Summer Grilling

Many of us love to pull out our grills and fire them up once the weather is warm enough to not catch frostbite on our toes. It is the telltale sign of summer when the neighborhood begins to fill with the aroma of dinner being prepared outdoors by many happy families. Our family, however, is not one of those families. We do not own a grill!! Not for any reason other than we just don't.

Nonetheless, we enjoy grilled food as much as the next guy, but have had to settle for "griddled" food instead. So, when we were presented with a new food we had never heard of, let alone eaten, that also sort of necessitated a grill, I was interested in taking up the challenge.

Let's back up a bit. Our children are enjoying watching The Cosby Show on Netflix, and we have been having a great time reliving old memories of our childhood by watching it with them. Recently an episode came up that I did not remember, where they discussed their son Theo's favorite food: The Bacon Burger Dog. This thing is a monster. It is a cheese stuffed hotdog wrapped in ground beef, wrapped in bacon, then baked for a while and finished up on the grill. It is the Turducken of the red meat world!

My boys, being the carnivores that they are, were all ready to give it a shot. I, being the carnivore that I am, was ready to oblige! So, today we bought all the ingredients for Bacon Burger Dogs and baked beans. Here is the process.

Bacon Burger Dogs

First here are the ingredients you need.

Hot dogs-(Good ones, not the nasty kind. Jeff went for Nathan's Famous because he felt it was right to use a New York hot dog in light of the New York setting for the Cosby show. He's so silly!)
Ground beef (It took about 2 pounds of beef for 12 of the dogs. I made extra for leftovers!)
Bacon (For me, about 2 pounds, since I needed some for the baked beans.)
2 eggs
Seasonings for beef
American cheese (or whatever kind you like. Cheddar would be fabulous.)


So, this is pretty simple. Lay out the appropriate number of pieces of aluminum foil to roll up each Bacon Burger Dog. (For me, it was 12.) I stacked them up, and worked on them one at a time.


Lay 2 pieces of bacon out on the top sheet.


On a plate, take a blob of ground beef about the size you would use for a small burger, and flatten it out into a very thin patty.



Then, take a hot dog and cut a lengthwise slit into it, deep, but not cut all the way through. Take half a piece of cheese and fold it in half again, stuffing it into the hot dog.


Now, place the hot dog on top of the patty and carefully try to roll it up. I say try because it isn't easy!!




But, once you have it all rolled up, you can use your hands to mold the meat so that it totally covers the hot dog and cheese. Next, lay the dog onto the bacon and roll it up so the bacon is completely wrapped around it.


And finally, wrap the bacon burger dog up in aluminum foil, and place it on a cookie sheet. (Mine is a well loved cookie sheet, clearly!)


Place it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes to get it cooking through. Once you remove it from the oven, carefully unwrap each dog and place on a grill, or in our case, a griddle, to brown up the outside. This helps make sure the bacon is completely cooked through. Here is the final result after grilling them all. You cannot imagine how awesome my house smells right now!

We decided to serve our Bacon Burger Dogs with baked beans to round off the whole summer cook out feel!



Oh my, oh my, oh my!!!! These are some seriously delicious burgers/hotdogs! The only thing I would change is, I would definitely use cheddar cheese. The American found little grooves in the beef and ran out. I think cheddar might stay in place better.

So, our family highly recommends the Bacon Burger Dog. It is just fantastic, and could also be jazzed up with barbecue sauce. Any way you look at it, you cannot go wrong with this. I believe this will be an annual summer tradition for us from now on! To conclude, here are some slightly ridiculous shots of our family enjoying our yummy dinner!


Aaron can't believe how delicious his dinner is!



These are some seriously big hot dogs, not easy to eat neatly!!


Even Tobe is in awe of his dinner!


Rosie ate almost the entire thing! The girl can put away some meat!


Oh, my, the husband is in heaven, right here on earth! If the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, then he is ALL MINE!!!

Okay, until next time, have a great summer, grill a bunch, and TRY THESE BACON BURGER DOGS!!!