Catering for a Crowd

This is a modification on the cheezy tater-filled dog recipe that has been repurposed to serve as an hors d'oeuvre. The cheese and taters obviously stay the same, but go ahead and replace the dogs with cocktail weenies and the buns with crescent dough. Cocktail franks usually come in a package holding about 30 to 40 dogs so keep that in mind if you're entertaining guests. Slice the lil doggies lengthwise again, about halfway into them. You're going to want to boil them for about 10-15 minutes because the weenies will come uncooked and the baking process will be too short to actually cook the pork properly. This will also help puff out the sliver you made so it's easier to stuff the mashed taters in there. This time I cooked the taters with garlic and creole seasoning (I ran out of Tony Chachere's *tear* so I used some other name brand) to lend a mild spicy kick. A sliver of cheese is all you need, the size of which is up to you. It's best to use block cheese though to make it easier to handle when wrapping it up. When using the crescent dough to wrap up the dog, I have found it best to try stretching it out fairly tightly around the hot dog so it's a thinner crust. It may not cook evenly if it's thick, so making it thinner is best. You can always roll the dough out more with a pin prior to wrapping if you so desire. Each crescent piece should be enough to wrap 3 stuffed weenies. So if you're doing the math, 2 crescent dough rolls (each holding 8 crescent pieces) were enough for a bag of 40 weenies. The mashed taters were cooked for a serving of 2 and that was just enough for all of the dogs.

Once you have them assembled they only need to bake at 375 for 4 to 8 minutes until puffy and evenly golden brown. Really fast. Prep time is where most of the time is consumed. They're surprisingly lighter than I expected despite using fatty ingredients. Here's hoping they're a hit at the party!