Hot Dog Philosophy

Biteset

Cathlete
Am I reasonable? Or...weird? This is the question I'm asking myself after a slight dispute with hubby.

Sometimes--SOMETIMES--my hubby and kids eat hot dogs at home. I hate hot dogs because they pretty much leave me unsatisfied and low-blood-sugary and bloated. So...as the primary meal-planner and grocery-shopper...yeah, sometimes I get a pack of dogs and buns for the fam, but mostly I cook them better fare, and I think I've hit a pretty good balance of budget and time and health and efficiency.

Often one whole pack of hot dogs is too many for us. The hubby and kids will eat a few, and then the rest of them just kind of sit there in the fridge until I throw them away. Waste! Hate it!

But I was recently thinking: okay: SOMETIMES all three of them want a hot dog. Sometimes just ONE of them wants a dog or two. (hubby). Sometimes it's for lunch, sometimes for dinner. Usually I eat something else, that they find boring. How about I go to Costco, get a three-pack of all-beef hot dogs, roll them up in parchment paper and Ziploc bag, and stick them in the freezer in such a way that when SOMEBODY wants a dog or two or three, he or she can just pull out exactly that number from the freezer?

This is because when you just freeze the whole pack of dogs as they are, the whole lot of them becomes this unbreakable rock of ice which can't be easily portioned until you thaw the whole thing out again. You know? I've done the parchment paper roll-up thing with bacon slices, it works beautifully. Sometimes you want to crumble a slice or two of bacon into your chowder recipe. It's nice to just pull out a couple slices, instead of BUYING an entire pack and then figuring out how to use the rest of it, when you don't normally eat that much bacon!

Anyway, that's what I thought: Buy the hot dogs in bulk, freeze them in my special way, and then my three lovely non-clean-eating family members can eat a hot dog on a whim, and this way we save money and don't throw away food needlessly.

My husband caught me doing this thing and VEHEMENTLY OBJECTED. Upon inquiry, it boiled down to "that's just weird. That's not what people do with hot dogs." He says you just open a pack of dogs, eat a few, throw a rubber band around the plastic, throw it in the fridge, and it lasts A LONG TIME. Never mind that the government says storage time should be one week for an opened pack. My DH says there's "enough salt and preservatives" that the hot dogs will last for a long time.

??

So...am I experiencing a nexus of my clean-eating habits mixing with my economic sense mixing with practicality mixing with...WEIRD?

Is it a WEIRD idea to freeze hot dogs so people can use them individually, so that they'll stay fresh longer and we'll save some money buying them in bulk?

Those crap-food cravings do hit the family occasionally. ;-)

What do you all think?
 
What you're doing is perfect!

It certainly doesn't hurt anything you actually are saving money!

I say buy yourself something nice for doing it:D

FYI, my husband and I buy ground beef in bulk; we separate it into 1lb pkgs and then freeze the pkgs.
 
They don't last that long. I've had them go bad on me more than once! They get slimy and they start to stink. I agree that the recommended week is about as long as you would want to keep an open pack in the fridge.

We actually have a Tupperware-style container that is meant for freezing wieners. There are ridges inside the container to keep them separate. It holds 10 wieners comfortably and you can stuff 2 more along the sides. It works very well. My husband and daughter eat them occasionally (much less often than they used to, though) so there is no way I want to buy a pack and then have to throw out 10. This way I am happy keeping them for 3-4 months in the freezer.

Stebby
 
Tupperware

Hey, thanks. Thanks! for the encouragement. It was just bugging me that I really thought I was doing something reasonable, and hubby insisted it was weird. :)


Stubby, where do you think I can find those special containers?
 
Only my DH eats hot dogs. I buy 3lb natural casing at BJs' (Costco) and freeze them. I dole them out sparingly. Fortunately, he would rather eat fish, but sometimes he really wants a hot dog. I've kept them frozen for up to 5 months.
 

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