It's all about the recipe. Really, it is! I have amassed quite a collection of recipes from my favorite cookbooks and food magazines, and now, because of all the foodie blogs out there, I am adding more every day! I test every recipe I post. Some I've been cooking for years, decades even, others I have cooked just once or twice. I don't post mediocre recipes. I don't post good recipes. I post GREAT recipes, recipes that I LOVE. When I find a recipe like that, I can't wait to share it! And the only thing better than sharing a recipe is hearing that someone else tried it and is as excited about it as I am :) Please, try something! Then let me know if you love it as much as I do! Or even why you don't... Either way, I'd love to hear from you!
Once again, I forgot to take a picture of this recipe…, so I lifted this image off the Internet. To make you hungry!
We’ve eaten a lot of burgers this week (I hope my iron count went up, and my cholesterol was unaffected…) Each one of the three recipes I have posted makes a very different tasting burger. They are all good! This is an easy way to make a bacon cheeseburger. I like bacon cheeseburgers!
Enough burgers now though. My kids have passed Hamburgers 101. They have the basics. They know what can be done. I hope they have fun creating their own signature burger one day. I wonder what they will come up with. I can’t wait until they invite me over for a backyard BBQ one day… Ah, the sweetness of a mom’s daydreams!
All-in-the-patty Bacon Cheeseburgers
1 1/2 lbs. ground beef
1 c. shredded sharp cheddar cheese
8 slices of bacon, cooked and chopped finely
4 tsp. yellow mustard
1 T. Worcestershire sauce
3/4 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. pepper
Break beef into small pieces into a large bowl. Add cheese, bacon, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Using a fork, lightly mix ingredients together. Divide meat into 4 or 6 portions and flatten to 3/4 – 1 inch thick. Place on hot grill. Grill for 2-4 minutes on first side, and 3-4 minutes on second side.
Many people have their own much loved hamburger recipe. I got started late. I don’t have an A-M-A-Z-I-N-G recipe, but I have three good and different ones. This one is my basic hamburger recipe. (It’s from “America’s Test Kitchen”.) It’s basic. There are no surprises. Everyone likes it. If I ever get some homegrown beef, and learn to grind my own meat blend, this might be an A-M-A-Z-I-N-G burger. Right now, it’s a GOOD burger which can easily be made GREAT, and here’s how! 1. Pay attention to the bun. Make your own…, or go out of your way to find a good one. 2. Make the patty FIT the bun. Cook the patty well. No dried out burgers please. No raw in the middle burgers, either, thank you. 3. Have “to die for” condiments-grilled onions, grilled mushrooms, great cheese, apple smoked bacon, homegrown tomatoes, crisp lettuce, sliced avocado, ketchup, mayo, mustard, and pickle relish. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!
Basic Hamburgers
1 slice of good bread
2 T. milk
3/4 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. minced garlic
1 T. A-1 steak sauce
1 1/2 lbs. ground beef
Cut the crust of the slice of bread then finely dice. Put in the bottom of a large bowl and add milk. Mash bread into milk until homogenous. Stir in the salt, pepper, garlic, and steak sauce. Break up beef and add to bread mixture. Using a fork, lightly mix ingredients together. Divide meat into 4 or 6 portions and flatten to 3/4 – 1 inch thick. (I like my patties to be between 4 1/2 and 5 oz.). Place patties on hot grill (or in hot frying pan). Grill for 2-4 minutes on first side, and 3-4 minutes on second side.
My daughter, Abby, loves this sandwich. She longs for it. Dreams of it. She gets really excited and happy when I make it. I love that about her! Now I am putting it in her cookbook so she can make it for herself in her apartment.
The sandwich is has bold, hearty flavors from chopped smokehouse almonds. I use really good bread from a really good bakery for this sandwich. Don’t marry a from scratch, great quality filling to some cheap, tasteless bread. I suppose you could dress this sandwich up a bit with crisp lettuce and sliced tomatoes, which would probably be delicious, but we’ve never had time. Once we have the filling made, we want to eat a sandwich!
