Recipes that are simple and delicious.
I am pleased to announce that I was recently chosen as Grilled Cheese Academy’s Bronze Butter Knife Winner. Exciting, right? Well what does this all mean? I was chosen as one of the eleven finalists over hundreds of grilled cheese sandwich submissions. Yes, hundreds. I am…
If you have never tried chicken satay, well let me just say you are going to love it. I came up with this only because my kids love Filipino barbecue, and well, I wanted them to explore and try different things. My goal actually was…
Some times I come up with some crazy recipe when I scavenge through my refrigerator. This again is one of those times, and it was all due to some leftover mac and cheese that my kid had his fill on. I wasn’t going to let it go to waste. Who lets mac and cheese go to waste after all? It was burger night at the house and as I typically know what everyone likes, I let them call out their burger and see if anyone will get creative on me. My oldest is straight up burger with lots of bacon, the daughter refuses the burger, every time, and the other two are straight cheese burgers. That leave me, lonely me, to get creative. My go to lately has been straight up smash burgers with caramelized onions and cheese, topped with pickles. I’m hungry just thinking about it, and the smell of those onions, well, I can picture them now. But as I was thinking about that mac and cheese, I was reminded as to how great this homemade hamburger helper was, as well as this cheese crisp burger was, so that I knew, as funky as it sounds, that this mac and cheese was going to be great. It was.
Let’s get started.
Ingredients:
I like to begin by caramelizing the onions first. This allows me to provide some nice aromatherapy for the family members, while at the same time allowing me to season my cast iron skillet that I cook the burgers in. I will let you decide on which route to take. While the onions are cooking, form your ground chuck into a nice ball. We will smash that ball when we are ready to make the burgers. Season the top of the ball with a generous pinch of that salt.
Once the onions are done cooking, remove them from the skillet, and set them aside.
Bring up the heat to the skillet to a medium high heat. Add the burger to the middle, and let this cook for a few minutes.
With a large spatula smash the burger down, completely flattening it. Let cook another minute, then flip it over. You should have an awesome, caramelized burger. Season with a bit more salt, then add the caramelized onions to the top, and cover the onions with the mac and cheese. After a couple of minutes, flip the burger, allowing the mac and cheese to warm through, and get a nice crisp onto the noodles.
Remove and place onto your sliced bun. Get ready to dig in. This burger is pretty darn amazing. It is everything you expect in a great cheese burger but with this great texture from the mac and cheese. If you happen to have any leftover mac and cheese, try topping some on your next burger and let me know what you think of this creation, the mac and cheese burger. Hope you enjoy.
My oldest kid has become a true fan of chicken wings. I’m OK with that, only because he has been a picky eater for the majority of his childhood, so when he wants something that has a bone in it of all things, I’m cool.…
Corn is in full bloom right now at the farmer’s market, and I don’t know about you, but I love corn. The white corn, or bi-colored corn is super tender, and oh so sweet right now that you almost want to just eat it right…
It wasn’t too long ago when I served up a fish fry, including the fried smelt, for the family. The fish fry had all of the fixings including some nice french fries, and a salted caraway bread. I love me some nice salted, caraway bread, but with that said, I had about half a loaf left over, and I knew that I did not want it to go to waste, that along with some leftover, slow cooked chicken. It’s funny how I come up with some of these recipe ideas, and I blame leftovers for the most part, and I wanted to try some cheddar I had recently purchased from Clock Shadow Creamery in Milwaukee. So as I normally do, I navigated through the pantry and refrigerator and saw that I also had a head of broccoli, and that’s when it all came together, to make an awesome sandwich.
So I had the ingredients and that is when thoughts of my loaded broccoli and cheese potato skins came into play, well, that and the restaurant that was in one of our local malls when growing up, I think it was called 1 Potato 2 or something like that where they loaded up roasted baked potatoes. I mean who doesn’t love the combination of broccoli and cheese, right?
Ingredients:
Begin by preparing all of your ingredients.
Add the broccoli florets into a large pot of boiling water, and cook for a few minutes. Once they are just tender, remove them and place them into the iced water to stop them from cooking, while at the same time retaining that great green color.
Pour out the hot broccoli water, as well as drain the cooled broccoli. Return the pot back to the stove, and place on low heat. Add in the torn chicken, the broccoli, and the cheddar cheese. Add just about a tablespoon of water just to steam and warm through that chicken while warming the cheese as well.
Heat a large skillet on medium to medium low heat. Butter the top side of each slice of bread. Add one slice of bread, butter side down, onto the skillet. Top that with one slice of American cheese. I cut the slice in half so it fits better onto the bread.
Spoon out the broccoli, cheese, and chicken mixture, and carefully add that onto the American cheese. Top that with another slice of American cheese, then top with the other slice of bread, butter side up.
Heat each side, until nice and golden. Once golden, carefully flip with a large spatula, and cook the remaining side until that is nice and golden, about 4 minutes or so per side.
I use a cast iron bacon weight on the second side, just to get everything nice and melted. I will leave that up to you if you want to go that route.
Remove, slice and serve. My wife and I totally fell in love with this sandwich. It is everything you want in an awesome broccoli and cheese pairing, and well, let’s just say that little bit of chicken and caraway bread really make it even better. I hope you enjoy.