Confessions of a Butcher

Is it just me or are the prices going up down at the local grocery store? I used to get brownie mixes on sale all the time for 99 cents a box and now I find them for 3 for $5, or buy one brownie box at the regular price and get a dollar off on window cleaner. Hey I don’t need window cleaner every time I get a hankering for brownies. The store people also like to run buy one at an unreasonable temporary regular inflated price and get the other one free ads. I don’t think they think we are very smart. It’s really very simple math. If a box of donuts is 2 for $5 and you leave for the store at precisely 3:05 and it takes you ten minutes to get there how many donuts will you have eaten by the time you get home? I don’t know about you but the wife doesn’t let me bring home the donuts by myself anymore, especially since I have a very long commute.

Now what does all this have to do with the pricing policies at our favorite supermarket? I don’t know. That’s just it. They want us in a state of confusion bumping around with a shopping cart with a dazed look on our face all the while the kids are working their own agenda by either grabbing stuff we don’t want when we aren’t looking or constantly badgering us to buy this or that item they have recently seen on TV.

There are however still some good deals at the grocery store. I thought that with the fuel prices being so high that everything would go up and I suppose that it all will. For now though some things haven’t shown the effect of higher shipping and processing costs.

There are still some very good values in the meat case for instance. Just this last week we had boneless chicken breasts on sale for $1.69 a pound and rump roast for $1.88 a pound. Get yourself a bunch of rump roast and ask the butcher to grind some of them for you for outstanding and very lean hamburger and have him cut up some for stew meat or cube steaks or even stir fry. There is a lot of things you can do with some cheap rump meat. The leftovers make the best roast beef sandwiches for lunches too.

Chicken is still a very good value and very tasty as well. I took some of those $1.69 chicken breast home and slopped some cheap soy sauce, a little olive oil (about 4 parts soy sauce to 1 part olive oil) and garlic and onion powder and pepper all over them and then grilled them until they were just done and still nice and juicy. While I was outside grilling, the wife and kids fried up some bacon and sliced a few tomatoes for some delicious bacon and chicken breast sandwiches.

I grilled up way more chicken breasts than needed. My wife Vickie throws the leftovers in the freezer and uses them later to make Santa Fe soup or as toppings on a salad or for pasta dishes or what have you.

Also the other day we purchased some family pack thighs for less than a dollar a pound. They were great and easy too. The wife sloshed them into my can’t miss marinade (see above) and placed them in the oven on a sheet pan and cooked them for about 45 minutes at 325. Boy were they good. Serve with rice or potatoes and you have a very inexpensive and yet satisfying meal.

My favorite rice dish to serve with most any meal is quite simple. Take a cup of regular long grain white rice and sauté in a couple of tablespoons of oil until rice is hot. Then add 2 cups of hot and lightly salted chicken broth to the rice and cover and simmer for thirty minutes on low heat. There you have it, a very nice and easy rice pilaf type dish. I don’t remember how to make real rice pilaf (we used to make it in the Marine Corps) but this stuff is good and easy.

So there you have it, as long as you aren’t buying a year supply of brownie mixes and window cleaner or trying to get home with a box of donuts during a long commute you can come away from the grocery store with some good values. We just have to be careful, don’t listen to the kids, do the math and watch out for the traps, they’re everywhere.

You know, when I start to think about all that we have been blessed with here in this great country It gives me cause for reflection. I haven’t traveled the world like some, so I’m no expert on the cultures of other countries. I did however spend a year over in Okinawa so I got to see a little bit how some people other than ourselves live.

We had civilian workers in our mess hall. There were about 60 women and one man. We called the women mama sans. They did all the cleaning and prep work that the Marines on kitchen duty (mess duty) would normally do if we were state side. The mama sans earned about 25 dollars a month. Not very much money, although it was one of the best paying jobs on the island. A lance corporal or E-3 was taking home about $120 every two weeks. The mama sans thought we were rich. I guess we were. We didn’t think we were, but we had room and board and money in our pockets to do whatever we wanted with.

