Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Breakfast Bonanza!



Ever since Tyler came up with the idea for this burger, I have been chomping at the bit to assemble it.  I mean, what is better than breakfast?  It's my favorite meal, as it undoubtedly includes bacon as one of it's main constituents.  In fact, my favorite day is Sunday, because I know that it always includes a big breakfast after church (thanks Barb and Dennis!).  I love breakfast so much I wish that I came up for the idea for this burger.  However, I give all the credit to Tyler.    

As I am typing this, I just asked Tyler how he got the idea for this burger, and he said, I quote, "It came to me through the mist like excalibur, thrust upon me by the lady of the lake, crowning me king of the burger."  Yeah.  That's my boyfriend.  Wouldn't trade him for anything :)

I urge you to make this now--it is so very tasty.  It has all the awesome things about breakfast wrapped into one tasty burger.  So, go on....what are you waiting for?


Look at the grease pooling on the top of the sausage patty.  Perfect for soaking into the waffle bun.


I probably would've been okay with just this.


Tater tots are the perfect companion to a tasty breakfast burger.




Drool.

Breakfast Bonanza

The Burger:
Hot pork sausage (we used Tennessee Pride)

The Toppings:
2 slices of fried bacon
Fried egg cooked in bacon drippings
American cheese slice
Maple mayo
        *I mixed 1 tbs of mayo with 1 tsp pure maple syrup
Extra syrup for dipping

The Bun:
2 waffles

The Verdict:

Tyler's Take:
9.485 out of 10

I just ate a breakfast while simultaneously eating a burger, and subsequently blowing my mind!!!  I am still in shock with what just happened to me, and am still confident that I don't understand the experience I just had.  I literally may have just transcended onto a whole new plane of existence.

Ok I will be a little less exaggeratory but it was freakin' delicious.  Probably one of the greatest ideas I may have ever had.  I figured that while we were thinking outside the proverbial "burger box" I would also give it an outside the box score.  .485 because it would be awesome for my fantasy baseball team to put these kind of batting averages up from day to day.  However, I digress, and back to the burgering.

Utilizing hot sausage was a fantastic idea and it meshed well with the maple syrup.  The sweet and spicy breakfast note really puts a nice touch on the whole thing.  The bacon I personally felt was good but a little redundant with the sausage.  But, that is just me, I know Courtney believes it made the burger since she really does have some weird love obsession with the bacony part of the pig.  The egg however was delicious and cooked over hard in bacon grease.  Probably too much grease for me as well, we didn't drain the grease out first so it was a little soggy but if that is the worse thing we ever do I will be OK with that.  Did I also mention that the syrup and waffle outer layer were phenomenal?  Who doesn't like all their favorite breakfast foods put together and topped with syrup?  If you don't then you should just go find another blog because you're ridiculous.

The one potential downfall is that this is a once in a blue moon type burger.  The caloric intake derived from this meal would be anything but healthy I am sure.  Good thing I have a super high metabolism still and these nutritionally unsound meals don't affect me too much.  Totally worth it though, and I am glad I was bad this evening.

Other than that, go out and have a big helping of breakfast in a burger and just enjoy life for a little while.  Go ahead readers, you know you want to.

Courtney's Take:
9.5 out of 10

All I can say about this burger is YUM.  It was everything that I wanted out of "breakfast for dinner" and exceeded all expectations.  It was breakfast at it's finest; it's what all breakfast's should aspire to be.  Little sausage biscuits want to grow up and be just like this burger.  

I had thought about adding beef to the sausage patty to make it more burger-like, but I'm glad I didn't.  The sausage patty was super juicy all on it's own and had a great texture.  The bacon was of course a great addition, and the fried egg only carried on the bacon-y flavor, as it was fried up in the bacon grease.  I'm a country girl at heart, okay?

 Tyler doubted me when I said that we should use American cheese, but I always use it on my breakfast sandwiches that I sometimes make before work.  I normally snub my nose at American cheese when I'm trying to be more gourmet, but this cheese just worked.  It was salty and melted perfectly into the bottom waffle.  I initially thought that the two giant waffles would be too much bread (like the texas toast fiasco), but we doused the waffles in additional syrup and it was amazing.  Last, but certainly not least, is the maple mayo.  I must admit that I ripped this off of a food network show that I was watching the other day.  It was on a breakfast hotdog, and I was intrigued.  It was so tasty!  The mayo added a layer of creaminess and the maple flavor really shined.  Definitely a must-have condiment on this burger.

Of course we served this burger with tater tots.  What goes better with a breakfast burger than poppable potato bites?  Um, nothing.  Only tots will do.  I guess you could use hashbrowns, but they're just not as fun.  But you know what is even more fun?  Eating this burger.  In fact, I wish I had another one to eat right now.  Wait.  Maybe tomorrow I could eat it.  I am so full right now that my pants are literally busting at the seams.  And to think that I ate pretty healthy today...sigh.



