Take this Urban Hot Dog Stand!

We recently moved to Seattle. It's changed the way we eat forever (more on that in posts to come). One thing that I know I've always wanted (but have never enjoyed because I've never lived in a big enough city) is a Hot Dog Stand hot dog.

Seattle is no New York. There are not stands just any place. But the ones we do have are "surf party USA" as Tracy Jordan would say. Off the hook! We really like to stand outside of places like Cha-Cha Lounge and The Unicorn smoking, and dancing to music that is happening inside, but which our claustrophobia prevents us from listening to up close. When we've worked up a serious appetite dancing and watching strangers decked in plastic pants and costume jewelry, we head down to Comet Dog and get a vegetarian dog with cream cheese, thin-cut onions, and all the fixins: ketchup, relish, kraut, mustard. Well, Joey and I have been working on a DIY version of this late-night classic. And we managed to make it with (almost exclusively) locally sourced ingredients. Check it out:

Field Roast Apple-smoked Sage "Sausage" (Seattle)
Buns from Essential Bakery in Fremont
"Olives of Love" from PCC
Local Heirloom Cherry Tomatoes, Onion, Garlic
Some crazy-rind French Goat Cheese
Grace Harbor Farms Cream-top yogurt from Custer, WA
Blackberry Honey from High Country Honey, Burlington, WA

Cayenne Powder, Cumin, salt
First I caramelized some onions in butter. Drizzled a little honey on them (just a touch!) lots of salt, and a little cayenne and cumin. When they were golden with burn-y edges (that's how I like them, although I think the Capitol Hill style is more of an unseasoned, non-crispy thing, and it is also very good).


Then I got started chopping up these olives earl tiny. I put some raw garlic on because the late-night hot dogs are spicy. I chopped the tomatoes up small and put them with the olives. It's a little unconventional as a relish, I can see you right now scratching your chin. But it was actually very good: salty and spicy, exactly what you need to counteract the cream cheese (rather than the cream cheese cutting down the spicy, obvs cream cheese is not negotiable, where spicy certainly is). I see this as a replacement for ketchup (gross) and relish (not gross but difficult to make in 20 minutes before dindin).
Ok so Field Roast Apple Smoke Links are my favorite vegetable-gluten protein of the mo. They are savory like sausage, and a little bit sweet, with a very heady, hearty texture. But there is no meat in them! I think this recipe would also go very well with the other varieties of Links, Chipotle and Italian (although I am not a huge fan of the Italian--too much eggplant).

Then I got some buns toasting.

Then I mixed about a quarter ounce of goat cheese with a half ounce of yogurt until they were fully creamed together. It actually created a dairy product almost the consistency of cream cheese. Maybe you are wondering why we didn't just get cream cheese. Well, the only grocery store we are within walking distance of (at 8 pm when we finally decide to make dinner) is PCC where all the food is super expensive because it's a pretend co-op. Cream cheese costs like $5 there, and I just can't justify that for one meal. Whereas we eat yogurt and goat's cheese separately almost every day. I would say this mixture would be worth trying with Greek yogurt because it is so thick. Cream top yogurt is good, but it is still too thin. Also, because the Grace Harbor Yogurt is made from Guernsey cow's milk, it's a little too sweet to pass as cream cheese. Definitely sour enough and salty enough, though.


Topped all that shit with my salsa-nade and we were ready to eat. It's such a quick meal! If you are fast at chopping olives and cherry tomatoes, which, I am not, because they are very slippery, and as you know, I'm very afraid of sharp objects.

Holy SHIT healthy Spinach and Artichoke Dip

We made this dip for our playoffs party.  Colts shred Ravens like Joey and Jocey shred cheese!  We served it with blue and white corn tortilla chips and it was a huge hit.

Spinach & Artichoke Dip
1 cup finely grated gruyere
1 cup finely grated parmesan
.5 quart of plain whole yogurt
a bunch of fresh spinach, chopped or a bunch of frozen spinach, thawed, drained, and chopped
1 sweet yellow onion, diced
3-5 cloves of garlic, minced into paste
2 tbsp olive oil
almost a whole jar of artichoke hearts in olive oil

paprika 1/2 tsp
coriander to taste (I use a pinch)
cumin to taste (I use at least a tsp, probably more)

Prep time: how fast can you grate cheese?  No seriously it takes like 10 minutes to make, but a while to bake.

1. Heat up some olive oil and toss in the onions, cover with salt and sautee on low heat.  After several minutes of cooking, add the coriander and cumin.
   
2. Preheat the oven to 425. Mix the yogurt and cheese in a glass loaf pan.
3. Chop the spinach and toss it and the minced garlic in when the onions are getting tender.  Since it takes like 2 minutes to wilt spinach, just make sure the onions are mostly cooked but with a little bite left to them.  The garlic should be a paste: mince the garlic, sprinkle sea salt on it, and drag a knife over the salt until it grates the garlic into mush.  Because it is so fine, it needs very little time to cook, so be careful it doesn't brown.
4. Meanwhile rough chop the artichoke hearts, and mix the hearts and everything from your skillet into the yogurt mixture.  Add the paprika, and more cumin if you feel like the onions didn't get enough.
5. Bake at 425 for 45 minutes (it will not be hot through, it will be more like warm.  If you want it hot, like I did but could not wait for, bake for at least an hour).

 
Results: I call this dish healthy because I use yogurt instead of sour cream.  Yogurt has about 150 calories per cup, whereas sour cream has about 60 calories for 2 tbsp.  2 tbsp is only like a handful of chips worth of dip.  That's ridiculous, kind of like the Ravens losing 3 to 20 in a playoff game.  I'm not sure that parmesan and gruyere are very healthy, but they seem healthier by virtue of being European, rather than American cheeses.  One thing is: don't forget to chop the spinach.  Think about how wet spinach sticks together: once it's wilted, it's going to be in a clump.  Next time I think I might add some fresh tomato on top.