The mama sans were also impressed with all the food that we had in the mess hall. We fed the Marines very well. Three square meals everyday. Breakfast consisted of eggs to order, hash browns, creamed beef (hamburger gravy), sausage or bacon, French toast or pancakes, hot cereal, cold cereals, fresh or steamed fruit, biscuits or breakfast rolls, toast, coffee cake or donuts, orange juice, milk and coffee. For dinner and supper we would have 3 hot entrees with their respective trimmings such as potatoes and gravy, with vegetables, tossed salad, fruit salad, sometimes potato or macaroni salad, rolls or bread, milk and deserts. If we had spaghetti for lunch it came with grilled cheese sandwiches or garlic bread. Every entrée had their individual side dishes. We ate really good, that is if the cooks were trying. Sometimes, well actually quite often, the cooks would just throw something together so it resembled something edible and call it good.

I remember the roasts we used to cook. They were just like Mom’s, dry as the Mojave in the middle of summer. Sorry Mom, but the truth is that for years I thought that beef and or pork roasts were just dry and that people just liked them that way. As long as the gravy was good we were ok, and fortunately the Marine Corps had some of the best gravies. That’s what I really want to talk about.

The other day I cut up a top round for Swiss steaks and placed them in a large roasting pan with some red wine vinegar, garlic and onion powder, soy sauce, pepper and a large onion. I covered everything with water placed the lid on and then proceeded to cook the life right out of it. After cooking the whole mess for about 6 hours at 300F the meat was as dry as a bone. The drippings on the other hand were very nice and rich.

I drained the drippings into a nice large pot and added my favorite gravy stretcher and pumper upper. That’s what saved many a meal in the Corps. We had this beef soup and gravy base stuff that was out of this world. We would take the drippings and add the gravy base, some water, a little Worcestershire sauce and then thicken it and it would be great. So like I was saying, I took some Farmer Brothers Instant Beef Gravy Mix that our little supermarket here in Ashton carries and added it to the drippings. Then I added a little steak sauce and one can of mushroom soup. The gravy was very good, and made the meat somewhat palatable, and on the mashed potatoes outstanding. A successful meal thanks to good gravy.

I am so thankful for this great country where we have the resources to make outstanding gravy. I don’t know where I would be without gravy. Can you imagine a large dollop of mashed potatoes on your plate without gravy? And how could I have choked down all that dry meat over the years without gravy? Yes we have much to be thankful for.

It’s National Hamburger Day again. Yep, that’s right, it’s May 28 already. Boy time flies. It seems like just yesterday and we were celebrating National Hamburger Day and here it is again. I’ll never forget last year, there was loud music, dancing in the street, wild revelers everywhere. Wait a minute. I think I might be getting my holidays mixed up. That may have been National Hot Dog Day. Anyhow Wednesday is National Hamburger Day and before you all start to dig out your party hats and confetti guns left over from last year let me just remind you that National Hamburger Day is more than just an opportunity to let your hair down and act the fool. Yes, that’s right, National Hamburger Day is the one day each year that we, as a nation, have set aside to honor our favorite cut of meat.

Well I don’t know if we can really call hamburger a cut of meat. After all it is just ground up scraps of trim left over from a day’s cutting down at the local meat department of your favorite super market. Unless you buy the stuff that comes in those little tubes that are processed down at the large meat packing plants, then you don’t really know what you’re getting. But we do love it and Wednesday the 28th of May we get our chance to show our reverence and celebrate.

Before I get all carried away with holiday spirit I wanted to share something with you that I’ve been experimenting with. It has nothing to do with National Hamburger Day and I hope you forgive me with my lack of focus. But if the truth be known I’m a bit of a Scrooge when it comes to Hamburger Day. Don’t get me wrong. I love hamburger but I just don’t like the commercial glamorization of the holiday. I think that Hamburger day should be more than just what’s in it for me. Sure I like to sit down to a nice big juicy cheeseburger and eat until I can’t move and then turn on the tube and watch the game but there just has to be more.

There is more. I’ve been experimenting with lime juice. I have been adding it to my beef marinade. Lime, being a citrus juice, will break down the chewy fibers in the meat if left to soak in it long enough and as I have found out enhances the flavor of the beef without overpowering like some of the store bought tenderizers which I despise.

