Katch Up & Lamburgers

I know, I know - It's been a hot minute. 

Things have been, um, hectic to say the least. All good things though, whatever gets Sabrina on the road has to be good, right? For those of you who are out of the loop, newsflash, Sabrina is the Something Stuffed Truck.

Check her out, she's quite the looker.

Keep in mind that this is just phase one of her exterior make-over, she's going in for phase two on tomorrow. (!) 

Needless to say, opening day is soon. I can't tell you when, I can't tell you where - not here at least, not now. Stay tuned here... or here.. or even here. 

Anyhow, I digress. After all, Savor the Bite is, really, about the food. 

Lately the boy and I have had a serious craving for burgers. While we've discussed them as a meal option for several days now, we have a slight burger issue on our hands. 

Actually, the burger dilenma is really two fold. 

One, we have yet to stumble upon the perfect burger in our area, that is not only cooked well, super juicy, with a perfectly warm (not too crunchy, not too greasy) bun, fresh toppings (especially, but not limited to, the crunch factor - think lettuce, pickles, onions, jalapenos, slaw, cucumber, the list goes on), well-thought out condiments and tasty sides don't hurt either.  Obviously, We are also open to odd toppings or unconventional burger ideas.  Where do you buy your burger? 

Secondly, we aren't allowed to have a grill at the apartment. Fail. fail. fail. 

And not just for burgers, for everything else too. But for some reason, burgers, especially the homemade kind, almost need to be cooked on a grill. 

Well this past week, I had a package of ground beef burning a whole in my refridgerator - I had to use it, or risk the chance of wasting it. Grill or no grill. 

We hate wasting food. 

So burgers at home, on the stove, is how we satisfied the great burger hunger craving. 

Wanna know how we did it?

I'm not the best at giving recipes, mainly because I hate measuring cups and that sort of thing - but this is basically what we did - you should try it. Or take some inspiration, and create a fabulous burger creation of your own! 

For the meat mixture:

3/4 lb ground beef

1/2 lb ground lamb 

splash of soy sauce 

a couple dashes each:

- garlic powder

- onion powder

- hot mexican chili powder 

- fresh cracked pepper 

*note, the ground beef we used was crumbly, as it had been previously frozen for quite some time. I solved this problem by mixing an egg in with everything, which made for  much more cohesive meat filling. 

We let the meat marinate all day - you don't have to but I think it enhances the flavor. Some of you might be shaking your heads, I know its a lot of seasoning. What can I say? We're flavor cravers. And as for the lamb and ground beef? You should know by now how much we love a duo of meats. 

As I said before, we cooked the burgers on the stove. Medium to high heat, making sure we got a nice crust on both sides of the meat. Oh, and we used the Bobby Flay method of an creating indent in the center of the patty - here's why... 

We served the burgers on a warm kaiser roll (toasted in the oven for just the right amount of time so the bread wasn't too crunchy) with butter lettuce, classic ketchup, spicy brown mustard and a semi-homemade relish. 

For the semi-homemade relish, I parused the olive bar at the grocery store (one my most favorite and dangerous distractions). We combined:

- marinated mushrooms

- marinated peppadews

- marinated hot banana peppers 

- store bought relish 

- homemade caramlized onions (left over from a few nights ago) 

- fresh red onion 

Dice all of the above, combine and serve! 

Paired with some semi-ok store bought onion rings (we found an Organic variety and cooked them in the oven), our at home burger night turned out to be a great success! 

Now riddle me this - What's your favorite at home burger concoction?