California Burgers (The Christening)

Finally,
I am writing my first ever, food recipe. Of course, it is nothing too fancy or too complicated. I wanted to post about something everyone loves, everyone enjoys, something that is easy to make.

Cheeseburgers!!

Please let me recite my love poem
'Oh, Cheeseburger'
Oh Cheeseburger,  I would eat you everyday.
With veggies and condiments and other lovely meats
To dress you up with fancy sauces or dress you down with a simple grilled bun.
 Oh, Cheeseburger, I love you!

Ok, maybe not a poem for the history books, but it is from the heart.
Don't tell my husband there is someone else.

Making the perfect Cheeseburger is not just something to slap together and call it a day.
It is a labor of love, especially with all the add-ons that we have along with the succulent beef patty.

I wanted to make a mountain of a burger with everything that I love and  combine them to make the food of the gods! What better than:
The California Burger!!
Let me give you a quick list of my top favorite food that we will combine into a cornucopia of perfection that will demonstrate the California Burger!

caramelized onions
bacon,
avocados
did I say bacon
pickles
cheese
and beef!
YUM

 This is what you will need

Ok,
So my picture taking abilities are still in the works. Bare with me!

Start with Caramelizing the onions.

Take some nice yellow onions and cut the ends off. Then cut a small slice up the middle to remove the dry shell.
Cut the Onions in half. Then in half again. Continue to cut the onion  in long slices. (confused yet)
 You do not want to chop them up. you just want to make semi-long, thin pieces.
Caramelized onions cook way down. So, if you are cooking for 2, a whole onion should do the trick.

I'm cooking for 15!

It should look something like this. Oh, and the butter. The butter is the key to caramelized happiness. Add the onions and a cube of butter. Set the heat on medium low and well, wait.

You could move on to the rest of the cheeseburger process or take a 40 minute nap (I did the latter). 

I woke up to my husband greeting me with an ice coffee. I knew there was a reason I married him. I Love you sweetie 

He said, "sweetie your onions are burning." I could kill him!

I jumped out of bed like a fish flopping out of water and ran down stairs.

In shock over the thought of losing my onions and having to start from the beginning. I hurriedly open the top of my pan and  found this.

 

Perfection!

Next cook the bacon. Take 1lb. of bacon and cut in half

cook the bacon up and move on to making beef patties.

Since we are making California Burgers you have to use Ranch Dressing in some way. I forgot to get Ranch Dressing mix so the Salad dressing had to do.Take about a half cup of dressing and drizzle it over the beef

Next add the seasoning. I use Pappy's Seasoning. it is the perfect combination of herbs and spices. It goes on everything in my house. a little salt and pepper on top of that. mix it all together and take fist size balls of beef and flatten into patties

I take wax paper and a foil pan and fill the pan with patties then wax patter and then patties so I don't have to make trips back and forth to the grill.

Turn after 4-5 minutes and cook for another 4-5 minutes. Only flip them once or else you will be feeding the fire instead of your bellies with burgers. That happened to my husband on more than 1 occasion. We also, fed my moms herd of puppies trying to transfer the patties to the grill. they were thankful. Add the cheese, 1 minute to 2 minutes before completion. Put the lid back on to melt the cheese.

Make it quick or risk over cooking.

My husband likes his burgers still mooing. So, his only goes on for 3-4 minutes on both sides.

Take the hamburger buns and yes, slather them with more butter.

Is there ever enough butter?

Throw the lathered group onto the grill for one minute and get them off asap or they will burn.

I cut up pickles, avocados, lettuce and tomatoes for sides and don't forget mayo, mustard and ketchup. Oh ketchup, one of my kids main food groups.

and voila!



This is the final product. I would have taken a pic of my burger but it jumped into my belly too quickly.

Thats it for now

-G



Grilled Sweet White Corn

Grilled Sweet White Corn! Yum-Yum in my Tum-Tum.

To arrive at the cornucopia of goodness you only need 5 things:
Sweet White Corn
Butter
mix seasoning or rub ie., Pappy's, my personal favorite
foil
and of course, a grill.

I was going to just do the same old, same old with my corn. Boil the corn to deathly perfection. Boring! I thought, the grill is up and going why not throw the corn on with the burgers. Well, I was really thinking, less dishes, please!

Start by shucking the corn. Wait, first recruit an unsuspecting, hot hubby to do the heavy lifting for you. Hmm, where to get one? Yup, I found one on the couch watching an action flick. "Oh, sweetie!"

Continue cutting foil in 8 inch pieces to roll the corn in. While watching husband curse at trying to pull the long strands of corn shell string things out of the corn kernels. Funny!

Place corn in the middle of the foil, add generous slices of butter on top of the corn. It doesn't need to be fancy. When it cooks it will melt into every crevice of the corn.

Add your seasoning on top

Wrap the corn up tight and throw onto the grill for for 10 minutes, turning a few times.

It should come out well, hot and perfect.

This is how my husband eats it

 
Enjoy
-Gemima

To Make Dinner, Or Not

Well, as I said in 'Auto Pilot' I was going to cook up a tasty dish! But first, let me give a little back story.
Where I live, it rarely gets in the high 90's, maybe 3 weeks out of the year. I live at the bum end of Silcon Valley, California. In the garlic capitol of the world. That's right my town has international fame! We ooz coolness! Ha, and let  me tell ya, The last week it's been in the low 100's. Yes, I know, poor me. But my California thermoter is set at 75 all year round. My endurance can not take the heat needed to cook an egg.
That being said, when I got off work today,( let me remind you that my office is in my guest bedroom. So, the commute consist of Legos and GI Joes,) I headed into the kitchen to grill up some tasty, fish tacos with cilantro, lime sauce. I got my camera out and set all the ingredience up to take the pictures to post.