Last week I thawed out a prime rib, that was purchased at Christmas time, to take advantage of the great prices, and I cut it into several nice thick boneless rib eyes. I dumped a bottle of cheap soy sauce into a bowl added a half cup of olive oil, a half cup of balsamic vinegar a generous amount of onion powder, garlic powder, pepper and juice from six small limes. After mixing it all up I sloshed the steaks in it real good, covered the whole mess up and put it all in the fridge for 2 days.

The wife and kids were in the house making potato salad from my favorite golden potatoes, that our farmer buddy Herb Steinman brings over to us all the time, baked beans, and biscuits while I slapped those delectable marinated steaks down on the hot grill out in the yard. After a few minutes on each side they were just right. I always cut my steak thicker than the rest of the family otherwise it gets overcooked. They like there steaks about medium and I like my with a little kick still in it. Anyhow they turned out great. The flavor was fantastic and they were very tender. You might want to try the lime on your beef steak with just a little fresh garlic and salt and pepper for a very nice and not nearly as intense experience if you don’t like overly zippy food.

Now in honor of National Hamburger Day I’m going to fire up the grill and prepare some nice big old cheeseburgers with nice fresh homemade buns for the family. For me I’ll take a flatiron, which is my favorite cut of beef, trim it up real nice and run it through the tenderizer at work a couple of times and then cook that baby up on the grill for a chopped steak sandwich. I know what you are thinking. Where’s your holiday spirit? I have just two words for you, bah humbug!

Mothers Day was upon us and I had to come up with a special meal that my dear wife and Mother of my eight children would like or else. It’s the one day of the year that I have a chance to right many of the wrongs that are hanging over my head and I better not blow it. So I brought home a big stack of beef ribs. Beef ribs are so good. I just love to season them all up and cook them slow in my roasting pan until they are nice and tender. Then I slather them all up with my special homemade Marine Corps style barbecue sauce and grill them to perfection. Serve those delectable babies with some funeral potatoes and my special baked beans and biscuits and I’ll be sprawled out in my easy chair in front of the TV for the next six hours.

As I was putting the ribs in the fridge after arriving home from a hard day at work my dear wife and mother of my wonderful children informed me that it was Mothers Day not Fathers Day and she did not want ribs. I know what you are thinking. How could anyone not want ribs? So I went down the list of entrees in my repertoire.

“Let’s see. We just had liver and onions so how about….” and that’s where she stopped me.

“I want lasagna.” she said.

Ok, I can do lasagna. It’s been awhile. In fact the last time I fixed a lasagna was over thirty four years ago when I was still cooking in the Marine Corps. Easy deal. It’s just chili mac with big noodles and no beans. Then she informed me that she wanted it made with Italian sausage and not hamburger.

Now it’s getting little more challenging. I’ve never heard of chili mac made with Italian sausage. So I started to think back to those days in the Corps and it all started coming back to me. I gathered together all the necessary ingredients. Three pounds of Italian sausage, a pound and a half of hamburger, 4 pounds of mozzarella cheese, four pounds of cottage cheese or you can use Ricotta cheese. I don’t care for it but I know that a lot of people do. Then I got about twelve of the little cans of tomato sauce ready and 2 and half pounds of the large flat lasagna noodles and a couple of onions chopped and about 7 eggs. I also used about 3 spaghetti packets for seasoning.

I know that measurements seem a little generous but you have to remember that I was previously cooking for several hundred hungry Marines and it was hard for me to downsize.

So I made two different meat sauces. One was just for my wife with just Italian sausage and the other with hamburger and a little Italian sausage. I browned off the ground meat with the chopped onions, making sure that I didn’t stir it to often as it browned so it would cook up into big chunks of meat instead of those micro mini molecules of meat that you can see only through a microscope that the frozen lasagnas are all known for.

