Blueberry Picking and Burgers!

Well, a cool front swooshed in from the West last night and brought with it an amazing thunderstorm and cooler temps, so it was off to Apple Hills we went to pick blueberries. I haven't been there in two years and I was surprised by the price increase, $1.89/lb to pick your own. I know I sound old, but I remember when we picked them for $.99/lb. Whatever, it's an activity, and they don't weigh the pickers before and after, so I'm sure we brought home our fairs share in our bellies!

After 2 hours of blueberry picking, I thought a substantial lunch would be appreciated, so I flipped to the Hearty Ass Sandwiches section of SBK for my options. That is where I found the recipes for California Burgers and Bacon and Caramelized Onion Cheesebburgers with Agave-Dijon. With only myself and my kidlets as taste testers, I was feeling lucky.

In addition to assembling the burgers, I also had to make Thousand Island Dressing, SBK page 152 to top off the California Burger.

I used MorningStar Farms Prime Griller vegan burgers and LightLife Smart Bacon for these recipes. I found it was easy to make 4 burgers in one big non-stick fry pan. Start the onions to caremelizing first, push them to the side of the pan after they are translucent, do bacon next and pile it on top of carmelizing onions, and then do the burgers for their own 8 minutes. By the time the burgers are done the onions are pretty well carmelized.

Since we were lunching AND taste testing, I made one burger of each recipe, cut them in halves and then we experimented with combinations on the other burgers.

10 year old: Tasted and loved everything, especially any burger with bacon on it. He even tried the California Burger complete with sprouts. I think he was just trying to make me happy! He said that the burgers tasted like what you get at Vestal Hills Country Club, ig. they included more than ketchup. 10 year old gobbled down two whole burgers before lunch was over.

14 year old: Didn't like that there was sauce involved. Yup, there was homemade Thousand Island on the California Burger and homemade Agave Dijon on the Carmelized Onion Burger. "I just want a plain burger" was heard by the whole neighborhood. Fine. So, how did you like your burger? "I didn't like it; it was dry." Uh-huh, thanks, teenager.

43 year old: Loved them all, including our own creation of burger with avocado, tomato, bacon ,vegan Jack cheese and either dipping sauce. I could have bathed myself in the dipping sauces they were both so good! I tell yah, once you make a dressing or dip from scratch, forget about buying a bottle off the shelf at Wegmans. Homemade is so much more flavorful. The Thousand Island Dressing has a little kick from the cayenne that makes it special and not sooo sweet as store bought dressing.

Purse alert: Thinking about $ again, I realized that I was using a lot of the same ingredients throughout the week. The single can of tomato paste from the Pizza Sauce was put in the frig and used again for the Spaghetti Sauce and then finished for the Thousand Island Dressing. If I plan well enough, nothing goes to waste. The vegan Jack cheese that was opened for these burgers is expensive! But, if I make the Veggie Enchiladas and a Quesadilla this weekend, I will use the whole thing and not waste any. I can deal with that!

I'm sort of thinking of this food lifestyle as a game. I'm lucky that I have the time to experiment and plan right now because it is summer. Hopefully, by the time school starts I will have a few "favorites" under my belt that I can count on, and also continue to make more SB recipes with my new SB pantry items.


Current Count: 9 recipes completed