You can assemble these in the morning or the night before. If your children like to help in the kitchen, let them flatten out the dough with a rolling pin and help roll up their own little veggie pups. They are perfect with ketchup or mustard on the side for dipping.

  • Yield: 5

Ingredients (9)

  • 1/3 cup plain, unsweetened soymilk
  • 3/4 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 3 tablespoons wheat germ
  • 1/4 cup nonhydrogenated margarine, chilled
  • 5 soy hot dogs

Instructions

  1. If you are baking these right away, preheat the oven to 375°F.
  2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, spray with nonstick spray, and set aside.
  3. Mix the soymilk and apple cider vinegar and set aside.
  4. Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and wheat germ together in a medium mixing bowl. Cut in the margarine with your fingers or a pastry cutter, until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the soymilk mixture and stir until a dough forms.
  5. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead four or five times, just enough to incorporate any loose pieces of dough. Add more flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking. Roll the dough out into a 10-inch square using a lightly floured rolling pin and cut into five 2-inch strips.
  6. Working with one strip at a time, place a soy hot dog at a slight angle at the base of a strip of dough. Roll the dog up in the dough so that the dough overlaps along the length of the hot dog and covers the dog from end to end, leaving just the tips of the hot dog exposed. Press the seam and edges gently to secure. Place the pups seam side down on the baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dogs and dough.
  7. At this point, the pups can be covered in plastic wrap and refrigerated until the morning. When ready to bake, remove the pups from the refrigerator and preheat the oven to 375°F.
  8. Bake until the pups are warmed through and the dough is browned on the bottom, 15 to 18 minutes.

VARIATION: Piroshki are small Russian hand pies, usually filled with potato and onion, cooked kasha (buckwheat), or ground meat. We like to used leftover mashed potatoes seasoned with plenty of black pepper to make a simple piroshki filling:

  1. Roll out the dough and cut into six rectangles. Place a small, long mound of cooled mashed potatoes or other filling in the center and seal completely in dough. Follow baking instructions above.