Robble robble robble

An often overlooked comic / cartoon / mascot character is the Hamburglar. He should be that parton saint of hamburgers all over the word. The guy spent his time stealing hamburgers but everyone loved still loved him. If you had to choose between Wimpy from Popeye or the Hamburglar how could there even be a contest! The Hamburglar would always win.


The reason I mention this is that we were cooking up some serious hamburgers the other night. I am not sure why the dinner menu rarely consists of hamburgers but they are something that we love to have. As much as I enjoy reading the Vegan Lunch Box , if it moos it is tasty in my book.

Some people get very funny with their burgers,

We don't roll that way (oh the burger humor!) but it did make for a good photo-

So this is how we pull together and top a burger at our household-

-Keep it normal. What I mean by that is that it is a hamburger, some people over think these things.

-Get hamburger with fat in it. People always complain about the dryness of their hamburgers at home and they do because they buy 90% or 95% lean meat. Short of grinding your own meat, buy at least 85% fat.

-If you buy store bought cheese (non-deli or non-block o'cheese) make sure that the slices you buy have cheese listed as the first ingredient. Seems funny that cheese would not have cheese in it, but until I read it in Cooks Illustrated I had no idea and now my cheese slices are very yummy.

-I am not gonna get into how to cook a burger other then don't play with it on the grill. If you want to read how to grill a burger Weber has some outstanding grill books. The basic things I would say is to 1) keep all your burgers the same size and shape (I have actually used a scale to weigh burgers for large parties so they would all cook the same) 2) press a little thumb mark in the middle 3) flip them once This is how we made up the burgers the other night that came out looking like this-



We went with that we had in the house which was the following- a bag of mixed greens, cherry tomatoes and cheddar slices, for toppings we went with mayo , ketchup and yellow mustard.

-We sliced the tomatoes thin so we could spread them out and placed them on the burger under (prior) to the cheese

-We layered the mixed greens (you can see some sticking out the back
-Put mayo on the bottom
-Put mustard and ketchup on top
-I lightly toasted my bun

We served it all up with a side of asparagus and corn we made on the grill.


Overall it was very easy to make, all done on the grill and very very delicious!

Thoughts comments?

Corny

I love corn.
















Popcorn especially, but we can cover that at some other point. What I am talking about is corn on the cob. Seems everyone else loves it too. In fact you can even get a lively, fun-filled educational CD-ROM call Crazy About Corn for all the little ones you got on the farm. You can never start to early on brainwashing your children about corn. I for one will welcome our new corn overlords.

There are even websites that the whole purpose it to teach you how to cook corn on the cob.

If the photo of the flames on the Weber


is not enough to scare you away I don't know what is. Aside from the Weber, it is actually a good site and they most really love corn.

Here is where I take exception with the Bobby Flays of the world and even the how to cook corn on the cob site. No way I am going to soak corn for an hour before I grill it. This is not the barbecue version of corn where the need to cook it slow and low prevails. The recipe for microwaved corn on the cob has you soaking the corn for 30 minutes? WTF, why use a microwave if the prep time alone is 30 minutes, then you microwave for 10 minutes and then let it sit for another 10?

Here is how to make corn. It never fails and the only time we go old school and boil it is if we can not get to the grill.

1. Buy corn - don't stand around and play with it and strip it all naked and then put it back and grab another. Pick an ear and put it in your bag.
2. Leave it along, don't shuck it until you are ready to cook it.
3. I like to clean it up a bit but you can either a) leave it alone b) shuck it or c) do what I do, trim the ends with a chefs knife and then shuck it.
4. Place it in tinfoil with a little slice of butter. What kind of butter? What ever kind you have.
5. Put it on the grill and cook the rest of your dinner. Turn it every once and awhile.

That is about it. Here are some handy before and after photos. It is also nice to include some salt, pepper, butter etc if people like that. A fresh stick of butter it good to roll the corn on.


A lovely before shot!









Aww, aren't they so cute and tasty!

You don't make friends with salad

Not sure what it says that I have chosen to quote Homer Simpson to start this post off but it certainly says something. At my house we are actually big fans of salads. The little one gets salad with dinner and actively asks for them both at restaurants and at home.

Salads are also way easy to make and are great when you have friends over or company. They get everyone to the table and if you are serving something like steak, it allows time for the steak to cool, which you should do.

I have been playing around with how to make basic salads a bit fancier to serve when company is over and a simple caprese salad seems like a good start.

Caprese salads usually are served to look something like this-

Pretty boring and predictable, I wanted to do something that would be quick but also have great presentation to it. So setting aside my lack of food photography skills (any help here would be appreciated), I came up with this.

If you live in Boston and have eaten at a restaurant in the last 10 years most of your food is vertical. I can not claim huge amounts of creativity with this, but I like how the shape of the salad is an extension of the shape of the tomato. If I really wanted to get fancy, I could have pealed the tomato and then used the pealed skin to make a tulip for the top of the stack.

The basic elements of a Caprese salad are as follows –

fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced 1/4-inch thick
ripe tomatoes, sliced 1/4-inch thick
fresh basil leaves
Salt and freshly ground pepper
extra-virgin olive oil

Balsamic vinegar (I like to add it)

Here is my variation -

Start by making it into more of a salad by using a mix of baby spinach, mixed greens and basil around the tomato stack.

-Take the stem part out of the tomato and then slice it as evenly as possible.

-Use fresh mozzarella, not the kind you get at Stop and Shop. If you do not have a good cheese shop, Whole Foods can hook you up.

-Pull apart the mozzarella ball into even layers of cheese

-Assemble layers of tomato and cheese until you basically have rebuilt the tomato

-Sprinkle a little bit of kosher salt, fresh pepper and a little bit of balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Why it is not salty at all

The plan was to make some pizza on the grill. As with most plans, things changed, and we were back again in NY. This time upstate, rather then Long Island, but New York nonetheless. We try to cover each end of a state, and New York seemed to be more of a challenge than Rhode Island.

Upstate NY is a beautiful place. We were there for a family event and along the way we had a drink and some appetizers in the town of Skaneateles. The Finger Lakes are fresh water lakes (as far as I know) but it got me thinking about salt water. When it comes to cooking everyone has a fancy salt they bought and have no idea what to do with; either they spent way too much on it (so they never use it) or they use it way too much.

The best bet for salt to cook with has to be plain 'ol Kosher Salt. I like Morton Kosher Salt.



If you are gonna cook with something why not go old school with something that is good on a Biblical scale. The top ways to use kosher salt is probably on steak (beef, or if you are French, I would like to order the cow (inside joke)) or to brine stuff. We can cover brining at a later date. Do a google on kosher salt and you get about 2,470,000 hits!

There are a whole bunch of online and cookbook resources that get into how to salt your steak bla bla bla, so I am not going to get into that. Here is what I will recommend-

When you do get your grill going and you generously salt and pepper the cut of beef, I would follow up with some rosemary, thyme, sage, and marjoram on each steak.

Even better, I grind equal amounts of salt and pepper and add rosemary, thyme, sage, and marjoram to keep on hand. It kicks ass, no one can place the flavors and it is a great way to set your grilling apart.