Apr. 20 - Cheeseburgers & Baked Beans

Every spring we start buying the "freezer special" from Hershey's Farm Market - for $59 (my $10 coupon made it $49!), we get:

• 5 lbs. ground chuck
• 4 lbs. country style ribs
• 4 lbs. chicken breasts
• 4 lbs. chicken legs
• 2 lbs. chicken wings
• 2 lbs. pork chops, and
• 2 lbs. sausage

Not too shabby, huh? Everything is individually prepackaged, too, so there's no sorting meat, re-wrapping, etc. I absolutely LOVE it! That meat will last us a good month or two, too, which makes shopping easy. The first thing I always do when we get that package is make hamburgers! Their ground beef is absolutely the best I've ever had and there's nothing like homemade burgers. I have yet to find a frozen pre-made kind that doesn't taste like the crap we used to eat in elementary school!

My burger recipe is super easy and is the perfect "base" for more intricate creations. Sometimes I add chopped up bacon and shredded cheese into the patties for a bacon cheeseburger, other times I've mixed in bleu cheese. Here it is:

Hamburgers
Ingredients
1 lb. ground beef
1 egg
1/2 cup bread crumbs (equiv. to about 1 or 2 slices of bread if you want to make the effort to grate it)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
minced onion and garlic powder to taste

Directions

1. Mix all ingredients until well-formed.
2. Split into 6 even patties

When we make our burgers, we use this awesome little tool my friend, Megan, bought for us. It's a "patty maker set" that you use to form the patties. It makes the burgers flat so that they cook evenly throughout and is so easy to use! Here's a link to the contraption on the right.

Today, I decided to go a little creative and make "stuffed burgers." I split up my beef into six even balls, and then I split each ball in half. I made a patty out of each piece, topped one with shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese, and then slapped the other piece on top. I pressed the sides down to create a seam, then grilled it up for about 7 or 8 minutes on each side (we like our burgers medium to medium well). Here they are pre-grilled:

And then after they were cooked, here's how they looked:

Paired with baked beans, it was a fantastic dinner! Oh, and the most important part of the burger - the bun and toppings! I always get the Pepperidge Farms poppyseed and onion rolls (the best bun I've ever had), and topped my burger with bacon, ketchup, mustard and French's fried onions. I love "spring/summer" foods!