Once the meat was browned I added a little flour to soak up some of the moisture in the pan. If there is any excess of drippings, you might want to drain some them off. I like to keep a little of the drippings because that is where the flavor is. Then I added the tomato sauce until it reached a nice thick consistency. The runnier the sauce the runnier the lasagna and I like my lasagna firm. I beat the eggs and mixed in the cottage cheese and about half the mozzarella cheese. Then I layered everything into my large roasting pan. I started with meat sauces. On the one side of the roasting pan I used Italian sausage meat sauce and on the other side I used the ground beef with a little Italian sausage meat sauce. Then I laid down noodles and the cheese mixture and then more noodles and then meat sauce and mozzarella cheese and then noodles and the cheese mixture and so on until all the ingredients were used up and I had a bout a twenty pound lasagna. I placed it in the oven at 250F and we all went to church and when we got home 3 and a half hours later it was done and it was delicious and I was good for another year.

The other day I found myself getting a little nostalgic. I don’t know what brought it on but for some reason I was thinking about my favorite all you can eat buffet type restaurant over in Corvallis, Oregon. I used to cut meat at one of the supermarkets there and I would often find myself bellying up to the buffet at lunch time filling my plate with a myriad of interesting and tasty if sometimes indistinguishable dishes.

That’s what I loved about the place. There were always a number of items on the steam line that kept you guessing. I would take some of this and a dollop of that until my plate was filled to overflowing. Then I would grab a glass of chocolate milk add some ice cream from the soft ice cream dispenser and a couple of squirts of chocolate syrup and stir the whole thing up for a delicious chocolate milkshake which would help wash everything down. Some days those chocolate milkshakes were worth their weight in gold.

Each day of the week had a theme. One day was oriental day with rice with sweet and sour meat chunks. The next day would be western day with hot dogs and pot roast and so on. Every day however they would serve fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, baked beans and mashed potatoes with two types of gravy, white and or brown and or yellow. My favorite day was Thursday. Thursday was a combined day of Mexican and Italian.

Most every Thursday I would be there bright and early to be one of the first in line for lunch , so as to get the unviolated good stuff. I would load up on the enchiladas, mock lasagna, baked beans, macaroni and cheese and fried chicken livers. I guess they thought that braised chicken livers and onions were Italian or Mexican. Maybe they are. All I know is that they went very nicely with the yellow gravy they always served on Thursday and of course the baked beans and macaroni and cheese, that I smothered it all with, accented it nicely.

With longings of a day that has come and gone I grabbed a couple containers of chicken livers at work the other day and brought them home in hopes of capturing something special from my past and sharing it with my family.

First thing I did was drain one 20oz container of chicken livers and then flour them up. I used flour seasoned with the basics; garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper. Then I melted a half cube of butter in a large skillet and added the livers with one medium sliced onion and 3 sliced celery stalks. I slowly cooked the whole mess on medium heat, covered, stirring and flipping occasionally Once the liver was cooked through (about 20 minutes) I removed and served with mashed potatoes and cream of chicken soup from a can, which I doctored up somewhat and used as a chicken gravy. The trick to using the cream of chicken soup for gravy is to remember to go easy on the milk when you reconstitute it or it will get runny. I add about a half can of full strength evaporated milk to each can of soup. Serve the gravy over the livers. Then I warmed up some French cut green beans and there you have it, a simple and inexpensive meal.

The chicken livers are a great value. My store sells them for $1.49 for a 20oz container. Top that off with the fact that only one third of our family would even go near them and the savings were greatly multiplied.

Actually the members of our family that were either young enough not to know better or adventuresome enough to try the braised chicken liver and onions ended up enjoying them. Some people, I know, have some kind of aversion to slimy goopy things but if you give them a try you just might like them.

Personally I loved them. I just wish I would have taken the time to fix up some good old fashioned baked beans and macaroni and cheese.

The other day I purchased leg of lamb at a great price. Quite often a week or two after Easter many stores may have a few legs of lamb left over that they need to move in a hurry. So they price them up nice and cheap. This year was one of those years at my store and I bought about five really nice big legs and stuffed them into my freezer. Except for this one nice big fat one that I boned out and butterflied. To butterfly a piece of meat means to open it up by cutting it so it will lay flat in one large piece. It’s a great way to prepare a piece a meat for the grill which is what I had planned for my leg of lamb.

