In honor of Independence Day, I decided to go for an American staple this week: hot dogs. This recipe adds cheese and bacon to spice up the meal a bit. Unfortunately, this mostly adds a lot of effort for a little flavor.

Due to technical difficulties (i.e. my computer hates me) I am unable to publish a video this week. However, I have a decent enough memory that I can still publish a review of the recipe.

In general, I wouldn't say that Mad Dogs are really worth the effort. Making them requires cutting open a hot dog, stuffing cheese into it, and wrapping bacon around the whole thing. In theory, this is awesome. In practice, it's a lot of work, dealing with gross uncooked meat, and it all basically ends up tasting like a hot dog and making a mess of a baking sheet.

My biggest problem is definitely the taste. The bacon doesn't cook well, the cheese spills onto the baking sheet, and neither contribute much to the flavor. If you like hot dogs, great. If you don't, I would suggest finding a different recipe.

Mad Dogs

Prep time: ≈15 minutes

Cook time: ≈15 minutes

INGREDIENTS

1 hot dog

1 slice Cheddar cheese

1 slice bacon

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).

Using a knife, make a slit along the entire length of the hot dog that's about 3/4 of the way through the hot dog. Break the cheese slice into 2 pieces and stuff each piece into the slit in the dog. Wrap the bacon slice around the hot dog in a spiral fashion, then secure all with a toothpick. Place on a cookie sheet or baking dish.

Bake at 400 degrees F (200 degrees C) for 11 to 15 minutes, or until bacon is crisp.

EVALUATION

Taste: 2- This recipe doesn't get a low score for tasting badly, but for tasting nothing like it's supposed to. A hot dog doesn't taste bad, but it doesn't taste like cheese and bacon.

Ease of Preparation (5=easy, 1=difficult): 4.5- Nothing too difficult unless you can't stand touching meat. I recommend trying to get the cheese side of the hot dog to face up to avoid as much of the clean up mess as possible.

Practicality: 4- The ingredients and directions are all cheap and doable. However, requiring someone to buy an eight pack of hot dogs and a pound of bacon just to make a meal for a single person is kind of cruel.

Overall score: 3.2- It's easy enough to make and the effort isn't wasted, but I really expected more from this recipe.

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