BBQ Baby Burgers

I have a few blogs that I follow that post very yummy recipes, my favorites being The Pioneer Woman Cooks and Kayotic Kitchen.  I love the way that they display their recipes step by step, with great color photos and descriptions.  I tried a recipe from The Pioneer Woman that we all LOVED and I tweaked it a little, and wanted to share my version of the recipe here.  (If you want to see the original recipe, click here.)

BBQ Baby Burgers

First of all, I prefer the term baby burgers, as the term "slider" always meant to me that the burgers are so greasy they slide right out of the buns.  So, that is not what I wanted to call these delicious, succulent burgers!!  So, baby burgers they are!!

We begin with the ingredients:

Ground meat, yellow onion, butter, Jack Daniel's Original No. 7 Recipe BBQ sauce, Tabasco Jalapeño sauce, rolls and salt and pepper.

Start with ground beef (or any other kind of ground meat, like turkey).  I use the ground beef chubs from Costco (only 9% fat) and cut them into slices while they are still frozen.  Then I let them thaw in perfectly shaped patties.

Dice the yellow onion into small pieces.

I like the Colombo Potato Rolls, as they are the perfectly round size for the burgers, but you could use Hawaiian rolls, dinner rolls, etc.  Cut them in half.

Spread butter each of the roll halves and set them aside for later.

Season the meat well on both sides with salt and pepper.

Place butter in a large skillet and let it melt.

Add the patties and cook them until they are done in the middle, about 3 or 4 minutes per side.  I had never cooked meat in butter before this, but it is absolutely delicious!!

Remove the patties from the skillet and set aside.  If there is more than 2 tablespoons of grease in the skillet, drain off all but those 2 tablespoons.  With the 9% beef I use, there is barely any grease at all.  Put the diced onions in the skillet and saute them until they are soft and golden and lovely.  I love onions sauteed in butter.  Such a wonderful smell!!  Breathe it in!!

Now add in the BBQ sauce to the skillet and stir it up with the sauteed onion.  I use the Jack Daniel's BBQ sauce because the original recipe calls for whiskey and BBQ sauce (if at this point you are more interested in the original recipe, click here.  Haha!!).  With the BBQ sauce you get the flavor, but not the alcohol.

Add in some of the Tabasco Jalapeño sauce (the original recipe calls for actual jalapeños, but that is too much for my kids.  Kevin would love it though!) to give it a little kick.  Or a lot of sauce if you want a big kick!

Reduce the heat to low and then add the burgers back into the BBQ mixture and coat them on both sides.  Let the patties simmer until everything is hot and beautifully bubbly.  Isn't that gorgeous?!!

Place the buttered rolls in a skillet and grill them until they are slightly browned and crispy.

Now take one of the deliciously yummy burgers out of the sauce and place it on the bottom bun.  Goop a little bit of extra BBQ mixture onto the patty and finish with the top bun.  Enjoy!!  These burgers are a little piece of heaven!  So very good!!!!

Ingredients:
2 pounds of ground meat
salt and pepper
4 tablespoons butter
1 whole large onion, diced
1 bottle of Jack Daniel's Original No. 7 Recipe BBQ sauce
Tabasco Jalapeño sauce 
12 whole dinner rolls, split

Canning Pickles

I love this cartoon! (by Pat Bagley)

I had my first experience canning today! Thankfully I started with something fairly easy so I wasn't overwhelmed and never wanted to do it again. We had a class in Relief Society about Pickling and I was very excited to try it!



I got all the ingredients together and this morning I cut up cucumbers and onions and put them in a bowl with a sweet pepper and salt and let them sit for three hours.



I drained the cucumbers/onions and put them in the brine to cook.



When they were hot, I put them in the jars and put the lids on. I boiled them for 10 minutes to seal them.



Voilà!! I have beautiful jars of Bread & Butter pickles. They are delicious!!

Family Adventure Day!

It's our 4th Annual last-weekend-of-the-summer Family Adventure Day!



This year we decided to head back to the beach. We went to Morro Bay. We haven't been there for about nine years, so we figured it was about time to go back. Lora's mom was visiting, so we took her with us to Atascadero, where we met with Uncle Rich, who took her to visit with Aunt Lindi.