After I butterflied and trimmed most all the fat off my lamb leg I placed it into a large pot with a bunch of my special lamb marinade. I’ll tell you what I keep impressing myself how good my marinades and sauces are. It’s a good thing I believe in being humble or I might have to let you all know haw darn good I am, again. Anyhow, like I said, I placed this great big slab of meat into my wife’s best pot with a bunch of marinade. One note of warning for the guys out there. If you are going to marinade something for several days check with the wife before you tie up one of her favorite pots. You’ll be glad you did. So anyhow I got my lamb and my marinade inside this big pot and I placed it in the fridge for about four days.

I was going to marinate it a couple days more but I came home from work early last Friday so I cooked it up for dinner. Talking about good chow, man o’man.

I took the butterflied lamb and laid it out flat in my large roasting pan and then poured the rest of the marinade over it. I then placed it covered in the oven at 300F for about an hour and a half until the internal temperature reached about 150 degrees. Then I pulled it out and slapped it onto my hot grill which is still almost completely buried in the snow for about five minutes on each side. I brought it back in the house and sliced it up. My wife Vickie was just pulling some of her beautiful little individual French bread loaves from the oven. We sliced them open and made little poor boy sandwiches with our favorite condiments and some nice sautéed onions. Oh boy that was good. The lamb was so tasty and tender and the rolls were soft yet a tad bit chewy like good French bread is suppose to be. And the drippings were so good that even my little kindergartener son who only eats peanut butter and cold cereal, kept asking for more juice for his meat.

After stuffing myself with some of the best French dip I had ever had I put the leftovers away and Vickie made some outstanding lamb stew with it the next day. It was black and rich and hearty and she served it wrapped in tortillas with sour cream, shredded lettuce and salsa. Hot dog! That was some good stuff.

To marinate your butterflied leg of lamb simply dump a 15 oz bottle of La Choy soy sauce into a bowl with a half cup of olive oil and a couple of teaspoons of curry or so to taste along with a generous amount of garlic and onion powder and pepper. Add a half cup of balsamic vinegar and then dump your meat into it. Make sure the lamb is completely submerged in the marinade. Just add more of the liquids if need be. This ain’t rocket fuel so don’t worry about measurements. I never do. Then place in the fridge for a few hour, up to a few days. Then cook her up.

To make the stew, just use the leftover drippings for the base. Cut up some potatoes, onions and carrots, and add to the drippings, cook until they are tender. Then add peas and the meat cut into chunks. Next add a small can of tomato sauce for some color, thicken with corn starch and season with garlic and onion powder plus salt and pepper to taste. There you have it, some very tasty lamb stew. You can serve it in tortillas like we did or over rice or just fill up an bowl. If you have leftovers, it freezes well. .Anyway you serve it it’s going to be good.

I don’t know about you but I’m getting the feeling that our US economy could use a little help. Washington tells us that everything is fine and then turns around and goes even further into debt to give us some extra spending cash so we can all go out and have a nice time which is supposed to stimulate the economy so we will pay more taxes so the government then can pay China some of the money that it owes but instead will just spend it on another fine program that further drains the coffers which are already less than empty. Is it just me or is there something wrong with this picture? I’m sure it’s just me. I haven’t been trained for such things or had years and years of higher learning. After all I’m just a butcher. All I do know is, and as my mom used to tell me, if you haven’t got it don’t spend it.

Of course we can’t expect our huge complex government to understand simple spending practices which makes it all the more expedient that we begin to. I don’t begin to claim that I understand the economy or what drives it or what it is that is going to save it. All I know is that eggs and milk and gasoline, to name but a few, are going up and they are not taking me with them.

Whenever I think about how fragile our whole economy is and how there are so many huge companies that are running on deficits and how the whole mortgage system is close to failing and banks are in trouble and people are talking about the government bailing them out and our leaders can’t say no whenever someone waves a new shiny object in front of their eyes, I get a little concerned. In fact I get more than concerned. I’m starting to get scared.