ERRRR (car brakes)

Um, heck no, it was 100 out and my air conditioner was barely cutting it, wait, let me rephrase, it doesn't cut it. As I wipe sweat from my forehead, I threw everything back into the pantry and fridge and served up leftover pasta. Oh, and the pasta was delicious. I was going to post that too, but my camera is dum or I am. I'm going with the camera.
Excuses, I know, I'm getting my bum in gear. That's the whole point of this Blog. To see if I can really keep this filled up day after day.

We will see.
-G

Auto Pilot

Today I had to go to two banks, one my husband, the other mine. Don't ask, I have no clue why we have separate accounts. We can share toothbrushes and sodas and even his pants. (on one random occasion, I might add.) But not accounts. I think the laziness aspect has something to do with.
Back to my point, I mean incident.
So, I thought, yup, that would be a quick twenty minutes at best. Nope, I was wrong, there were twenty-five people in line, at least. They had us crammed in the tiny, little teller line like cattle waiting to be branded. Great, I'll be here forever. I wasn't, but it felt like it. Once I got out of there, it was now 2047, I thought, a smoothie sounds good. I'll get one and then go to my husband's bank. I continued across town to get my favorite smoothie and stop in at my husbands bank. Great another line of thirty people, at the least, waiting in line. Maybe, I shouldn't have picked the day before 4th of July to do my banking. I stood there, twiddling my thumbs, for a century. Maybe a little less. Finally, My turn with the teller, I'm sixty by now.
She greets me and says, "oh you are back, was something wrong with your deposit."
"Huh," I though. "No, I haven't even given you anything. How could something be wrong."
She looked at me and said, "yes you were just in forty-five minutes ago!!"
Nooo! I went to not only the wrong bank but waited a century for nothing!
Hmf! the heat must be getting to me.The minute that delicious, life reviving smoothie hit my lips I must have went on auto pilot! and drove back,across town, not realizing where I was going. Man. I am a safe driver!
I looked at her so embarrassed. Thinking what could be something clever and quick to say to not sound like an utter chump. Nothing came out. I looked at her smiled and headed for the door. I felt like an Olympian in a marathon. Trying to get out of their with a little of my dignity still  in tacked.
Oh and by the way, I finally got to my husbands bank and yes they had a drive through. Thank you lord for small favors.

Well, That's me and that's it for now.
Later I will be posting what I made for dinner, If it comes out edible.
Some might say cooking is an art I think of it more as a learning experience.
see you soon
-G

Welcomed Stumbles

I woke up this morning to a beep, beep, beep!! I rolled over, grabbed my phone and shoved it under my pillow. Please don't be morning, I thought to myself, by it was the inevitable, 6:30 had come again, I plopped out of bed, with one eye cocked open and the other sewed shut with the sandman's overnight dusting. I stumbled into the kitchen to reach for my favorite coffee mug with a giant chip on the rim. I don't know what it is about that mug. I don't know if its the chip that cuts my lip on very, sleepy mornings or the worn out picture of the Blessed Mother. Or, maybe its just old reliable, the one thing that I can look forward to in the morning. Well, and of course that God has blessed my family with another day, of course, right !Or For some reason it is the link from me being asleep and dead to the world; to being some what a awake and functional in the morning. Ya that's more likely.
I digress. 

 I continued to pour myself a cup after I finished my deep contemplation of my coffee mug, Yum, My sweet, pipping, hot bowl of nectar! I then continued my zombie walk to my office. Which, by the way is the room down the hall from bedroom, no traffic for me in the morning. Yes please.

Where am I going with this, I'm not sure yet. Who wants to know what I do in the morning, Do I have something special to share with the world. It's not like I can tell you the cure for cancer. Well, maybe this may help, Ha, that's far fetching!

But this is something I have wanted to do for some time. Write, write something, write anything just put what's floating around in my dank, foggy mind on paper, well, a computer screen. Thank you 21st century. It might not be exciting but it might just lend an insight to another persons mind. Man, who is that someone?
We will just call myself, Gemima. I am not a  mammy front the south that can cook fried chicken all day. I wish,
No, I'm a nurse, taxi driver, janitor, cook, gardener, referee, bookkeeper, runner ( even though that has been sparse, to dang hot here) zoologist, librarian, bookkeeper and a hundred other things from A to Z. I am a mom and 'Here' if I'm the only one that ever visits 'Here' that would just be dandy, But as the days, months and years go by I would like to fill my pages of stories, poems, recipes, how-tos and how to-nots moments in my day that are just too funny, to sad, too embarrassing to keep locked, to keep hidden in that dank, foggy mind of mine.

Let me give you an example of what happened to me today. Read "Auto Pilot" to find out. If my boss only knew how clueless and klutzy I am I think he would be scared that I was handling his financials.

Well, That's me and that's it for now.
Later I will be posting what I made for dinner, If it comes out edible.
Some might say cooking is an art I think of it more as a learning experience.
see you soon
-Gemima

P.S.
Grammatical advise welcomed. I'm doing this blog to learn and experience more in life. This a big step out of my comfort zone.
Give me advise, corrections, thoughts on what I could do different.
The old Dome isn't quite back up to speed on the whole writing thing.
-G