hard to believe, but we still had corned beef left over from my ahead-of-the-holiday cooking...and today I decided to do something completely different with the beef and the last bits of veggies. So it all went into the meat grinder.

Yes, the meat grinder. Because, why not?

I'd never tried putting cooked meat through the meat grinder, so that was good enough reason.

I figured it needed some binder, so I added egg and I thought mustard would be a nice flavor, so I put in a dollop of grainy mustard. I probably should have added some bread or cracker crumbs, but I didn't,

I had enough to make 4 burger-sized patties. I put them in a nonstick pan with a little oil and let them brown well on one side. They were still a little soft and a bit tricky to flip, but they didn't fall apart. After the second side was browned, they held together a lot better.

The texture wasn't like a burger, it was more like salmon patties. And the color was a similar pink. They got a nice brown crust, which was nice.

If I make them again, I'll probably add some bread or cracker crumbs so they bind better, and maybe some chopped onion or scallions. The mustard way a nice touch, so I'll keep that.

Dutch Oven White Bread

This is a really simple bread, but the method is a little different. In some ways, it's easier than that other easy bread (I'm looking at you, no-knead) except for the kneading part.

You do need to knead.

But if you've got a stand mixer or a food processor, the machine does the work for you, so kneading isn't a big deal.

If you don't have a machine to do that work, kneading a bread like this isn't a huge effort.

And this method gives you a nice loaf of bread that you can eat the same day.

Dutch Oven White Bread

1 cup lukewarm water
2 1/4 teaspoons yeast (one package)
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup semolina flour
2 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon olive oil

Put the first 4 items in the bowl of your stand mixer, stir, and let it sit for ten minutes, until it's foamy.

Add the flour, salt and olive oil, and first mix, then knead on medium speed until elastic.


Form into a ball, drizzle with a little olive oil, put it back into the bowl (or another clean bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and let it rest until it has doubled in size, about an hour.

When it has doubled, take it out of the bowl form it into a nice tight ball. Sprinkle some cornmeal on the bottom of your dutch oven (I used a 5 1/2-quart).

Put the ball into the pot:

.

Put the cover on it and let it sit for about 1/4 of the time the first rise took - about 15

After fifteen minutes, you'll see that it has started to rise.

Like this:

Put the pot into a COLD oven.

Set the temp to 400 degrees.

Bake for 1 hour, or until nicely browned, like this:

Take a close look!