Private Selection Everything Hot Dog Buns

[Clipper]

I thought I would try something different last night for buns to have with Bratwursts. Kroger's had a new item on special. The buns have the "everything topping" like the topping on an "everything" bagel, such as minced dried onion, garlic, poppy seeds and who knows what else. I can see why they were on special. Some things are best left alone. Leave the everything topping to the bagels. The onions and seeds fall all over while you are eating the bun, and the combination just didn't cut it for me.

On a positive note, even though we were not fond of the rolls, we DID enjoy an "indoor picnic" supper, with macaroni salad with crabmeat, and our last can of Grandma Browns baked beans done in the oven with brown sugar and strips of bacon on top. Cooking the brats on skewers on the rotisserie in the air fryer oven makes them just as good as if they were grilled outside on the gas grill. Nice and crispy on the outside and extremely juicy on the inside. It was a day of leisure ending with an easy supper.

[kit]

We all need a day like that now and then, Clipper... especially up here in the tundra of central New York. The past couple of days I've been thinking about making a big loaded macaroni salad as if it were summertime. We don't get too many sunny days this time of year and maybe the salad will take away the 'blues' for a little while until summer (all 3 weeks of it) finally gets here. Who knows?

I think the 'everything roll' is just a sales gimmick hoping it will become trendy and catch on. I agree with you... the hot dog roll isn't broken and nobody should try and fix it.

[Deleted]

I had Shakshuka tonight for supper. Excellent dish from North Africa and also Middle East. There are many ways of making it but I think I came up with the best.

[Clipper]

What do you put into a "loaded" macaroni salad Kit? I like a variety of different ingredients in a mac salad. The latest batch had canned crab meat in it, but my favorite is shrimp. We used to use the tiny shrimp that comes in a can, but in recent years they have become mushy and flavorless. Now I buy a small shrimp ring and Kathy chops them and adds them to the salad, along with eggs, celery, a little bit of diced onion, and Hellman's mayo. I also like it with canned solid white tuna, and occasionally with chopped salad style green olives with pimento. The only ingredient that remains a constant is the Hellman's mayonnaise. I was brought up on it, have tried other brands and have never found a brand that rivals Hellman's in the flavor department. My mom's side of the family tended to use Miracle Whip, but I am not a fan.

[kit]

Same with me, Clipper... there's no better mayo than Hellmann's (Best Foods west of the Mississipi). I guess our favorites are the things we were brought up with when we were young. To me Hellmann's is worth the few extra cents it costs over the store brands. I'm also not a fan of Miracle Whip. We rarely used it in our house when I was a kid.

I use drained tuna in my 'loaded' mac salad because it adds a nice flavor and is quick and simple. I also use onion, celery, chopped red and green pepper, chopped hard boiled egg, a little vinegar and mustard, S&P, and of course Hellmann's mayo. And, oh, there's a little macaroni in there, too .   Normally it's a side dish at a picnic but I often make a whole meal out of it (don't tell my doctor).

For shrimp, I like to make Shrimp Scampi and put it over linguine, or occasionally make a dish that my mom made years ago for most every family get-together called Shrimp Mousse. It's quite rich (don't tell my doctor that, either) and a little goes a long way.  I only make it once in a while.

[Clipper]

We seldom cook and peel our own shrimp from raw. The shrimp rings contain just the right sized shrimp for cooking our faves. We do scampi and also Alfredo with the shrimp, make an occasional shrimp roll, and ya might catch us snacking on shrimp cocktail from a shrimp ring. It is easy to cook the already cooked shrimp too much though when making scampi with it. It still tastes wonderful but is a bit of a tough chew if you leave it in the saute pan for more than a couple of minutes. Just long enough to soak up some of the garlicky goodness.

Aldi's has some of the larger sized frozen cooked shrimp, packaged in bags, and they are less expensive than those purchased at other supermarkets. We also buy our sea scallops there.

[Clipper]

As for the Private Selection "Everything" hot dog buns, I privately selected option B which was to throw the remaining buns in the trash can. I have to wonder how many other folks were enticed into trying them and ended up tossing them out. They were pretty bad.

[kit]

Well... "Nothing ventured, nothing gained" I suppose. It's easy to get excited about a 'new' product you've developed. The question is whether the public is going to get excited about it, too. You win some and you lose some. Looks like the 'everything' rolls lost.

I usually do the frozen shell-on shrimp - heads and legs removed. They're frozen almost as soon as they're caught and they're fresh, and the shell is split and they're deveined, so prep is fairly easy. I don't mind paying a little more for them and they're often on sale at Price Chopper where I shop. With the pre-cooked ones you don't really know what's happened to them in the meantime. The big thing for me is the shells. When I clean the shrimp I save the shells and make shrimp stock with them. I use it in the Scampi to thin the roux. It tastes wonderful and the sauce thickens quickly so as not to turn the shrimp into rubber.

[Clipper]

You are correct. The "everything" rolls did lose. I was at Krogers today and there is no sign of the everything rolls. I asked the front end manager if they sold a lot of them. He said that they did only get a few packages to try out. They got 24 packages and he said it would be an exaggeration to say that they sold half of them. The rest went in a shopping cart for 1/2 price on Saturday night and into the dumpster this morning. He is a bowler on our league so I always stop to chat with him whenever I am in the store. I had to laugh. I asked him if he had tried them. He said "hell no. They looked like they had been dropped in the dirt.

[kit]

It makes sense that the 'everything' hot dog bun wouldn't catch on, whereas an 'everything bagel' would. A bagel is just bread and doesn't taste particularly good by itself. People usually toast it and/or add things like butter, jelly, cream cheese, lox, peanut butter, etc. to make the overall taste more interesting. Encrusting the bagel with things like sesame or poppy seeds, salt, onions or 'everything' spices also adds to it's flavor.

But with hot dog buns, they're going to be filed with some sort of meat (like perhaps a hot dog, bratwurst, etc.) and topped with a person's favorite condiment(s) that add the desired flavor. The bun doesn't need, nor should it have, any conflicting spices to make it appealing. The only exception is if a person is going to eat a hot dog bun all by itself, which I imagine rarely happens.

A better idea would be for the hot dog bun producer to package the buns in the same quantity as hot dogs are packaged, or vice versa, which has been a topic of discussion for many years.

[Deleted]

I never liked bagels. Kit I see that the owner of the Market in South Utica died.

[dicklaurey]

Years ago, when I was a kid in south Utica, there was Mishalanie's market, a few doors north of the Uptown theater, another market directly across Genesee St. from that one, and, the Grand Union market.

[Clipper]

Wasn't there also a Mishalanie that had a market somewhere else years ago? Possibly in Corn Hill? What was the name of the little mom and pop market on Elm St between Hobart and Eagle? Wasn't that Mishalanie's

[Clipper]

Feb 9, 2019 22:07:14 GMT -5 @turd said:

I had Shakshuka tonight for supper. Excellent dish from North Africa and also Middle East. There are many ways of making it but I think I came up with the best.

I googled Shakshuka because I had no idea what it was. It looked good until I saw one video of someone spooning the runny poached eggs into a sub roll and drowning it in the sauce. You would need a bib to eat that mess. I think I would rather just eat it out of a bowl or on a plate and maybe dip some good crusty bread or toast in it, or even over pasta.

[dicklaurey]

"Food" for thought:
A restaurant owner in Louisiana comments: "Heaven has a wall, a gate, and, a strict immigration policy. Hell has open borders. Let that sink in."
Interesting comparison!