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.

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!

St. Patty's Melt

A touch of green for ole St. Patty

In honor of St. Patty's Day, we present to you the St. Patty's Melt.  We are Irish after all, and it's fun to indulge in random holidays, so we racked our brain until we came up with this gem.  It is your basic patty melt minus the rye bread (because it's gross).  We substituted this amazing texas toast instead.

1" thick per slice.  140 calories per slice.  Yep, glad I only ate a piece of lettuce so far today.

We also added some lettuce because we felt some green needed to be in a St. Patty's Day burger.  Not traditional, but essential because all things St. Patty's day related must be green.  I hope you are wearing green right now and enjoying a tasty green beer.  For this grand occasion, we are planning on watching the UK game and drinking some of the homemade green skittle-infused vodka that we made earlier this week.  All in the name of St. Patrick, of course! 

Now let's get down to business, here's the low down on the patty melt:

St. Patty's Melt

The Burger:

Ground beef 80:20

Garlic powder

Salt and pepper to taste

The Toppings:

Aged swiss cheese

Caramelized onions (see below)

Thousand island dressing

Bibb lettuce

The Bun:

Texas toast

Butter

Money shot.  You know you want it.

Now let's talk about the onions.  They do take a little bit of time to cook, but it's so worth it.  The pungent raw flavor of the onions is transformed into sweet golden love.  These onions could compliment any burger and will be gracing our table many more times in the future.  They are simple to make; slice half an onion, toss the separated rings into a skillet with a drizzle of olive oil and a tablespoon of butter, and then you wait.  Go watch your DVR.  Put together a puzzle.  Play drinking games with your crazy neighbor.  Whatever you want to do, just leave the onions to do their own magic.  And hey, maybe you can be entertained for 25 minutes while they cook.

Here are the onions at ~5 mins

About 25 minutes later, you have delicious, golden, sugary onions.

 The Verdict:


Tyler's Take:
4 out of 10


This burger was super delicious in theory but overall disappointed me so I don't feel right giving it a very good score this week.  I do love a good patty melt and maybe it's that we are trying to do things a little healthier but it just didn't remind me of a good small town mom and pop cafe patty melt that many of us love so much.  There were some good points but overall I think our troubles with it far outweighed the tasty pieces.

Here is my dish on this burger.  I'll start with the not so great pieces and leave the best for last.  Mom always told me to save the best for last and I figure I may as well heed her advice.  Lets start with the texas toast.  This is a delicious concept that unfortunately turned out to just be too much.  Taking off the edges would have made this problem a little better but I do love all of the texas toast so I couldn't just take part of it off.  As I am sure you know, getting away from the outside of the bread leaves a thinner buttery bread piece that fits this burger much better.  So, it didn't completely disappoint but like I said the amount of good did not quite outweigh the bad.

The patty also became a problem.  The meat was left out all day to thaw and didn't quite get there so we had to defrost a little bit in the microwave, so the patties were already falling apart on us.  All you grilling enthusiasts out there now realize that we could not grill it effectively and had to resort to pan frying it.  This is not an equal alternative and it showed.  The meat was not near as amazing as last week's burger.  But, many things would not be able to top the juiciness of the inaugural burger.

The rest of the burger was really pretty good.  The lettuce, onion, and swiss made a very good combination and would have complimented a grilled burger on top of more regular buttered toast.  We will have many more opportunities to try and perfect the melt but we may need to take this one all the way back to the drawing board.  Hope you all found time to enjoy the inaugural and all is not lost this week, patty melts are amazing and I feel an amazing new burger on the horizon for next week.  I would spoil our ideas, but where would be the fun in that?


Courtney's Take:
7 out of 10


In all honesty, I'm not sure this burger really deserves a 7 out of 10.  It could have been executed better.  The bread could have not been so...thick.  But, I really like the concept of this burger.  It had so many good elements.

I'll begin with the burger itself--not my favorite.  I accidentally defrosted the meat too long in the microwave and when I pulled it out, some of it was already cooked.  I had to form the patties as best I could, and I knew that they would fall to bits if we put them on the grill as originally planned.  So, we had to put them in a pan and cook them stovetop.  I have never been a fan of fried burgers.  They just taste like a big mound of meat and not like a juicy delicious burger.  If I wanted a meat loaf, I would have baked one.  Sheesh.  (Next time, don't forget to put the meat out to thaw the night before!)

