comfort food: hot dog casserole

Some recipes get passed down through the generations. Recipes for pork roasts, or for turkey stuffing, or cakes. Perhaps my karma has a sense of humor, 'cause one of the most prominent family recipes I have is a 1950s American housewife back-of-can special called Hot Dog Casserole. It's really good. I had a bit of a bad day yesterday (didn't get a grant I was hoping for), so I decided that this sort of comfort food was in order.

I am nothing if not a food snob, though, so I did upgrade some of the ingredients. For the hot dogs, I used organic free-range beef franks (in general, for this recipe, beef or turkey are good, pork, as in products labeled "hot dogs", or tofu are horrible). For the cheddar cheese, I used Vermont Cabot extra sharp, and for the seasoned salt I made my own (recipe below). Unfortunately, only Campbells makes condensed tomato soup, and I didn't have a spare hour to make my own egg noodles. Nevertheless, the results were tasty, comforting, and snobbish.

Hot Dog Casserole

Serves about 4.

2 T butter
1 medium onion, chopped
12-16 oz beef franks
8 oz wide egg noodles
1 can condensed tomato soup
4 oz sharp cheddar cheese, grated
2 T worchestershire sauce
1/2 t seasoned salt

1. Cook egg noodles in salted water. Drain. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Saute onions in butter on medium heat until starting to color. Add franks and cook until starting to color. Remove from heat.
3. Mix soup concentrate (do not add water), cheese, worchestershire sauce, and seasoned salt together. Add franks and noodles and mix until combined.
4. Grease a 9x12 casserole and bake for 20-30 minutes until crisp on top.

Homemade Knockoff of Lowry's Seasoned Salt

1/4 c salt
1 T sugar
1 t paprika
1/2 t turmeric
1/2 t onion powder
1/2 t cornstarch
1/2 t black peppercorns
1/4 t mustard seeds
1/2 t oregano

1. Grind peppercorns, mustard seeds, and oregano in a spice grinder. Add to remaining ingredients. In batches, grind mixture in spice grinder until fairly fine.