Hey Kid! I Dare You To Say This Is Not Good!

Well it looks like this is the month for chopped meat & beef. In a previous entry Real Hamburgers - Back To Basics I discussed how to make a real simple hamburger meal. Then along came the entry, Hamburger With Cabbage & Tomato Sauce. And then Kali submitted her Beef and Cabbage Soup. And of course Paula had to submit the Boiled Corned Beef & Cabbage.

So now comes along my own entry again, "Hey Kid! I Dare You To Say This Is Not Good!" And of course it comes with a story. (Sheesh .. deal with my stories!)

So it is getting close to Passover. Since Purim many clean their houses (spring cleaning sort of) to get rid of all "Chametz" - bread and bread products. We do so because on Passover, we are not allowed to have any bread or bread by-products in our possession. This comes from the injunction of "you shall not see nor shall you find". The laws are complicated and yet boil down to this. No bread or bread by-products or anything not certified "kosher for Passover" will be found in the possession of observant Jews.

So folks... this means we have to be rid of all those open bags of food that are in the pantry. Most try to make something with them. That half bag of Pasta; the frozen bread; even the eggs. Cause sooner or later we have to clean the Kitchen... and let me tell you doing the kitchen for Passover including the oven demands 10 mil. of Valium every hour or so!

So there I was in my supermarket. Once Again. UGH! And mentally I am trying to figure out just what the hell I can feed the 13 year old carnivore when he gets home from school. I know I have two possibilities.

1. Either the kid walks in and says "I am starving" and expects a 13 course dinner with a waiter, busboy and menu all rolled into one OR:
2. "Nah. Don't have to eat right now. Not really hungry."

Go figure out what to make on that kind of stomach clock!

I am also trying to buy the least amount of stuff cause I know next week is Passover shopping. So in my head I remember I have a half open bread crumb bag which I must either use or throw away, some eggs, some pasta - well all the normal stuff in the pantry.

I am just about to give in and buy two frozen Pizzas. Hey I am tired and I don't need this pressure. Besides if the kid is hungry when he comes home, Pizza is done in 15 minutes. And if he is not hungry Pizza can sit in the freezer. Little mess, no brains.

But then I hear this woman arguing with the butcher over at the Fresh Meat Counter. There are people like that all over the world. They come to buy. Spend an hour picking out the meat, driving the butcher crazy and asking him for recipes (yeah right!) and the people on line behind her are getting closer and closer to thinking that tar and feathering this woman is not such a bad idea!

And my eye falls on the Fresh ground meat, on which there is kind of a sale. So I say - ground meat, eggs, bread crumbs, and some other left over open bottles. And of course I walk straight up to the counter and say to the woman real nice like "All I need is a 1 pound of ground meat. Do you mind?" And I smile and bat my eyelashes. Of course she says "Yes I mind. I have been here picking out meat for over an hour!" So I say, "And so have the people behind you!"

That is when she turns and sees 5 people waiting on line - with their fists clenched and ready to maul her! Ahh, for the power of crowds in the supermarket. So she still had a semblance of dignity left, sighed and told the butcher to take care of us.

So this is a combo recipe of "cheating" and frying and cooking with what was in the house. I mark the ready made stuff with [*Cheat].

Anyway - here is what the kid got. And I dared him to tell me they were not the best damn burgers he ever ate!

Utensils:

1. Mixing Bowl
2. Frying pan or Deep Fryer
3. Small Pot for sauce
4. Big Fork, Spoon or Flat Spatular

Ingredients:

1. 1 pound of chopped meat
2. 1 Medium sized onions
3. 5 cloves of Fresh Garlic
4. 2 Eggs (medium)
5. One-quarter to one-half cup of bread crumbs (hey I had to get rid of them!)
6. Two tablespoons (hell just squeeze) of Hickory Sauce or Mustard & Honey Sauce. (I had the Hunts Mustard and Honey left over - so I used that) [*Cheat] - Of course you can make your own sauce.
   
7. 1 small bag of "Garlic & Basil & Parsley" sauce (100 grams) [*Cheat] (Of course you can make your own)
8. A smidgen (okay 1 teaspoon) of Olive oil or oil.
9. Mazola Oil - for frying
   

Directions: (Or how Teddy made it - cause I was lazy)

1. Take the chopped meat and put in the mixing bowl.
2. Add the bread crumbs and eggs and mix together well. (Clean your hands! - Yeah that's right - YOU!)
3. Add the sauce and mix again.
4. Take your oven pan cover with aluminum foil.
   
5. Cover foil with a very thin layer of olive oil.
   
6. Make burgers, (round, square or just an indeterminate shape!) from the meat.
   
7. Put burgers on Pan.
8. Turn oven to 200 degrees Celsius. (350 Fahrenheit)
9. Put burgers in oven. 15 minutes on one side - 10 on other for medium rare.
10. Now - I have a deep fryer. And it is great to make french fries. But it is also great to fry up onions and the such. And I was lazy. So I heated up the deep fryer, cut the ovens up, cut up the garlic (not too fine for either otherwise they will drop through the basket on the fryer) and dumped them in while the burgers were cooking. Alternatively, you can use a pan, put oil in, cut up the onions and garlic and fry them until they are golden brown.
    
11. Small pot for the Garlic & Basil sauce. Just dump in with water, (1 cup), put on low flame for 5-7 minutes.
    
12. Now you can babble on the phone for a bit.
    
13. When the burgers were ready I placed them on a plate covered with lettuce. Then on top I put the fried onions and garlic cloves. Then on top of that I put the sauce. In the picture the dark spots are the onions (not burned meat - sheesh!) and the white sauce is the sauce.
    

I made Aviad - "the kid" - hold it before he tasted them (picture below). He finishes the whole dish tells me they were indeed the best burgers he ever had - and then says:

"I know you made this just for you blog. There is no way you would feed me like this normally!"

Get to your room Kid! Don't come out until you are 18!

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I am going to leave this at a two. You can of course make your own sauce, or make a delicious tomato sauce with fresh spices. (Please don't use ketchup in the recipe. Ugh!) Enjoy it. And happy Passover cleaning!

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Tags: Cooking, Baking, Recipe, Cooking Related Appliances, Humorous Stories, Ingredients, Kitchen Appliance, Parve (Meat or Milk) Recipe, Kitchen Utensils, Kosher, Meat Recipe, Milk Recipe, Kosher Home, Spices, Single Parenting, Vegetarian, Cooking Stories