There’s nothing better than sitting on the deck, eating a yummy burger with the family.  We love burgers in this house, in any way, shape, or form.

Burger: Version 1

On Saturday we had my mom, dad, and younger brother over, to celebrate my brother being home for an extended vacation.  I wanted to keep the menu simple, since it was a last-minute thing.  Hubby grilled some store-bought burgers and veggies, and I made a salad with Angela’s Better than Bottled Balsamic dressing.

We had some yummy grilled broccoli, which is so simple to make.  I coated the broccoli with olive oil, a bit of sea salt, and ground pepper.  Adam used the veggie tray that we have for the grill, and cooked them for about 10 minutes.  They were very flavourful and charred, I will definitely make grilled broccoli again!

The salad was baby spinach, 1 cucumber, 1 granny smith apple, and a handful of dried cranberries.  There was going to be toasted pecans too, but they may or may not have been burnt in the toaster.  I misjudged the amount of dressing to salad, and poured the whole batch of dressing on the salad.  It was drowning!  I quickly moved the salad to a new bowl, and it was delicious!  Angela’s dressing is the perfect mix of tangy, sweet, and tart and it went perfectly with the ingredients of this salad.

Burger: Version 2

Tonight for dinner we had bacon cheese burgers.  This is a recipe that we have been using for a long time, and I can’t remember where we got it from.

Ingredients:

• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground pepper
• 1/4 tsp seasoning salt
• 1lb ground beef
• 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 6 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
• 4 burger buns of your choice (I use PC brand “buns first” whole grain buns)

Instructions:

• Heat grill to medium
• combine sugar, salt, spices, and pepper in a small bowl and set aside
• form the beef into 8 thin, equal patties
• sprinkle the bacon and the cheese on the top of 4 of the patties, leaving enough room around the edges to form a seal
• place the remaining 4 patties on top of the cheese and bacon, and pinch the edges to seal
• pat each patty with the spice mixture, keeping the patties flat and even (or else they get really small when they’re cooking)
• grill to your desired doneness – about 15 minutes

This is a well-loved recipe, we make this about twice a month during the summer.

Tonight we had our burgers with the remains of a bag of frozen french fries, and some carrot fries.  I am always on the lookout for new burger recipes, and I think the next one I try will be a black-bean burger!

What’s your favourite topping for a burger or sandwich?  Mine is BBQ sauce.  It’s a recent discovery, but I love the tangy taste on my burgers!