I don’t know what we as individuals can do about our government spending itself to death other than try to elect the right people into office. But we can help ourselves somewhat. We need to live within our means. We need to make the most of our dollars and fill our pantries and freezers with good wholesome food that we grow ourselves or purchase at the right prices

This is where I can help. When it comes to saving money on food, especially meat, I’m on it. For example, pork butts are currently on sale for $1.00 a pound in one of our local supermarkets. It’s possible that they may never be this cheap again. And since they are rarely much cheaper than that, it is a good time to stock up. Also because of their versatility they are always a great value. You can cut them up into chops, country style ribs, steaks, grind them for hamburger as a cheap replacement for beef and so on. You can even make your own sausage from ground pork by adding sausage seasonings, usually available in regular or Italian flavors from your meat department. Also look for boneless chuck roasts or steaks when they get down around $2.00 a pound or less. That is as cheap as beef gets anymore and we may not see those prices again for a while if ever. So stock up. They make great stew meat or grind into real good hamburger and save. Chicken is still an outstanding value but like everything else it will probably go up as well.

You know another thing we can all do is use less meat in our diets. Instead of taking home a big piece of expensive beef to have with some potatoes and a salad we can look to our mothers and grandmothers and learn to make them stretch by incorporating the meat into casseroles and such. I was raised on post depression casseroles and I love them.

I know that tightening our belts and looking to make things stretch and only purchasing items when they are on sale and then stocking up is foreign thinking for many of us that have had it so good our whole lives. But I think that the times are a changing. We could be in for a rough ride one of these days and it wouldn’t hurt if we prepared for the winter snows while it is still late summer or early fall.

There are still bargains out there but if gas keeps going higher, then everything else will eventually follow. I don’t know about you but I’m getting mine now while I still can.

Sausage and Rice Casserole
2 lbs pork sausage

onion flakes

med. bunch of celery

2 boxes chicken noodle soup

8 cups water

6 cups rice- 3 minute rice!!!

slivered almonds (optional)

salt and pepper

Cook up sausage. Saute the celery and onions. Cook rice according to box directions. Cook soup in water for 7 minutes. Blend everything and add almonds. Bake uncovered at 350 for 30-35 minutes. Freezes well.

Copyright Secrets-of-the-butchers-wife.com Used with permission.

I’m sure most all of you have heard about the massive recall of ground beef that has been going on the last couple of weeks. It’s been a bit of an eye opener. All those poor old cows dead and dying being pushed and dragged into the meat processing plants and made into hamburger for us, the unsuspecting consumers.

I haven’t worked in a slaughter house for a couple of decades or more now but still the only thing that surprises me about these current reports of abuse and questionable practices is that it has taken this long before anyone has taken notice.

Whenever a cow that is used for breeding or for milk production has outlived her usefulness or becomes ill to the point of being a financial burden she is shipped off to the auctions. There she is purchased with other cows of similar qualities by a meat processing company. Then she is turned into hamburger for the supermarkets or boneless beef for prepared foods of some kind. As long as I’ve been around, the meat from these slaughterhouses have never posed a problem. I have never heard of any of the meat hurting anyone with the exception of an occasional e-coli contamination. Just the same I have been preaching for many years now that if you want good quality hamburger from nice young healthy animals you should never purchase the ground beef in the counter of your local supermarket unless you know that they are using the trim from their daily production exclusively.

Back in my early days of retail meat cutting I worked in a couple of different stores that used boneless bull meat from Australia. We would take these huge frozen bricks and cut them on the saw and then save all of our fat from the days cutting and grind it all together to make hamburger. It actually made pretty good hamburger. But then we got word that it had been discovered that one of the processing plants in Australia had been mixing kangaroo meat in with the bull meat.

Also as a young butcher I remember getting fresh boneless cow and bull meat to make hamburger patties for the local restaurants. We would pull out the tenderloin and make steaks for ourselves. The steaks would be tender but the flavor was lousy. The hamburger turned out ok after we added a bunch of boneless plates to fatten it up some. Boneless plates are the fat side meat that comes off the ribs of the young animals. It adds the necessary fat and has great flavor which makes the old cow meat tolerable.

