What's Cookin' Wednesday: Homemade Hamburgers

Lets get this on. Me and cooking is like oil and water and in my experience, nothing comes out the same way twice. Gotta love that. I cook every night for my family except for the days where I can't bring myself to face yet another culinary disaster. It's the insanity that drives. That and this freakish idea that my cooking would be healthier than anything a grease pit restaurant could put out.

My handsome Husband mentioned he was in a hamburger mood and seeing as I love his clotted arteries very much, I rolled up my sleeves and got my bake on. Here is the recipe and make sure you follow step by step so you too can have your own smoke alarm dinner bell ringing!

Whole Wheat Rolls * (*disclaimer: they really aren't whole wheat, or even half. More like quarter wheat and a boat load of yeast)

1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1 1/2 cup egg and warm water mixture
3 1/4 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
3 tsp bread machine yeast

Dump ingredients in order into your bread machine and set it on the dough setting. I am a lazy lady and use my bread machine every chance I can get. I don't like mixing dough by hand because if I did, there would be a whole lot of unsightly cuss words dotted through this recipe.

IMPORTANT: Make sure you are really bad at math and can't subtract the time it takes to have finished dough from the time you have to go pick up kids from school. Also, you should forget that one of your kids needs to go to a friend's house and not get the address from the kid's dad (it helps to to leave your iphone at home too).

Now that the timer for your finished dough went off 20 minutes ago and rising dough is bubbling over the sides of the pan, take the monster out and shape it into balls on a greased sheet. I have one of those air pocket cookie sheets that were designed for cooking idiots like myself. I can burn the tops, the sides and the middle, but the bottom will always be the perfect doneness. Let rise for 15 minutes because lets face it, you forgot that soccer practice was moved up a half hour and it's bad parenting to let your son play on an empty stomach.

Your rock solid dough balls should not have risen at all at this point. It looks something like this:

Toss it in the oven at 350 degrees and forget to put on the timer for 15 minutes. Next, get out a frozen brick of ground beef from the freezer and nuke it. The edges should be cooked and the center ice pick hard. Season, add an egg and shape into uneven lumpy patties. It should look totally disgusting. Like this for example:


Then scream. You remember your rolls in the oven, especially since you cranked up the temp to broiling. Rescue rolls.

Rolls are out and looking a bit crusty. In goes the patties to broil. Take a breather and pick up a book. This is what I had my nose in:



What's that funny smell? Who cares. This book is fantastic and the dog is cleaning up the spare bit of egg I dribbled down the cabinet front. Score!





At this point, it is good to slap your forehead. Soccer practice is in 45 minutes at a field clear in the bejeebies across town and you just remembered that one of your kids is still at his friend's house. Pull everything out of the oven, turn off the peas that are boiling over on the stove and get the heck out of there.

By the time you get back, the patties will be a perfect glacial temperature. Add your condiments, but make sure you do this before your weekly trip to the grocery store so that when you search for cheese, lettuce, tomato and other yummy things you will not have them on hand. Mayo anyone?

Sit down to eat as a family with a scant 10 minutes to wolf down the bone dry roll, cold patty and wilted peas then make a run for it. Bon Appetit!

Tonight's dinner? Salmon.