Tuesday, April 12, 2011

J2-L Burger (Jalapeno Juicy Lucy)

Hey everyone!  Sorry we have been M.I.A. lately, but we have been going through some changes.  Tyler has moved into a new bachelor pad with a couple of friends and things have gotten CRAZY!!! Courtney has been going through a gawd awful rotation at school, neurology (blah), and Tyler has been hip deep in accounting homework/quizzes/tests.  These things have kept us away from our quest.  However, we are back in business and now present to you the J2-L Burger.



The J2-L burger stands for "Jalapeno Juicy Lucy."  If you don't know what a juicy lucy is, shame on you.  You have been missing out.  For those of you uniformed, a juicy lucy is a burger stuffed with ooey gooey molten cheese.  In our case, we stuffed our lovely burger with sharp cheddar cheese.  We had to let it cool a bit for fear of burning our tongues and chins, which I believe was a wise choice on our part.  Lest we go to work tomorrow with a burnt chin and having to explain that...



Spicy and sweet, the perfect combination.

I only wish that we had a picture of the flowing cheese that spewed forth from the burgers.  Alas, my friends, I will be sure to photograph the cheese up close and personal with the next burger.  Hopefully it will not be a month before we post again, so expect to drool soon.

J2-L Burger

The Burger:
Angus beef 80:20
Diced jalapenos
Sharp cheddar cheese slice
Garlic powder
Salt and pepper

*To stuff the cheese in the patty,take the patty and divide it in half, and pat out the two halves. Fold the cheese into fourths and stacked it up on one patty and topped it with the other patty.  Then seal the two patty halves together around the cheese stack.  Be sure to seal it up tight or the cheese will leak out!

The Toppings:
Grilled jalapenos
Fried bacon slices
Mayo
Habanero pineapple sauce
Hot sauce
Ranch dressing

The Bun:
Toasted white bun

The Verdict:


Tyler's Take:
6.5 out of 10


I am just going to start out with the fact that I love jalapenos.   I also love burgers.  When you put these two things together you have a delicious combination of oh so good-ness.  Some of you out there in cyber space may be afraid of a little jalapeno being that it produces a fair amount of scoville units, a measurement of heat within food, but this is what I love about this burger.  I have always enjoyed the heat produced by the vast array of peppers out there and a good jalapeno produces just enough bite to make things interesting.  However, for whatever reason I am beginning to believe that central KY is the worst place in the entire world to get jalapenos.  They just never are hot enough around here for me most of the time.  Every now and again you get a burner but for the most part they are not as hot as I wish they were.  However, I digress, step off of my soap box, and set it out on the curb to be picked up by the trash man.  Back to the burger...

I enjoyed the make up of the burger for the vast majority.  The main drawback was the sealing.  A good amount of the cheese was lost during the grilling process which was by all means terrible.  I do not believe that either of us know exactly what happened but we will need a better sealing next time we try a juicy lucy.  I also believe the burger meat itself needed a little more spicing, possibly some paprika to kick the spice up some more.  I will discuss this with The Misses for future spicy burgers.  The jalapeno chopped into the burger was good and I enjoyed that subtlety very much, and was glad that we grilled some to put on top.  The bacon was largely missed from the taste though, which is always sad, so next time we will be sure to not be stingy on the bacon.  I was not sure it was a perfect fit for this type of burger but after eating the burger I think it would have made a welcome addition if it had just "shown up" for me a little more.

Overall all I appreciated the heat but it unfortunately was seriously lacking.  The cheese took a hit on the grill but it still came together overall pretty well for me.  There are several things to improve upon as discussed but with these few changes I think this could be a very spicy and amazing burger to chow down on again.


Courtney's Take:
4 out of 10


I have been preparing to eat this burger for weeks now.  We bought the jalapenos, cheddar, and bacon and were fully prepared to make our next burger, but then we just got so busy.  Life can get in the way sometimes, aka neurology can get in the way of making and eating tasty burgers.  Next month I will be on psychology, so there should be no problem with pumping out new recipes more than once a month.

This burger was just sub-par for me.  The meat wasn't very juicy and all the cheese seemed to seep out of the burger while it was on the grill.  Therefore, it wasn't even a juicy lucy at all!  I did like the jalapeno diced in the burger and the grilled jalapeno on top.  The bacon got lost in the mix of it all, which was very sad, as everyone that knows me knows that I have a love affair with bacon.

We took a different approach with this burger as we used different sauces.  I used the habanero pineapple sauce and mayo, whereas Tyler used a spicy ranch sauce (ranch and hot sauce).  I liked the sauces on mine, though the sweet was somewhat overpowering.  Definitely use less of that next time...

Overall, it has room for improvement.  I do agree with Tyler that the spice factor could definitely be bumped up, and the cheese must be trapped inside the patty so it will flow out when I sink my teeth into it.  You know, I want to have to explain that burn on my chin the next time I make a juicy lucy.  Then all my colleagues would be super jealous that they didn't have a mark on their chin from a delicious cheeseburger, and they would promptly run out and make their own, just like you should!