This recipe includes instructions for poaching the chicken, but if you have already cooked chicken, use that. If I am BBQ-ing chicken I always make extra to use in this recipe. The BBQ-ed flavor in the chicken makes the sandwich even better.
The original recipe came from Epicurious.com, but I fixed it! The Epicurious.com recipe is for tea sandwiches, cut with a circle cutter, and then rolled in chopped almonds. NAH! Too fussy. Enjoy it my way!
Smoked Chicken Almond Sandwiches
3 cups chicken broth or water plus 1 1/2 lbs boneless chicken breasts
OR 2 cups chopped cooked chicken (BBQ-ed is especially good)
1/2 cup mayonnaise (original recipe called for 1 cup, but I thought that was too much. Add more mayo if you’d like…)
1/3 cup minced shallot (if you don’t have a shallot use minced green onion OR minced red onion soaked in ice water for 10 minutes and drained before adding to the chicken mixture)
1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon
salt and pepper, to taste (and you will need some)
1/2 cup finely chopped smokehouse almonds (about half of a 6 oz can–chop the nuts, then measure 1/2 cup)
If you need to cook the chicken, in a large skillet bring the water or the chicken broth to a boil. Add the chicken breasts in one layer. Reduce heat and poach chicken at a mere simmer for about 7 minutes. Turn the chicken over halfway through the cooking time. Remove pan from heat and let chicken cool in the broth for 20 minutes. Drain the chicken from the stock. (SAVE the stock-refrigerate or freeze it-to use in another recipe). Discard any skin, and dice the chicken.
In a medium bowl stir together the cooled and diced chicken, mayonnaise, shallot OR onion, tarragon, and diced almonds. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Spread onto that good bread you just picked up from the bakery. Leftover filling can be covered and stored in the refrigerator for about 3 days.
Makes four to six sandwiches (depending on the size of the bread and how much filling you put in each).
Here’s one more recipe suggestion, tried and true and oh so easy, for a Super Bowl party. On your way home tonight (game day minus two) pick up a 3-4 lb. beef roast, any kind–bottom round or rump are fine–just get whatever is on sale. Tonight, put the roast in a crockpot with 1/2 cup of water (and nothing else) then mix up the sauce and refrigerate. Tomorrow morning (game day minus one), shred the beef, mix with the sauce, and refrigerate the whole thing overnight to blend the flavors. Game Day, reheat meat and sauce in crockpot for 3-4 hours. Put the crockpot on the coffee table with some tongs, hamburger buns (or the smaller dinner rolls) and desired toppings (if any) of pickles, raw or sauteed onions, sliced tomatoes, and mayonnaise (I like mine “straight up”, no garnishes!). Fans can make their own BBQ Beef Sandwiches whenever they feel the urge.
Shredded BBQ Beef Sandwiches
For Beef
3-4 lb. beef roast, any kind, bottom round or rump work well (Last time, because it was on sale, I used a tri-tip roast)
1/2 cup water (I suspect beer can be substituted, but I haven’t tested this)
For Sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
2 tsp. chili powder
1 1/2 T. Worcestershire Sauce
2 T. vinegar
1 tsp. salt
1 T. brown sugar
1 tsp. dry mustard
1 medium onion, finely chopped, and sauteed
1/2 cup water
Place the roast in a crockpot with 1/2 cup water. Cover and cook on low for approx. 10 hours. In another bowl combine all the sauce ingredients and refrigerate overnight. Go to bed. When you get up, remove the meat from the crockpot and shred with a fork, discard any chunks of fat. Combine shredded beef with the sauce. Stir well. Refrigerate meat/sauce mixture, covered, for 24 hours or so. Return shredded meat to crockpot and cook for 3-4 hours on low. Serve on rolls* with sliced pickles, sliced tomatoes and mayonnaise (if desired). Makes approx 16 sandwiches.
*I found mini-hamburger buns at Trader Joe’s. $1.20 for a package of 8…, but at that price, you can buy regular hamburger buns and use a circle cutter to cut them down to the size you want! (The buns were plain, and a bit dry and firm, not nearly special enough to make them worth an extra trip to TJ’s, but not bad enough to avoid either!)
