Beef, it's whats for dinner...

It's a Monday evening and guess who I get to share my dinner with...my Hubby!!! Yay for me for getting to have human contact during an evening meal. The boys don't talk much, they just watch your fork move from your plate to your mouth.

Tomorrow is a special day in our house, you will have to stop by the blog in the morning to find out why. Anyway, because of this "special" day we are both taking vacation days off of work and because Daniel needed a break, he also took one today! You know you don't see your husband enough during the week when planning a meal and eating at the table while watching the evening news excites you about as much as winning a million dollars. I had originally planned on whipping up a new casserole but Daniel doesn't enjoy participating in my experiments so I figured I better hold off for that one until Wednesday. I also figured since I needed to run to the store anyway, I would allow him to pick something for us to make for dinner. For once he gave me something to work with...hamburgers. Not exactly fancy or necessarily blog worthy, but hey, at least he didn't say hot dogs again. I can work with hamburgers, put a little spin on them and make them worth your viewing pleasure. So here we go...

Big D's Triple Threat (I named them after my special guy!)

Ingredients:

2 lbs. ground beef

1/2 lb. bacon, cooked and crumbled

1 md. onion, finely chopped

mushrooms, right out of the jar, roughly chopped

red pepper flakes, a dash or so

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
4 tbsp. steak sauce

Directions:

1.) Allow your meat to come to room temperature, Rachel Ray says it's good to do that so why argue. Also, get your grill going!

2.) In the microwave cook about six or so slices of bacon until done. Allow to cool and then crumble, set aside.

3.) Pre-heat a skillet to medium heat and add a tablespoon of butter and then add your onion. Sprinkle in your red pepper flakes and add your mushrooms, you can use as little or as much as you prefer. Take off heat once onions are translucent. Allow mixture to begin cooling.

4.) In a separate bowl throw in your ground beef. Add your steak sauce, crumbled bacon, and onion and mushroom mixture. Lastly, add about a cup of shredded cheese, mix until all ingredients are incorporated.

5.) Form into patties about 1 inch thick, 3-4 inches in diameter. Or into whatever shape you would prefer. I should have gotten my heart cookie cutter out :).

6.) Add to your grill! Do not move your patties once you have settled them on the grill. Allow them to cook for about 5 minutes until you flip them. If you flip them before they are ready they will stick to the grill, especially with the cheese being mixed into the patty. If you really want to prevent sticking you can either oil up your grill, or you can cook your hamburgers on top of a piece of aluminum foil nestled on top of the grill grate.

Now, Daniel is a fan of the Angry Whopper at Burger King, so I also bought him some jalapenos to top his burger off with. There is no way on God's green earth that I was going to be adding those to my burger, although, with a Doctor's appointment tomorrow maybe I should just so he can hear what my stomach does when it's upset. I don't think the man believes I have an alien life growing inside of me. That's what the ladies at work call my stomach noises. Where was I, oh yeah, if your family likes the kick adding jalapenos to the mix would do, then by all means throw some chopped up in with your onions and mushrooms. You can also exclude the shredded cheddar to the mix and just top your hamburger off with a slice of american cheese or even pepper jack once they are ready to come off of the grill. Or you can do what Daniel did and eat the burger with the shredded cheese in the mix and with a piece of cheese on top. The wonderful thing about hamburgers is you can't really go wrong when it comes to making one.

*I would also like to make note that yes I mentioned Rachel Ray up in step one, but please make another note, even though I mentioned her does not mean I watch her. I used to religiously but then the hand movements and silly catch phrases started to get the best of me, and please don't get me started on the giggle. I can only take so much of the giggle! Daniel on the other hand enjoys her, as he does Giada. He likes Giada for another reason than why he likes Rachel and I am pretty sure I probably don't have to tell everyone what that reason is. Men! I sometimes I wonder if I should be worried that he has a thing for all of these brunettes and I am a blond. Did he settle for less or something?

Hope you enjoy!!

Sunday Dinner

Here is a short posts for everyone, I am up early thanks to a particular blind/deaf Great Dane who thought it would be funny to wake Mom and Dad up at the butt crack of dawn by knocking several glass dishes off of the kitchen counter that hadn't yet reached the dishwasher. As you all are already aware, Sunday dinner is a big thing in our house for me and the hubby. It's the only day of the week that we get to eat dinner together so we try to do something special. We bought a slab of ribs to do on the grill and they were really good, but a really poor cut of meat so we didn't get much meat off of them. My hubby knows what he is doing on the grill so they were good no matter how much work we had to put into eating them. He made them by rubbing them down with our favorite rub and then once they hit the grill he basted them with a mix of beer and applesauce, heavenly. No pictures but I did make two new sides, marinated tomatoes and green peppers and a homemade garlic butter to put on our french bread that Daniel toasted up on the grill.

Katie's Marinated Tomatoes and Green Peppers~

Tomatoes

Tuscan Italian Dressing

Green Peppers

Fine Sea Salt

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Directions:

1.) Begin by slicing your tomatoes, not too thin, not too thick. I used tomatoes that were about a week old so they were really soft, please use a tomato that is still fairly firm as it will hold up better during the roasting process. Mine looked more like soup when I dished them up.

2.) Layer tomatoes on a baking dish and top with a teaspoon of your dressing.

3.) Slice your green peppers into slivers, and coat with about a tablespoon of the oil and sprinkle on about a dash or so of your fine sea salt.

4.) Bake at 425 degrees Fahrenheit until they have wilted down. I was outside helping Daniel grill up the bread so I wasn't exactly paying attention to the time. You will know when they need pulled out.

Garlic Butter~

Ingredients:

1 stick of unsalted butter, softened

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

Ingredients:

1.) I think this is pretty self explanatory but you finely chop your garlic, finely people, you don't want to bite down on a piece of garlic. Add to your butter and mix well.

We used ours on french bread. I sliced the bread into slices, brushed some extra virgin olive oil on each side and Daniel grilled them until golden brown on each side. Right after pulling them off of the grill I spooned the butter on to one side. They were really good, but I will pulverize the garlic next time.