Mushroom Stuffed Cheeseburgers

Mushroom Stuffed Cheeseburgers

I am a bad mommy. My oldest son is 7 and doesn't know how to tie his shoes. It isn't for a lack of trying, I have tried many, many times. I blame my husband mostly and his genetics. According to my mother-in-law he was the last kid in his class to tie his shoes. I also blame how kids are taught in school these days. Apparently learning simple skills like tying your shoes is no longer something that public schools teach. Okay. In 1st grade we spent a great deal of time learning to tie our shoes until every kid could do it by the end of the year. The school district that my son is in does not see this as an important skill. They even went so far as to state in a take home note that if my child does not know how to tie his own shoes that the teachers don't have the time to take to tie his shoes for him. I completely understand that teachers are over worked, both of my in-laws were teachers for almost 40 years each. I just wish that some of the skills that used to be emphasized at school such as tying your shoes and cursive would still be viewed as valuable. So I continue to fail miserably at home. I know that a big part of it is that he is left handed. It took working with him for almost a year for him to understand how to hold a pencil and begin to write. I never knew how much harder being left handed makes everything. Hopefully I am not the only bad mommy in the world and that my son turns out to be a normally functioning adult. If not there are always slip on shoes that require no tying what-so-ever. Today's recipe is something that my whole family loves, cheeseburgers. This week I tried a new recipe for Mushroom Stuffed Cheeseburgers from the June/July issue of Taste of Home magazine.

Sugar Grove Christian Church Near Owingville, Kentucky

This recipe has 10 ingredients. It takes 40 minutes of total time, all of which is active and makes 8 servings. I did make a number of changes to the original recipe. First I make my buns from scratch. It saves money and they taste so much better than store bought. Secondly, I thought that I had steak sauce in the fridge, I was wrong. When I got ready to make the recipe I discovered my fault and decided rather than running to the store in the middle of dinner to leave out the steak sauce all together. My husband is still refusing to clean the rust off of our outdoor grill so I used my indoor electric grill to grill the burgers. The cheeseburgers had a problem with slitting open during grilling. Don't feel bad if this also happens to you, they still tasted fine after they were finished cooking.

Mt Sterling, Kentucky

These burgers turned into a mess on the grill. The amount of filling was just too much for the burgers to stay together. The burgers still tasted delicious, they just oozed out their insides a lot on the grill. If you would rather that your burgers stayed intact I would suggest adding only a small amount of the filling to each burger and make sure to form the patties very flat with a good inch or more of space between the filling and the burger edge. The problem was only aesthetic though so if you aren't worried about the way the burger looks, the recipe was fine.

For the recipe go to Mushroom Stuffed Cheeseburgers.

Mushroom Stuffed Cheeseburger

Recipe Type: Main

Summary:

A stuffed cheeseburger recipe with mushrooms, provolone, and red and green peppers. Uses lean beef to cut down on the total fat.

Preparation Time: 0h, 30m

Cooking Time: 0h, 10m

Total Time: 0h, 40m

Yield: Serves 8

Recipe for Hawaiian Burgers

Hawaiian Burger with Gluten Free Bun

My kids love burgers. It doesn't matter what type, they will eat them. My husband and I are also burger fans and I make them at least once every couple of weeks. I try to change up the type of meat I use since I make them so frequently. Some weeks I use pork, some chicken and occasionally beef. I try to make sure that the beef burgers that I make have something special since beef burgers can be a little boring and often dry. Pineapple is an add-in that my family loves in burgers and it is great with beef. This week I tried a new recipe for Hawaiian Burgers from the August 2012 issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine.

This recipe has 12 ingredients. It takes 30 minutes of total time, all of which is active and makes 8 servings. I did make a few changes. First I made my own buns. I ate gluten free buns and the rest of my family regular hamburger buns. Lettuce isn't a popular burger topping in my household, so I left it off. I used leftover ham that I had from a recipe a few weeks back and had then frozen.. Finally I grilled the burgers on my indoor electric grill. They took slightly longer than the recipe suggested, but that is normal when using an indoor grill.

My kids really loved these burgers. They can be hit or miss on what they will eat, but they really liked this recipe. The burgers turned out very juicy from the pineapple and blue cheese, without being overpowering. I was worried that since the recipe had so many ingredients in the burger that it would taste too busy, but the flavors ended up working perfectly together.

For the recipe go to Hawaiian Burgers.

Recipe for 40 Minute Hamburger Buns

Homemade 40 Minute Hamburger Buns

 As I stated last week this week is a freezer week for my family. By eating leftovers out of the fridge once a month I am able to save money and not waste food. I tried doing it once a week with the leftovers from that weeks meals, but my two sons complained about eating the same meals twice. With a few weeks in between they forget the first time they ate the meal and happily eat the freezer leftovers. Even though most of the meals have been leftovers I have baked and cooked sides. I had a number of pounds of hamburger meat that I had ground so I made burgers with it this week. To save money I always make my own hamburger buns. I have a favorite recipe that I have used for years, but this week I ran out of town so I tried a new recipe for 40 minute hamburger buns from Taste of Home.

