west coast truffle fries hot pocket

In case you have had your head proverbially buried under the sand, the Lay's Do Us a Flavor contest is going on. It's basically 4 potato chip flavors that are available for a couple of months and the public votes on their favorite one, which becomes a permanent product. The rest are just limited edition items only.

I noticed this year's flavors lend themselves well to being flavors in some sort of Hot Pocket, like the West Coast Truffle Fries flavor. Mind you, I don't use the actual potato chips in the finished product. The potato chips are just there for inspiration.

Hot Pockets have been around since I was a kid and I'm still surprised nobody has come up with a Hot Pocket stuffed with French Fries. It's the perfect food for when you have the drunchies or are just stoned(I don't partake in either activity). Plus I imagine they would be a great late-night snack too.

Hot Pockets and French Fries were my 2 favorite foods as an overweight child(yes, I was a chubby kid). But everything in moderation, amirite?

A word on black truffle oil: That s***(pardon my language; at least I censored it!) is $23 a bottle where I live and yet it smells horrible. To me, it smelled like brand new sneakers. My dad said it smelled like airplane glue(he knows this because he built model airplanes as a kid; I don't think today's helicopter parents would let their kids even smell the stuff but the '60s were a different era). We both agreed it stunk up the whole house. And that's why I threw it out when I was done using it for this recipe and for the meatloaf based on this potato chip flavor.

Come on, it's not even real truffle oil. Real truffles are like a $1000 each! It's just olive oil infused with some sort of truffle extract. I guess it's a good business to get into- you con people into thinking they're getting a fancy, genuine product when in reality it's just stinky olive oil. Ka-ching!

I don't know why people on the West Coast love this stuff on their fries...

You may ask, why bother using it? Because I want to keep it as close to the potato chip flavor as possible.

You will need:

For the cooking instruments:

A cutting board or countertop
A lasagna pan
Nonstick cooking spray
A rolling pin or beer bottle

For the actual Hot Pockets:

1 can of crescent dough
12-20 cooked steak fries(for extra potato goodness)
4 tbsp. of black truffle oil(you can find this at an upscale supermarket like Whole Foods or Fairway)
8 tbsp. of shredded Parmesan-Romano cheese(because one of the potato chip ingredients was said ingredient. Plus it smells a 100 times better than the truffle oil)
4 tsp. of garlic powder(again, it was one of the potato chip ingredients)
1/3 cup of melted butter(potato chip ingredient; I melted mine in the microwave for 15 seconds)
1 tbsp. of parsley(potato chip ingredient)

1. Break the crescent dough into 4 pieces(the Pillsbury brand I used naturally breaks into 4 pieces)
2. Roll each dough piece into a ball. Then flatten it out using a rolling pin or beer bottle.
3. Sprinkle 1 tbsp. black truffle oil on half of the flattened dough.
4. Top with 3-5 cooked steak fries, 2 tbsp. of shredded Parmesan-Romano cheese, and 1 tsp. of garlic powder.
5. Fold the dough in half width-wise.
6. Cover any exposed fries by folding the dough a bit more.
7. Spray lasagna pan with nonstick cooking spray.
8. Put Hot Pocket in lasagna pan.
7. Repeat steps 1-6 and step 8 for the remaining 3 pieces.
8. Pour the melted butter on top of the 4 Hot Pockets.
9. Sprinkle the tops of each Hot Pocket with 1 tbsp. of parsley(total) among the 4 Hot Pockets).
10. Bake in a 400 degree Fahrenheit preheated oven for 12-15 minutes.
11. Bon appetti!

For parbaking(it's just a fancy term for partially baking something, then letting it cool off, freezing it, then resuming baking it when you desire):

1. Bake the Hot Pockets you want for later for 6 minutes. What I did was fully bake 2 Hot Pockets and parbake the other two.
2. Let the parbaked Hot Pockets cool off at room temperature for 30 minutes.
3. Put each Hot Pocket in their own Ziploc bag.
4. Put them in the freezer.
5. When you want to eat them, take them out of the freezer.
6. Bake those Hot Pockets in a 400 degree Fahrenheit preheated oven for at least 9 minutes, or until the dough is fully cooked and the outside is a bit brown.
7. Bon appetit!