Small Group Gathering - Burgers

If you haven't been able to tell by my posts, I love gathering together with friends. I love everything about it. I love being able to sit with a group of friends enjoy soul nourishing conversation and wonderful food. I'm convinced it's the best thing in the whole world. 

A group of my husband's friends (and now my friends - don't ya love marriage?! More friends!!) wanted to start up a weekly Bible study for just those purposes. Meaningful conversation and growth as well as an awesome time of fellowship. 

So this is how it works:  

Every Thursday we meet. 

Each couple hosts about once a month. 

We choose and book or book of the Bible and do some pre-reading. 

The host couple chooses a main dish of a particular theme. 

Drinks, dessert, and sides of that theme are divvied up from there. 

Drinks couple is responsible for the discussion. 

Then you rotate everyone the next week. 

You give yourself one free week too to just go out and do something fun. 

It's just the best of group meeting and it's building community and vulnerability in the process. It's a beautiful system. Feel free to steal it and use it for your own get togethers!! 

Last night was Sean and my turn to host. This made my hospitable heart so happy. I love having people in our home and cooking for them. We decided last week our theme would be backyard BBQ being that it is almost the end of summer and that football season is in full swing (Go Blue!) and we would make burgers. 

Now. I have this love for burgers that is really unexplainable. I think mostly it's because of all the extra stuff you can put in them. Have I said this before...food is just a vehicle for sauce (or any extra stuff that wouldn't be considered a main dish). This is my philosophy and I'm sticking to it. One night I sent a text to my friend that said I wanted to go to Bar Louie for their burger specials the next night...mind you, I wasn't hungry and it was like 1:30am. I'm tellin ya, I got burgs on the mind. Burgs all day! Needless to say I was excited to feed these friends some burgers. 

I didn't think I would blog this so I apologize for my lack of pictures and step by step instructions, but I hope you try the recipe and are pleasantly surprised by how juicy and delish these are. All it takes is a sausage/ground beef mix, an egg, some Worcestershire, garlic powder, pepper, salt, a grill, and some gourmet fixins. And you've got this beaut. 

If I can just toot my own horn for a second...they were so good. 

So invite some friends over and set up a burger bar. Wow them with your lovely burgers and enjoy great conversations with the best of em. 

Love,

Food. 

Burgers for Grillin' Recipe

For the patties:

1 egg

2 parts ground beef 

A little less than 1 part country sausage 

(I used 2 lbs gr beef to 3/4 lb sausage (sorry if that doesn't make sense))

1 tbsp of Worcestershire 

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

For the fixins: 

Sliced cheeses (muenster and cheddar were our cheeses of choice)

Green leaf lettuce 

Tomato slices

Sliced onions

Dill and bread and butter sliced pickles

Sautéed mushrooms

Semi-caramelized onions

Condiments of choice 

onion, kaiser, ciabatta, whatever kind of bun you want!

You could also do bacon, blue cheese, buffalo sauce, olive spread, fried eggs, etc etc etc. I'm tellin ya, sky's the limit!!

1. Get the grill going - till the charcoal is orange and ashy
2. Mix all the ingredients together for the burger patties and let it sit to set for a bit.
3. Cut up and organize your fixins on pretty plates 
4. Sauté onions with a couple pats of butter, cover and let brown a bit 
5. Add (or do separately) the same thing with the mushrooms. 
6. Form the burger patties from the set meat. 
7. Grill them up! I'm bad at being patient so I'm always flipping the burgers a bunch, but if you're patient and your coals are hot, it will take about 5-6 minutes per side I would say. 
8. You could melt the cheese on the grill, but I learned a nice little trick to infuse more moisture and really get the cheese nice and creamy. Take a lid or a small metal bowl and put it over the burger on a skillet over the stove. Spray or splash a little water underneath the bowl and let the moisture melt the cheese - also makes the burger nice and juicy especially if you have to wait to serve them. 
9. Go to town with your fixins and eat a delicious burger that you'll want again the next day! 

Savory Friday: English Pot Roast and Brunch Crab Meat Eggs Benedict

I'm going to hazard a guess here and say I bet there's not many people who wake up after a good night's sleep and think, "hmmm, man I could really go for a nice pot roast right about now." Am I right?? 

