Leftover Hot Dog Bun Recipes

Don't you hate that hot dog buns come in packages of 8 but hot dogs come in 10 packs? It's always been one of those mysteries that's hard to explain and a little frustrating. In fact so much so that one day we had lots of buns left and nothing to go in them so I decided to go in search of some frugal recipes and came up with this from Real Simple and adapted it:

Serves 4-6
Ingredients

* 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, plus more for the dish
* 3 hamburger or hot dog buns, split
* 1 tablespoon olive oil
* 1 small yellow onion, thinly sliced
* 3/4 pound sweet Italian sausage, or other meat
* 6 large eggs - remove yolk to cut down calories
* 1 cup milk
* salt and pepper
* 1 1/2 cups (6 ounces) grated cheese (also in abundance around here!)
* Dice peppers and mushrooms flash frozen from freezer (No need to defrost!)

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350° F.
2. Butter a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Tear the buns into large pieces and place in the dish; set aside.
3. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion, peppers and mushrooms and cook for 1 minute. Add the meat to the skillet. Cook for about 10 minutes.
4. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Stir in the cooked sausage and veg along with 1 cup of the cheese.
5. Pour the mixture over the buns, pressing with a spatula or spoon to submerge them. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese. Bake until the eggs are set, about 35 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes before serving.

Bruschetta

Last week some friends were coming over and I decided to use up some pasta we had from Trader Joe's (wholewheat, organic that I'd got on sale for $.48!) and the organic pasta that was FREE from Jewel. Add into it the recent FREE Kraft cheese and we were good to go! Well, I felt a little inspired in the kitchen (rare for me!) so I decided to whip up some bruschetta. Instead of buying new bread I grabbed any from the freezer that I'd put there when we'd run out of hot dogs or just had a couple left. Although I wouldn't really want to defrost them and eat fresh as they had been in the freezr for a little while they were perfect to toast and perfect to add fresh tomatoes to.

So I simply mixed some butter and garlic powder together and spread it on the bread. Half of them I topped with home-grown tomatoes and half of them I topped with grated cheese. I then baked them for 15 minutes at 250 degrees and yum-o! They were delish, super cheap and got rid of those hot dog buns!!!

Here's some other great ways to use them:

• Make croutons
• Breadcrumbs
• Pizza burgers or sloppy joes. When you're covering them with other yumminess even if they're a little old you can't taste it.
• French toast.

Whatever it is, get creative and let us know how you love to cook your leftover buns!