This recipe has 7 ingredients. It takes 40 minutes of total time, 20 minutes of which is active and makes 12 servings. I eat gluten free, but the rest of my family has no problems with gluten. Luckily I have never had a reaction cooking meals for them making wheat flour, I just make sure to keep my cutting boards etc. separate. For bread I always using King Arthur Bread Flour. I really find that it makes a superior product and the texture is great. I actually ran out of bread flour at 2 cups, so for the other  1 1/2 cups I used brown rice flour. This recipe is pretty straight forward and the only major changes I made were to make 7 buns instead of 12 and increase my baking time by 5 minutes since my buns were larger.

While my family still prefers my normal recipe for buns (which takes 6 hours with rises) this recipe was well received and I really like that it only takes 40 minutes start to finish. Making homemade buns and breads can be time consuming and this recipe is a nice way to get homemade bread on the table quickly.

For the recipe go to 40 Minute Hamburger Buns.

Recipe for Burgers with Mozzarella and Spinach-Arugula Pesto

Burgers with Mozzarella and Spinach-Arugula Pesto and Homemade Buns

The weather was beautiful here today. It finally feels like spring with 80 degree weather and the ability to wear shorts without freezing. The smell of BBQ has been all over my neighborhood as well. I absolutely love the smell of BBQ. There are few smells better than walking outside and smelling someone smoking ribs on a big charcoal side smoker. The weather and the rise of grilling inspired me to make burgers this week. There is something about warm weather and burgers that go hand in hand. My husband bought a huge charcoal grill about 5 years ago. However, this year it needs the rust to be sanded from sitting in our basement and my motivation has been lacking. Therefore I settled for making burgers on my indoor grill this week. Today I tried a new recipe for Burgers with Mozzarella and Spinach-Arugula Pesto from Bon Appetit.

Gluten Free Burgers with Mozzarella and Spinach-Arugula Pesto

This recipe has 15 ingredients. It takes 30 minutes of total time, all of which is active and makes 6 servings. I did make a few changes to the original recipe. First I did two versions, one with homemade hamburger buns and the other with gluten free buns. I had one pound of beef that I had ground with chuck a few months back. I combined the ground beef with 3/4 pound of ground lamb. Since I was short on time I did not wilt the spinach. I often make pesto with spinach and never wilt it, I just puree it in the food processor in batches. For the burgers I ended up with a total of 8 burgers. I like to keep my burgers on the small side, especially since they were blended with ground lamb which can be rich.

For this recipe I used heirloom tomatoes. I love heirloom tomatoes, they are great with burgers. Make sure to salt the pesto and the tomatoes. The salt really helps to bring out the flavor of the tomato and the pesto. Blending the lamb and beef gave the burgers great flavor and my family really enjoyed these burgers. There was also enough pesto leftover to use on turkey burgers later in the week.

For the recipe go to Burgers with Mozzarella and Spinach-Arugula Pesto.

Nacho Burgers with Homemade Hamburger Buns

Nacho Burgers with Homemade Hamburger Buns

Burgers. The word can mean a whole paragraph to a lot of people. Growing-up my dad was very lacking in the cooking department, so much so that he was able to ruin boxed macaroni and cheese on multiple occasions. However, he completely redeemed himself when in came to the grill. Not just any grill, it had to be charcoal and it had to be done just so. I'm not exaggerating, there was a whole art. The hamburgers that my dad made on the grill where a treat and one of my favorite foods growing-up. I didn't think I would ever meet another man so much in love with his grill and grilling. Then I met my husband. Over the years I have heard rant after rant after rant about the superiority of a charcoal grill and how great hamburgers can be when done right. In the summer we still grill a lot, but in the winter I have moved our grilling indoors. I agree with my husband and dad that the taste isn't as great, but my feet stay warm and the burgers are still delicious even when done on my indoor open faced electric grill. In the summer we will go back to the giant grill and side smoker, but in the meantime we will enjoy our chicken and beef inside. This week I tried a new recipe for Nacho Burgers from the March 2013 issue of Food and Wine magazine.

Gluten Free Version of Nacho Burgers

This recipe has 7 ingredients in the salsa, 8 in the cheese sauce and 7 ingredients for the actual burgers. It takes 35 minutes of total time, all of which is active and makes 4 servings. I did make a few changes to the recipe. First as I try to always do I ground my own beef. It really takes very little time to grind your own meat either in a food processor or like with the attachment I use on my mixer. The texture is phenomenal and the quality is significantly superior. Instead of using store bought buns I made my hamburger buns from scratch. They are easy to make and are great for sandwiches. Since I eat gluten free I substituted brown rice flour for the all-purpose in the cheese sauce. When making the sauce add a little bit of milk at a time in order for the sauce to thicken correctly. If you add the milk all at once it will be too thin. I substituted non-fat milk for the milk in recipe since it is the only milk we keep in the house. I cooked the burgers on my indoor electric open faced grill. The cooking time was slightly longer, especially since I make sure that my burgers temp correctly since my kids are eating them.

Food and Wine magazine claim that these are the best burgers ever. Hmm. I did think that the toppings were delicious, the cheese sauce was nice and the salsa was great both on the burger and with the chips as a side. However, it would be a stretch to say it is the best burger I've ever had. The actual patty is just plain beef, no fillings, no nothing. I think that the recipe could be improved by adding more to the patty itself, such as cayenne, garlic powder, ancho something that keeps the flavor but also adds a little bit of moisture. It would be nice if the cheese sauce was in the burger instead of on top, incorporating the cheese or adding more to the burger itself would take this burger from being okay to being great.

For the recipe go to Nacho Burgers.