Well, I've always been a bit of an odd duck. I would eat a bowl of roasted broccoli over a big piece of cake alllmost any day. Some of you may be thinking, "she can't be serious," but I am. Dead serious. I don't know why it is; it's just the way it is for me. In any case, this is why you are about to see two very savory things that came together on my Friday off.

[if you thought I ONLY eat savory things, it's untrue, I do like a sweet every now and again, especially ice cream, but I still hold that the best kind of sweet is a salty/sweet, ice cream with pretzels! All about those weird combos!] 

Back to the beginning, I really wanted the roast. I don't think I even cared about eating it, but I LOOOVE the way the smell permeates the house, especially in a slow cooker. All day long. It's one of those classic comforts, ya know? 

So at 10:30 a.m. I start to assemble what will be an incredible slow cooked English roast complete with lots of onions, potatoes, and drippings for gravy. Hold on to your butts, it's gonna be delicious. 

Here's a list of what's going in:  onion. Red skin potatoes. Olive oil. Garlic cloves. Red wine. Red wine vinegar. Salt. Pepper. Garlic powder (ummm garlic is its own food group for me). Steak seasoning. 

Rough chop one and a half medium sized onions. I really like slow cooked onions. Kinda slimy and lots of flavors from the meat. Yum. 

Wash and cut off the weird lookin parts off the potatoes and chop those into big pieces too. 

Dry rub the FROZEN 2.5/3 pound roast with steak seasoning, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Put it on top of the layered potatoes and onions in the slow cooker. 

Whip together a little liquid that will aid in making the meat nice and juicy. Red wine, red wine vinegar, olive oil, and add in about 3-5 garlic cloves. 

Dump it on that meat, into the slow cooker. Like a waterfall of everything that is good. 

Just look at it. Look at it just sitting there, waiting to be cooked. 

Throw in a little more liquid - a couple splashes of red wine (I used Charles Shaw Shiraz - 2.99 at Trader Joes. Can't beat it), vinegar, and olive oil. The juices from the meat thawing will help generate a lot of liquid when it's all done, so no worries if it seems as if there's too little liquid. I promise it will be enough. Then you wait. For HOURS, but not without the reward of the smell that comes from the gradual cooking, knowing it'll all be worth it in the end. 

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Post-roast prep, the savory hunger was still not satisfied. I needed some breakfast. As you may have guessed, I'm a little obsessed with poached eggs at the moment so I knew those would be involved. 

I decided to break the norm of sausage and went with a kind of Crab Meat Eggs Benedict. I wasn't exactly sure how it would work, but I whipped it all up and it tasted pretty good!! So I will show you what went on. 

I toasted an English muffin. I took goat cheese from Aldi and imitation crab meat (I know, if I were a "real foodie" I wouldn't use imitation, but I don't have the funds for the real stuff so work with me! ;)) and mixed it together. Heated it a bit just to melt the goat cheese a little, to give it more of a spreadable factor and chance to incorporate with the crab meat. Then, I spread that mixture over the English muffin halves. 

[my friend Jackie and I are convinced that the Aldi cheese section is the best kept secret in Grand Rapids, nay the world. A whole log of goat cheese that would be $4-5 somewhere else is $1.99 at Aldi! What a steal!]

Usually, eggs Benedict is covered in hollandaise, which I love. But, I wanted something a bit healthier so I went with the creamy-ness of the goat cheese and runniness of the egg yolk from the poached eggs to mimic the usual hollandaise. 

Then. My favorites came to rest atop the crab, goat cheese mixture. 

And because it looks pretty and tastes even better, sriracha for design. 

Tada!!! Breakfast. Full stomach. So good. 

************************************

After 10.5 hours in the slow cooker on low, a most beautiful and tender, fall-off-the-bone roast is complete. (I don't think you have to wait that long, but we were out with some friends and didn't come home until late so we did and boy, did it pay off!) 

It's like meat heaven. 

And potato and onion heaven. 

With gravy as a special treat on top of all of that!  

While I still haven't gotten to enjoy a full meal of this, I know it will be waiting for me patiently as I waited for it. It's a beautiful, reciprocal thing. 

Goodbye and goodnight. 

Love, 

Food. 

Slow-cooked English Roast Recipe 

Serves 4-5 (I think?) 

