How Hard Can It Be To Cook Hot Dogs?

It was the monthly potluck at church last weekend, and I love thinking about what to take for the potluck.

With all the things we had going on, I decided to go simple.

I decided we’d take a mini hotdog bar to share with our friends.

One instant pot of beef hot dogs.

One instant pot of vegan hot dogs.

Buns, ketchup, mustard, relish, chili.

A lovely little hot dog bar.

Easy.

I read this post about making the hot dogs in the Instant Pot.

Or, rather, I should say I read this first sentence of the post, “This is how easy it is to make Instant Pot hot dogs.”

Possibly I should have read the entire post.

Reading this sentence might have been good:

“Remember, you are really just warming them up so it doesn’t take long whether they have a casing or not. If you cook just 1 package of traditional store bought skinny hot dogs you just cover them with just enough liquid to cover them and 1 minute is sufficient.”

But I didn’t read that sentence.

I went with my cooking instincts.

Nor did I talk through my plan with Buds, who probably…it turns out mistakenly…thought I would be able to warm up hot dogs without any trouble.

Probably all would have gone okay, except that I made a few missteps:

1) I put in way, way, way too much water.

2) I started the instant pots when church began, which means the dogs were in them for over an hour.

3) I added in my own little quirk: I accidentally switched the lids on the instant pots.

See, we have two instant pots that are not exactly the same. The lids should not be switched.

In fact, you probably shouldn’t even be able to switch them, but I blew past that safety feature somehow.

I slipped out of the church service a little early to go get the gorgeous hot dog bar all laid out.

What I found was water all over the table and floor where the IP had not sealed correctly since I swapped the lids.

With help from the children I quickly mopped up the floor and table.

Then, I grappled with getting the lid off the instant pot.

All that extra water and time caused the hot dogs to balloon up into huge sausages of monstrous size.

When I managed to get the lid off the beef dogs, a great mound of meat bulged up out of the pot.

Was it gross?

Yes, yes, it was.

After the beef dogs gave me pause, I wrestled the lid off the vegan dogs.

Dear God in Heaven, what is this quivering mass of not-quite-flesh?!

Look away, Children! Look. AWAY!

Shockingly, the hot dog bar of my dreams was not quite the hit at church I had planned for.

I tossed the hot dogs out into the yard, where cousins’ dog Jackson happily found them a few days later.

At least someone likes my cooking.

I’m thinking next potluck we take homemade sushi.

What could possibly go wrong?