UBERBURGER

Sometimes, when I cook, things seem to get a little bit out of control. It happened again last night.

I was given a meat grinder attachment for our Kitchenaid mixer for my birthday, and I decided that a good test for the grinder would be some burgers. I got a two pound piece of top round beef, cut it into 1 inch cubes, seasoned it, and froze it for about 30 minutes until it was semi soft frozen (which I've read makes a much better grind, as the meat gets "cut" more than "smeared". The first thing I noticed was that the meat looked much richer and brighter than the ground beef from the store. It had more of a red color than the pink I am used to seeing.

I didn't get any pictures during the grinding process, but here's what the packaged leftover patties looked like:

We had just bought a nice block of sharp cheddar at the market, and I decided that I wanted to try cheese stuffed burgers... So I cut some nice hunks of cheese and wrapped about 1/2 pound of meat around each piece. Then I thought that I'd just throw a few onions in a pan so we could have some grilled onions on our burgers... and then a scary thing happened... we realized that we had just bought some pastrami at the market. I have a sickness... I had to do it... So the burgers, topped with more cheese and the pastrami all went into a cast iron pan to get acquainted.

At this point, it would have been foolish to exclude any other toppings, so spinach, tomato, pickles, mustard, mayo, and ketchup all found their way onto potato buns along with the meat, grilled onions, and cheese. (FYI - I started steaming my buns in the microwave by wrapping them in wet paper towels, and slightly over microwaving them - about 1 minute for two buns - which gives them the perfect soft, chewy texture)

And that's how I ended up with this monstrosity of a burger... I really didn't mean to... this sort of thing just seems to happen to me all too often... 

In case you're wondering, this was almost the perfect burger. The meat needed a little bit more seasoning, but the pastrami was incredible. You couldn't quite taste it on its own, but it just added a depth of flavor to the burger that took the whole thing to the next level.  And the patty stuffed with cheese? Uuh, yeah... that worked out pretty well. Next time, a thinner, larger area of cheese... but the cheese melts into the meat in a way it just can't when placed on top.....

 Sorry arteries... we'll just have to learn to put up with each other!