Cook time: Slow-cooker on low for 8-10 hours

2.5-3 lb. English roast or any beef roast probably works. 

1.5 med onions, rough chopped 

10 red potatoes (medium sized), cut in chunks 

Layer the onions and potatoes on bottom of slow cooker. 

Apply dry rub to roast: 

Salt

Black Pepper

Steak seasoning

Garlic powder  

(I like a lot of seasoning and used a good shake across the meat for both sides and patted it all down, so I never think there's ever too much seasoning, but if you'd like less, that's cool too) 

Place roast on top of potatoes and onions. 

Whisk Liquid mixture: 

1/2 c. Olive oil

3/4 c. Red wine (any red you like) 

1/2 c. Red wine vinegar

3-5 Garlic cloves

Pour it over top of roast and veggies. Splash in just a bit more of each liquid if you want to. 

Let her cook. 8-10 hours. Low. 

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"Crab Meat Eggs Benedict" (cuz none of it is actually exactly those things) 

1/2 c. Imitation crab meat, but could use real if you have the cash money. 

1 oz. goat cheese 

1 English muffin

2 eggs 

Sriracha

1. Toast English muffin. 

2. Slightly heat the crab meat and goat cheese in a pan. 

3. Poach the eggs in boiling water. 

4. Spread crab meat and goat cheese on muffin halves. 

5. Top with poached eggs. 

6. Decorate with sriracha. 

The Italian Soda

I love Italian Sodas. They are so wonderful. I had my first one years ago. I believe it was at Schulers Cafe in Grand Rapids. And since then my friend Stindall and I have been on the hunt for the best ones from different coffee shops to restaurants we've tried our fair share. I think the best one I've had has been at Carino's - that Italian restaurant chain. It is so good. 

My husband and I are part of a small Bible study group on Thursday evenings where we do a dinner, Bible study, and fellowship. Each dinner time has a theme and this week was ITALIAN!! I was excited that we were signed up for drinks! I mean, come on, what's more Italian than Italian sodas!? Well, actually probably a lot, since they originated in the USA, but it's the name that counts.

So I went to the store to get all the ingredients of a good Italian soda at 11:30pm. [What is my life?!] Anyway, I go to one of the stores in town that I thought for sure would carry Torani syrup, but to no avail. Improvisation would be the word of the day. 

And here is my take on the Italian soda. 

Gather the club soda (or sparkling water), half & half, syrups, and ice. Yeah, it's that easy!! 

I read up on all the differences between club soda and sparkling water and basically there's not much of a difference when making Italian sodas. They are mostly interchangeable. Club soda has a little more salt, but since I got the low sodium kind, I'm not sure much more is different. 

Here's the part where I put my noggin to use and said there's gotta be something in this store that I can use other than Torani syrup because I'm definitely not going to another store at midnight. As I walked by the grenadine and lime juice I said, "AHA! That is it!" 

Some Italian sodas use cream and some don't, it's really up to you and your palatal preference. I like them with cream. It makes them more decadent, for sure. 

So I poured about 8 oz of club soda in a mason jar, these serve as my drinking glasses at home...they are cheap and don't break easily. Also, they have nice little measurements on the side, which was super handy. 

Then you add in grenadine till it has a nice pink color and a splash of sweetened lime juice. Then add the cream and watch it beautifully incorporate into the rest of the mixture. 

Isn't it beautiful? That is art right there. 

Then you end up with this sweet, creamy, and delicious concoction that is such a wonderful edition to your Italian feast! 

Drink up! 

Till next time. 

Love,

Food.




ITALIAN SODAS

8oz Club soda or sparkling water
1 oz (ish) of grenadine or Torani flavored syrup
a splash of sweetened lime juice (optional)
1 oz (ish) of half & half

Pour it all in your favorite drink container and drink to your heart's desire.

Weekends. An Ode to the Great S'more!

Two things folks. 

1. Life gets b-u-s-y!!! With a capital b. seriously. I've missed the bit of extra time to be able to blog my food adventures with you. With that being said....

2. Let's get back on track, shall we? 

So, this weekend was allll about the fastest and easiest coughlaziestcough meals I could think of. Too much to do, I tell ya! 