These days I work in a large supermarket that is part of a huge chain of stores. We use the very best meat available. Our roasts and steaks are on par or better than anyone’s in the nation. But if you want the best hamburger made from healthy young animals the smartest thing to do even in the best of stores is purchase a roast or two and have the butcher grind it up for you. Then and only then will you know just what you are getting.

The best tasting hamburger you can make is from the boneless chuck. Boneless chucks are on sale all the time. Next time you see an ad for boneless chuck roast ask the butcher to grind up a bunch of them for you and fill your freezer. Also boneless rumps are often quite cheap and make very lean hamburger. Just keep your eyes open and you’ll usually see something in the meat case that is priced right to make great hamburger with.

If you are feeling a little creative, wait for some type of lean round meat like rumps or London broils to go on sale and grab about twenty pounds of them. Then select a whole fresh brisket, about a ten pounder, from the case and ask the butcher to grind them all together. The brisket has a lot of fat and great flavor and should be fairly inexpensive. Now you’ve got some nice hamburger.

After all my preaching and making suggestions for the best and healthiest hamburger the truth is that I eat whatever is the cheapest which is quite often the processed stuff in the counter. But we don’t have to.

A Poor Man’s Chicken Fried Steak or a Cheeseburger in Paradise

The other evening I sat down with the kids and watched a show on the food channel with them. There was this guy with short blonde spiky hair who went around to small diners and sampled their wares. Man what a great job.

This one diner he featured on his show specialized in battered and deep fried gizzards. Now if you have never tried chicken gizzards let me tell you that you have been missing out. They can be very good if you know how to prepare them. And from the looks of things on that show the owner of the diner knew what he was doing.

Not only did the diner specialize in deep fried gizzards but everything on the menu from appetizers to deserts were deep fried. The owner slash head cook was battering up and deep frying Twinkies and Oreo cookies and French fries and cheese burgers and you name it. Talking about inspiring, I just about teared up.

When I saw the cheese burgers go into the deep fryer I got an idea. How about a poor ma’s chicken fried steak made with hamburger. Right then and there I started planning my Sunday dinner. I figured I could round up some inexpensive ground beef, season it up a bit and make a quick and easy meal.

Sunday rolled around and as soon as we were back from church I started in on what I just knew was going to be a real break through in modern day cooking. I took a little over three pounds of cheap ground beef and paced it in a bowl with two large eggs. The eggs I figured would help to firm up the hamburger patties and keep them from falling apart. Then I added a couple of tablespoons of Worcestershire and a few shakes of onion and garlic powder and salt and pepper to taste. I mixed it all to together and made some nice size patties. Then I cooked them slowly on our electric griddle until they were just done.

While the patties were cooking I mixed up a little of my special batter that I always use whenever I deep fry something. All it is pancake batter but when I go to sell my own little bags of deep fry mix some day I’ll call it something fancy and charge you an arm and a leg like the rest of them do so you better pay attention. Like I was saying I mixed up a little of my special batter. I took a 2 or 3 cups of flour or there abouts, one egg, a couple of teaspoons of baking powder, a slosh of vegetable oil, a teaspoon or so of sugar, a pinch of salt and mixed it all up with enough milk to make a pancake batter that is just a tad bit on the thin side. Sorry for the vague recipe on the batter, I rarely measure. Besides I don’t usually get inspired to deep fry something unless there is leftover pancake batter in the fridge.

After the patties are cooked through I remove them from the griddle and place them one at a time in the batter and get them all coated real good and them ease them into the hot, 350 degree, oil. I cook until they are a golden brown and then remove and let them sit on a paper towel for a moment. Then serve with either a brown or country gravy and your favorite potato dish.

To tell you the truth I wasn’t feeling very industrious after a long hard session of church so I dispensed with the gravy and potatoes. The wife whipped up some of her wonderful hamburger buns and we made deep fried cheeseburgers out of them just like the TV guy did. They were great. A cheese burger with a crunch, very nice.

The next time I feel like I’m getting a little low on cholesterol or that my arteries are flowing a little to smoothly I’m going to try some of those battered and deep fried Twinkies. Man they looked good sittin there on TV with that sauce all slurped over them and topped off with a large dollop of whipped cream. When I do I’ll be sure and let you all know how it turns out.