Oh so healthy.  This one does not get the American Heart Associate Rating.  Not yet at least.  This was also something I’ve been itching to try — so we did it.  We don’t mess around.  We used German Franks from Berkeley Bowl and fried in grape seed oil, which is supposed to be the healthiest kind of oil to fry in.

We prepared some red and white onions with some tomato paste and reduced it on a simmer in a large pot.  This was definitely delicious.  My buddy’s idea and a must for any kind of hot dogs from now on.  We also made a tapenade from everything offered at the Berkeley Bowl olive and appetizer bar: artichoke hearts, olives, tomatoes, mushrooms, garlic, peperoncini, and whatever else they had… probably some bell pepper too.  We blended all that up with some olive oil and some bread crumbs.

Next we cut some pickles long ways into little spears and then did the same with zucchini.  We also sliced the zucchini really thin to wrap the dogs with.  Next we the little franks in bacon and fried them along with the pickle and zucchini spears for about 6 minutes at 375 degrees.  Perfect.

We toasted and steamed buns (in the microwave in a damp paper towel) and dressed the dogs.  On the first bacon wrapped dog we put the reduced onions, zucchini spears and spicy brown mustard.

On the second bacon wrapped dog we put sweet champagne mustard, american cheese and fried pickle spears.  The fried pickle spears are out of this world.  We floured them, as well as the zucchini, before frying them.

On the third zucchini wrapped dog we added spicy brown and the sautéed onion/tomato mixture. That is good on anything and the zucchini was amazing wrapped around that little frankfurter.

Lastly, we made another bacon wrapped with a slice of zucchini and the tapenade.  The tapenade is a must and we would have made more with it if we could have eaten any more.

The moral of this story here is deep fried pickle spears.  This is a must.