I wanted breakfast. So I looked on Pinterest. I don't know where you all stand on Pinterest, but if you think it's dumb...I think we might not be able to be friends...moving along. 

I wanted breakfast. I wanted something that was present in my fridge. I wanted something semi-impressive, but really it would be a ruse because I wouldn't have spent anytime on it. So I saw this. 

It is a can of crescent rolls. Shredded cheese. Scrambled eggs. Bacon (I used turkey much to my husband's chagrin). 

What?!? It was so easy. Seriously. You lay all the crescents out long sides in the middle and the pointy sides out. Fill it with scrambled eggs, bacon, and cheese. Bake at 375 for 17-20 minutes depending on how browned you want it. Eat it with some hot sauce. Weird mixes of salty, sweet, etc. It was pretty delish if you're not tooo hoity toity about your food. Breakfast. Accomplished. 

At this point you may be wondering why? Why is this blog titled "ode to the s'more" when not one mention has been made?! 

We will get there. I promise. 

On to dinner. Because any good day eats breakfast late and skips lunch and moves right on along to dinner. We had to eat quickly because we also had to prep for our EPIC S'MORES NIGHT and had just spent 3. Count em 3. Hours. Grocery+ shopping! (That was soooome trip - and I totally won the guess-how-much-our-bill-is-gonna-be game) 

We bought these wonderful frozen potstickers about an hour earlier and we cooked those up. I had some leftover rice so I made garlic fried rice. Then I threw a bag of frozen green beans (the good and kinda snappy kind-maybe they are flash frozen maybe they aren't, but they are pretty dang good) and chicken into the wok and sautéed it up. And voila! Dinner is served and took...20 minutes, tops. 

So friends. The moment you've been waiting for. Our friends, Sarah and Brendon invited us to a backyard s'more making and movie night. They invited a bunch of foodies and we all went to town. 

Rules:

-S'mores cannot consist of graham crackers, marshmallows, or chocolate. 

-an element must be heated over the open flame of a campfire. 

-anything goes for flavors - sweet or savory. 

After wandering and scratching our heads in Walgreens (after our 3 hour shopping trip where we proceeded to forget ingredients for this endeavor) we came up with this gem: 

I realllllly have to hand it to my husband. He had a huge part in figuring out what we would do and I was SUPER proud of him. That's my guy! 

While the next picture doesn't make it look amazing...it was pretty good. Pretty good indeed. Definitely unique. Also, messy! 

Our friends Sarah and Brendon made: 

They were. Divine. I mean. What's not to love? Bacon. Boursin cheese. Cheesy wonderful mini biscuits! Gimme it all! For real. Gimme it.

Thank you. That was awesome. 

Let's just highlight this cheese for a split sec. Creamy. Herb-y. Deeeelectable!! Mmmmm. 

Next. Amy and Chris brought these awesome peaches. You heat em up. Some have patience to get the caramelization. Others do not. I will not tell you which camp I'm in, however, I bet you could take a wild stab in the dark and be pretty accurate ;). What could make this better?? Oh a ginger snap. Oh and maybe a scoop of oh gosh well I don't know, homemade candied ginger frozen yogurt?! Yeah, that'll do it! (No end picture because it got too dark and my phone died...boooo) Just imagine it. It was amazing. 

And if that wasn't enough. Man. Someone did it. Someone upped this little gathering by about 1000 notches. Yeah. Sure he didn't follow the rules quiiiite to perfection, but it was well worth the rule breaking. A S'moretini. Yeah it's exaaaxtly what it sounds like. Marshmallow fluff vodka. Chocolate liqueur. Mini-mallows. Chocolate rimmed and graham cracker dusted. In a jar. Shut up, right now. Nailed it, Ben! 

That concluded the s'mores fest, but not without the good old standby. The au natural of s'mores (yep, I hate that I said that too). Nothin' like a classic. 

And Sean did a bit of a tasty experiment. 

Bacon + all the other s'more ingredients = the best thing you may ever devour. Seriously, get up and go try it before winter comes! Quick!! 

S'mores. Friends. Movies. This is the stuff summer is made of. I'm dreading winter's return, but I'm embracing and eating up every last ounce of summer. I'm taking a deep breath and saying a long good-bye as it's drawing to an end. Do the same, my friends. 

Love,

Food.