Burgers Today

Is the economy hitting your family as hard as it is ours? With the things that are being said on the news, I’m sure that we all are really close to eating lots of Hamburger Helper.

<P>

The economy is the reason why I think our future recipes will be a perfect hamburger helper. Hamburger, Chicken burgers, and Vegetable burgers can be really frugal to make. Our family is going to do our best to find frugal toppings and ingredients so that your meal will not become the same old hamburger.

<P>

We’d love to hear from your family too. How are you using Hamburgers, Chicken burgers, and vegetable burgers to save on your finances? Have they helped usher in a frugal attitude into your home.

<P>

Tell us about your burger adventures!

So you’ve bought pounds and pounds of ground beef, pork, and chicken to make into burger patties but you don’t know how to store them. A person can use products that say they are no cling but sometimes they are costly. I want to give you a few tips that work for me.

First you will want to purchase kitchen wax paper from the dollar store or any place that you can get it on sale. Plus you want to make a hamburger shaper for the radius and thickness of the burger.

I personally like to use a quarter pound of beef, pork, or chicken for each burger that I am making. A ring cut out of the plastic of a margarine container works really well for me. You will want to make sure that the height of the raw burger is an inch to an inch and half high.

Once you have your first hamburger patty made, lay it on a piece of wax paper, top the hamburger patty with two sheets of wax paper and then place your next burger on top of that. Keep repeating until you have enough patties.

Once the burgers are stacked, I usually place them in a freezer bag. I hope this helps you with your storing needs. I’ve tried all the new freezer products out there for burgers and for me this way is always the best way to store burger patties.

My wife and I decided to change up the menu and focus this site on burgers. When we talk about burgers we mean, hamburger, cheeseburger, chicken burger, veal burger, mushroom burger, and vegie burger.

If it comes from a burger menu or a burger bar then we will be talking about it. I absolutely love burgers and hamburgers. If done correctly a hamburger can be a healthy meal any day of the week.

Today’s burger is inspired by one of our favorite pizza places. I love Pizza Chicago but at times can not afford the price tag that comes with pizza with high quality ingredients. As you can guess by the title our Chicken burger from the burger menu is our Elliot Ness Burger.

The Chicken burger items you’ll need is:
3 oz of ground chicken
2 oz of smoked gouda
2 Tbsp BBQ sauce
1 Tbsp chopped red onions
2 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro

Mix the ground chicken with the red onions and form into a 3 oz patty. Grill the ground chicken until done.

While the chicken burger is cooking, spread the BBQ sauce on toasted hamburger buns. Place the chopped fresh cilantro on the toasted hamburger buns.

When the Chicken Burger is almost done, top with the gouda cheese and then cover with a small metal lid. This will allow the gouda cheese to melt over the chicken burger.

Place the chicken burger on top of the lower bun and top with your favorite toppings like more red onions, lettuce, tomatoes, mayo, or whatever chicken burger topping you might think would be tasty.

Enjoy your Elliot Ness Chicken Burger
MJ

We started with the ingredients for Garlic, Brown, Sweet and Sour sauce so that you can make Chinese food into everyday food recipes. I want to continue with that and give you the ingredients for XO sauce, Black Bean, and Lobster sauce.

You can buy these sauces already made at your local food chain grocery store or at a local chinese market but I think that it’s always best to add fresh ingredients into your foods because you can control the amount of salt and sugar that goes into a recipe.

XO Sauce
Did you know that the XO in XO sauce comes from Xtra Old Cognac. Don’t worry about serving this sauce to children. The alcohol loses it’s effect when heat and flame are added to it and many people don’t use the alcohol at all.

The ingredients are:
Old Cognac 2 oz
Diced onion
Dried scallop
Fresh red chilli
Ground black pepper
Jinhua ham
Large dried shrimp, shelled
Minced garlic
rapeseed oil
Salted cured fish
Tiny dried shrimp, unshelled

For the dried shrimp, you may have to purchase those at a whole foods, local chinese market, or local spanish market. I haven’t seen tiny dried shrimp on display at major supermarkets, at least not at my major local supermarket.

Black Bean Sauce
peanut oil
fermented black beans
garlic
chicken broth
soy sauce
rice wine
sugar
cornstarch

Lobster Sauce
I love the fact that Chinese Lobster sauce doesn’t actually have Lobster in it but the sauce can be used with Lobster and shrimp. The sauce works really well with Chinese Snow peas, mushrooms, and shrimp.

ground pork
soy sauce
Pepper, to taste
cornstarch
fermented black beans
garlic cloves
green onions (spring onions, scallions)
sherry
granulated sugar
chicken broth
cornstarch
water
2 eggs
salt
cooking oil

That’s it for today. Tomorrow I’ll tell you about more ingredients that you will want in your kitchen to prepare Orange Ginger, Sesame Garlic, Hoisin BBQ, and other sauces for everyday Chinese food recipes.

It’s time to prepare your kitchen for Chinese food. I thought it would be a good time to prepare the kitchen with Chinese sauces and spices since it is the new year and we are so close to the Chinese New Year. It’s the year of the OX which means growth through hard work. I know that many of us will be working hard to produce everyday food recipes with a Chinese flair.

Before we can be like the Chinese dragon and set our burners aflame, the kitchen has to be stocked with sauces and spices so that everyday food recipes will be a breeze in the kitchen.

So get out your shopping list and I hope to get you prepared with these items.

Sauces
There are more than twenty sauces that restaurants use when preparing Chinese food. You can buy some of these already made at the store but most of them need to be made at home. The ingredients that you need are:

For Sweet and Sour Sauce
cornstarch
white vinegar
ketchup or tomato paste
orange juice
light soy sauce
salt
granulated sugar
vegetable oil or peanut oil
fresh ginger

For Brown Sauce
Brown Sauce is used a lot for beef dishes and my wife likes to dip her tofu in brown sauce.
beef broth (beef bouillion cubes can be used)
oyster sauce
dark soy sauce
sugar
cornstarch

Garlic Sauce
My wife loves to use Garlic Sauce with Chinese Chicken and Seafood recipes. You will need.
rce vinegar
granulated sugar
light soy sauce
dark soy sauce
Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
chili sauce
Asian sesame oil
cornstarch
vegetable or peanut oil
garlic cloves

That’s it for today. Tomorrow I’ll tell you about more ingredients that you will want in your kitchen to prepare XO Sauce, Black Bean, Lobster Sauce, and other sauces for everyday Chinese food recipes.