We drove into Morro Bay and went out to the Rock. We ate lunch at a park, with a seagull standing hopefully by. Nearby a boy started throwing french fries to the two birds that were there, and within a minute, he was surrounded by over thirty birds, including six pelicans!



We left the park and drove to the Historical Landmark and got the answers for an Earthcache. We discussed how the rock was formed, whether by volcanic activity or erosion, and decided that it was both. It was originally formed by volcanic activity, but over the years has eroded to the shape it is now. We enjoy those kind of caches.



After the cache, we drove to the Morro Bay Aquarium. We have been here before, but Rebecca was two years old. The girls got some fish chum to feed the seals that are in the front of the aquarium. I can't believe those seals don't weigh a ton with all they get fed all day long.






The aquarium has seen better days. They used to have an octopus (see the photo of Rebecca when she was two), and the fish look a bit tired. It was fun though. They still have the shark, the anemones, the abalone and the horseshoe crabs. They did have a few fish I don't remember seeing before.



These fish seemed really interested in Rebecca! : )

When we left the aquarium we went to The Shell Shack and the girls got to pick out several shells. Then we walked around the shops, saw some of the sights, and let the girls each pick out a tshirt. We walked along the decks and we tried to get a photo of all of us, the long-arm way, with the Rock in the background. A waiter from the restaurant in front of us came out and offered to take a picture of all of us. The photo was slightly out of focus, but it was very nice of them.



We went up to the Morro Bay Natural History Museum. This is an amazing place! We strongly recommend this museum!! It has some of the most inventive displays we had ever seen. There were earphones shaped like "Rocky" that told the kids facts about Morro Rock. There were displays with drawers underneath them, and each drawer had even more displays in them. There were cylinders that had different pictures of different aspects of each of the ecosystems. There were really cool pull-out "windows" that showed the food chain. There was a great display that as you turned the "wheel" the louvers rotated to show different information. There was also a whale skeleton that the museum had put together themselves. Very cool!!












Lora's mom met back up with us and went down to the beach for a little while.




After cleaning up the sand from the beach, we went to dinner. We checked out a few places, but finally decided to go to the restaurant where the waiter had taken a photo of us. It was called the Flying Dutchman. We had a long wait for a table, but the food was worth it!



Amanda, Rebecca and Kevin had the fish and chips, Katrina had the chicken strips, Mom had the clam chowder in a bread bowl, and Lora had the special which was bacon-wrapped teriyaki tuna with jasmine rice, baby vegetables and cucumber salsa. Mom said it was the best clam chowder she has ever had, the fish and chips weren't overly greasy like some places, and the special was really good! We made sure to tell the manager that we came back because of his employee. They really appreciated hearing that!



Then, we drove home. : ) As usual, a lovely end to the summer!

To see all the photos from our Morro Bay adventure CLICK HERE

Katrina's Kitchen

The other day Katrina saw a recipe in the Friend Magazine for Confetti Pizza that she wanted to try. So, we bought all the ingredients and Katrina made it for dinner tonight. It was a hit and we wanted to share the recipe, as it is a lot of fun!

For the recipe for Confetti Pizza, click here.

First, Katrina set the oven to preheat to 375 degrees. Then we took the two packages of crescent roll dough and rolled them out on our baking stone.


While we waited for the oven to get hot, Katrina measured out 1/2 cup of mayonnaise into a bowl.


Then she opened an 8oz package of cream cheese (softened) and added it to the bowl. Then she added the buttermilk dressing mix and stirred it up.




(Please note that the recipe calls for 1/3 of the dressing package. We missed that part and used the whole package and it was pretty strong. Good, but I am sure it would have tested better with less buttermilk mix.)

When the crust was done cooking, and had cooled, Katrina spread the cream cheese mixture on the crust.



Earlier, Mom had cut all the vegetable ingredients into little confetti bits.


Now, Katrina sprinkled all the vegetables all over the top of the pizza.



We cut the pizza into wedges, and served them with watermelon!



Delicious!!