Pigs in a Blanket: Many Hands Make Light Work

Pigs in a Blanket.  It doesn't get much easier than this: packages of refrigerated crescent rolls and a package of little smokies cocktail sausages.  The only challenge, from my experience, is that no matter how many you make you will run out.  It's crazy.  If you think, "We have 25 people, let's make 50 so each person can have 2". You will run out.  If you think, "We have 12 people, and there are some males in the group, so we'll make 36, and play it safe, alloting 3 per person".  You will run out.

This can become expensive.

At our church we have breakfast snacks at the coffee table and I'm on the rotation to bring a goody once a month.  My kids LOVE pigs in a blanket and they often request them.   And, I love that they love to help make them.  The problem is, we can't make enough. And I can't afford to make ENOUGH for our 75 person congregation.  One time we served them and some children were eating them by the handful at church!  So, the next month when my kids asked me to make them for snack,  I told them about my reluctance, and my Lainey, said, "We'll just have to make a sign that tells people there is a limit".  I told her that was a little rude, or awkward, at best.  But in her 7 year old handwriting, it didn't seem as obnoxious.  So there it was.  A basket full of golden, savory pigs in blankets, made with thoughtfulness, with a sign attached with a request for restraint. 

It worked, kinda. Though we still ran out.

It's great to have a "recipe" that anybody can make.  This is helpful and fun.  It's sweet to see my kids' little (clean) hands wrapping the dough and placing them on the trays ready to cook. It reminds me of the time that we went on a long weekend mission trip with a group of Middle School students to Atlanta to work with some ministries in the community.  My mom ended up going to help with the food for our team, as well as the project.  One of our main roles was to prepare and serve a breakfast meal to the homeless and marginalized community through an inner-city church.  My mom thought these would be a great food to serve, as they are a crowd pleaser, hearty, easy to transport, and the youth could help prepare them.  So that Friday night, there were some students playing board games and cards and freeze tag and my mom got out the huge pans and piles of refrigerated dough and smokies and started recruiting volunteers to help prep.  It was so much fun to watch 12 and 13 year old girls and guys making an assembly line of pigs in blankets.  And because they are easy to assemble,  it went by really fast. As my mom always says in these moments, "many hands make light work".  

Some people make these with refrigerated biscuit dough, which is cheaper, but not as tasty.  Also, the instructions on how many blankets you can make from one crescent roll varies.  I try to cut the dough so that it makes 3 blankets out of each pre-perforated crescent roll.

Asher is usually "quality control"

"ta da! ready for the oven"

In case you want a "recipe" for this, I use a package of little smokey sausages, and 3 cans of refrigerated crescent rolls. (The store brand works just as well as the name brand). Preheat oven to the  temperature listed on the can of crescents.  Open the cans and unroll the crescents.  Cut each perforated triangle into 3 smaller triangles (or trianglish shapes, really).
Wrap the crescent around the smokey. Place with seam side down on parchment lined baking sheet or baking stone.  As you can see from the photos, they don't "grow" much in the baking, so you can place them pretty close together on the pan if you need to. Bake until golden. (The meat is already fully-cooked when purchased, it's just a matter of warming and crisping them up and baking the dough).  Serve.  Watch them disappear!