Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Best Burgers

Steve and I have been eating many typical summer meals. As part of our CSA, we receive a box full of fresh vegetables every week. Aside from the local, organic and seasonal vegetables, my favorite part of the CSA is that I don't have to wander up and down the Boulder Farmer's Market trying to decide what to buy and where to get the best deal. With our CSA through Cure Farm, someone else does my shopping.

Thanks to our CSA share, our meals are usually built around vegetables - grilled zucchini and squash, tomato and onion salads, carrots of some sort, braised greens, more salads, etc. These vegetables would be wonderful on their own, and usually are, but Steve and I usually prepare a "side" of meat to go with our vegetables. We've eaten a lot of burgers this summer, and have developed a few tricks to make them as delicious as possible. Notably, some sort of mayonnaise- or oil-based sauce, grilled onions, and a very simple burger preparation.

A few weeks ago, I made a mayo sauce with toasted and ground cumin and coriander seeds, and garlic. Yesterday, I used at least a cup of garden basil to make an aioli. Our sauce usually replaces the ketchup.

Then I grill large onion circles (just cut the onion down its length, keeping the rounds intact with eachother, coat with oil and salt, and grill on each side until grill marks appear). It's an easy twist on the regular burger toppings.

Lastly, I used to put all sorts of junk in my ground meat - onions, garlic, ketchup, Worcestereshire sauce, etc. I've learned that this not only makes the meat too crumbly, but it's difficult to grill, and it falls apart easily in the final burger. So, now I only mix with a pound of ground beef salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder to taste; one egg; and about one quarter cup of fine bread crumbs. The seasonings do add a lot of flavor; and the eggs and breadcrumbs help keep the meat together not only while assembling the patties, but on the grill and in the burger.

I will take pictures next time!

Here is a link to our CSA, with newsletters, and links to recipes: http://www.cureorganicfarm.com/csa.htm

Thoughts

I haven't updated my blog in a while. On a side note, I'm not a fan of bloggers who log on once a month to talk about how they're not blogging, then you hear nothing from them in between. I wish I blogged more. There's certainly excitement in my life that's worth sharing. Marathon training (Steve and I are running the Park City marathon in five days) , grad school and its subsequent end (of coursework at least, I still have a thesis to write), wedding and honeymoon planning (less than four weeks to go), and of course, always more than the requisite 40 hours of work work every week. I've been very busy, but what's funny is that I can't envision myself not being busy. I enjoy relaxing, and I certainly enjoy low-levels of stress, but I also really enjoy the four main things that are going on right now. On the other hand, I have three ongoing crafts projects that have been in progress for at the very most a year. I'm restoring a very old quilt, painting four canvasses for our home, and am trying to wrap up the knitting projects that I swore would be done by last Christmas. So these are a few of the things that I hope to be doing more of once Steve and I come home from our honeymoon, we have the fall quarter off from DU, and marathon training is complete. That, and updating my blog.

I don't think that all that is an excuse for not blogging, but I just can't focus on my blog! I've also decided that I want to revamp the blog. I'm tired of its look and feel and want something new.

In the meantime, want to crack up? Here's one of my favorite websites: http://www.dontevenreply.com.