Ice-breaker Burgers

Ice-Breaker Burgers

Ease: 5/5     Taste: 4/5     Kid-friendliness: 4/5     Time: 5/5

This is about as quick and simple as it gets and a great first recipe ice-breaker.  With Spring in the air (and a new BBQ, but that's a whole 'nother post), I couldn't think of a better recipe to get things started. My daughter loved them! Paired with a side of green beans (did you know you only have to boil green beans for 5 minutes? Ashamedly, I used to boil beans for about 20 minutes. Tender beans are WAY better than mushy beans!) with basil pesto sauce (from a jar - maybe we'll attempt a home recipe for this one day), french fries and a cold beer, and you've got a killer combination!

What you'll need:

• 1 pound ground beef (I used extra lean, but more fat = juicier burger)
• 1 egg 
• HP Sauce
• Your favorite BBQ sauce
• Clove of garlic, minced
• 1 tsp Onion salt
•  2 Green onion, finely chopped
• hamburger buns (I like the large whole wheat ones)

-         Preheat BBQ to medium-high

In a medium bowl, combine ground beef, a healthy squirt of HP sauce, a healthy squirt of BBQ sauce, garlic, onion salt and green onion. I add an egg for “cement”, but it’s probably not necessary. Mix well (I use my hands. I know it’s weird, but I love how it feels to moosh hamburger around). Pat mixture into loose patties three quarters of an inch thick (I say loose because I used to really pack them thinking they wouldn’t fall apart. Which they didn’t, but they came out as hockey pucks).  Cook for approximately 5 minutes on each side (until inside is no longer pink). Top with your favorite toppings, and enjoy!

Fly Burgers

Okay. We all know the first post can be awkward. After suffering the prerequisite anxiety about subject matter for "the first post", it came to me by accident. My husband and I watched the Discovery Channel's  Superswarms last night. If you want to see a guy get hit in the face by a flying carp, watch this show.

I think about food a lot. All the time actually, and this show illustrates how behaviour can be so incredibly influenced by the lack of, or the abundance of food. I obsess over food so much, I'm writing a blog about it!

One of the features was African Lake flies. These form the largest swarms on Earth, over Lake Victoria in Tanzania. The clouds are so dense, they look like smoke over the lake. Our cooler northern climate may not offer much to some, but I'll take snow over billions of bugs any day.

The locals ingeniously dampen frying pans and wave them around to catch the flies. They then mush them up into what look like mud-pies, and you guessed it - eat them. For these protein scarce diets, it's a boon. Minute Midge patties have seven times the protein of beef ones!

Don't worry. Only conventional cuisine featured here!

Stay tuned for my Ice-Breaker Burgers...