The reason I was so excited is because this is the meal I wanted to make the night before (see previous post), which features my new favorite ingredient - grass-fed ground beef. I was working in the meat department at my job the other day and got a chance to try this stuff...it was love at first bite. I generally try to avoid beef, because I only like the fatty stuff, and eating all that saturated fat makes me feel guilty, but this product is 96% lean. Usually when I get ground beef I go for the 85% lean, because I feel like anything leaner is generally dry and flavorless, but the grass-fed meat has a great gamey flavor and stays pretty moist, especially if you cook it properly. Plus, at only $6.99 a pound, it's an economical meal option. Long story short, if you haven't tried this stuff, you should.
I seasoned the ground beef with a seasoning mix I picked up at work and formed it into patties. I grilled the patties for about three or four minutes on the first side, then flipped them over and cooked them for another minute or two.
I decided to make square burgers today. It made it easier to shape uniform patties, and I thought it would be kind of fun. Plus, since Michael and I generally eat our burgers without buns (kind of like little personal meatloaves), this made them a little easier to eat.
You know how sometimes when you cook hamburgers they puff up in the middle and get sort of a dome shape? It makes them difficult to cook uniformly and also difficult to eat. A good tip for avoiding this is to form the patties so that they are about a third thinner on the inside than in the middle. This way, when the meat cook and the burger contracts, it will come out to a uniform thickness. Making square burgers helps with this process, too. I pretended like I was making meat pizza crust. Mmmmmmmm...meat pizza crust. Have to remember that one.
To go along with the burgers, I made my ciabatta bruschetta garlic bread. It's a pretty simple and traditional method, but man is it good! Cut ciabatta on a deep bias to create lots of surface area. Brush both sides with olive oil and grill for two or three minutes on the first side, then flip them and cook one or two minutes more, until evenly browned. As soon as they come off the grill, rub a peeled piece of raw garlic on the toasted bread, making sure to really get some good flavor on there. Yum!
I made my favorite simple green salad, open a bottle of one of my favorite California Cabernet Sauvignons and called it a meal!
The wine that I served was the Toad Hollow "Concinnity" Cabernet Sauvignon. This is a wine that you don't see everywhere, and not a lot of people gravitate to it for some reason. Maybe it is because Toad Hollow isn't really "known" for their Cab's, and the fact that the wine bears the simple designation of California (as opposed to Napa, Sonoma or some other more prestigious and specific region). Despite this fact, it is a really great wine for the price (circa fifteen dollars). It has a balanced richness with some nice acidity, and the spicy, brambly, wild flavor that I love in California Cab.
All in all the food was good. The seasoning mix that I used for the burgers was a little light on the salt and heavy on some of the other flavors, but they were still enjoyable. In the future I'll make sure to add some salt to the ground meat and use less seasoning. I love taking a piece of bread and topping it with some greens and a little meat, this meal was no exception and that's how I ate most of it.
Oops, I did it again.
For dessert, I made chocolate-covered strawberries.
If you buy these things already made, they are so expensive, and a lot of times the strawberries aren't even that ripe. When you make them yourself, they are a reasonably priced and healthy dessert option, and you can make sure you use only sweet ripe strawberries.
I think we're going to go out for dinner tonight...take-out at least. Look forward to my first eating out blog!
I like your square patties ::wink::
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