On to the toppings, which were delicious.  The caramelized onions...well, you already know how I feel about those.  I believe the words "love" and "magic" have already been used, so I will spare you of that. The thousand island was a nice touch, too.  It was tangy and sweet and played well with the rest of the ingredients.  The lettuce, eh.  It's lettuce.  It was only on there to add some greenery.  I did like the swiss cheese.  Because it was aged, it had a nuttier flavor than it's non-aged cousin.  I am looking forward to using this cheese on my sandwiches for the next week :)

The bun....well, frankly it was too much.  The toast slices were massive.  Each slice was the size of a burger.  I ended up peeling the crusts off the bread so I could actually fit the burger into my mouth.  I toasted the bread in the pan with some butter and the drippings from the burgers.  Just one piece of the toast would have been enough.  We will stick to using texas toast for what it makes best--garlic bread.

There are many improvements that could be made to this burger.  However, the concept is there and I urge you to try making your own patty melt.  Use regular bread and definitely grill your burger.  You do that, and you will have a mouthwatering St. Patty's Melt of your very own.

The Inaugural Burger

To kick off our burger journey, we decided to make a burger with ingredients we had in the fridge.  Gotta be creative, right?  Plus, we are mere twenty-somethings with little cash to spare on expensive ingredients, so this is what we have!

The Inaugural Burger

The burger:
Ground angus beef
Worcestershire sauce
Garlic powder
Onion powder
Salt and pepper to taste

The toppings:
Asiago cheese slices
Grilled red onion slices
Sauteed mushrooms
Mustard
Lettuce

The bun:
Artisan hamburger bun

Juicy deliciousness.

                                                                   Yeah.  We liked it.

                                                            
                                         Here's Tyler eating the tasty Inaugural burger!

The Verdict:
Tyler's Take:
5.5 out of 10 


I think for my takes I will start out with a rating of the burgers that we eat.  This seems to make sense to me and as of right now I have no real idea of how we are going to rate this so here goes nothing.  Presentation was pretty good as you all can tell.  Looked like a very good burger, and for at least once I cooked it proper, with just a little pink showing through the middle.  This made for a pretty juicy burger that had a good texture and just fell apart in your mouth.  I could definitely taste the asiago cheese and unfortunately this round I feel like it took over the mushrooms and onions just a little too much.  It took away from the overall taste because I couldn't make out the mushrooms and onions all that well.  If you like mushrooms however, I feel it is always best to keep them pretty much solo on a patty as many things can over power a cooked mushroom.  I figured a 5.5 was sufficient for the fact that we have nothing to compare anything to as of yet.  It was a good burger overall but improvements can be made.  On to the next I say!!

I will try to make some grilling tips as I find them out myself along the way as well.  If you have not used much in the way of worcestershire sauce or any other liquid while forming patties and then grilling them, then you may not know to leave them on the grill for a few minutes before even attempting to flip. If you touch them too early they will most likely fall apart on you.  Make sure before you flip that the side on the grill is cooked enough to be firm.  You will need the firmness in order to pick it off the grill.

Courtney's Take:
6 out of 10


I have made many burgers in my day, and for the first burger, this one is average.  The toppings were somewhat thrown together from things we had in the fridge, so they didn't mesh in the best way.  Eh, I have some things to learn.

I am always a fan of grilled onions, so I really enjoyed that aspect.  However, what really stood out about this burger was the meat.  The patties were formed well, not too packed together, and were grilled perfectly (props to Tyler).  The worcestershire sauce enhanced the flavor of the meat, and I basically wanted to gobble it up as fast as was humanly possible.  The next burger we make could easily be made using this same patty--definitely a winner in my book.

The asiago cheese would be better placed on an Italian-style burger.  I had never had asiago before, and I found it to be very strong and similar to parmesan.  A good cheese, but better placed on a burger with some stronger flavors and not ones that can be easily masked like the mushrooms.  I also felt like this burger was lacking some type of sauce, something to make the burger more juicy.  I have some habanero pineapple salsa that is just itching to get out of the fridge...next burger, perhaps?

Meat Us

Welcome to the site dedicated to our adventures into the world of burgerdom. 

First off, let us introduce ourselves.  Our names are Tyler and Courtney and the name of our blog as you probably now realize is a combination of our names.  Our friends decided to create nicknames for all the couples that we usually hang out with, thus the name "Tyney."  We are from the great state of Kentucky (GO CATS!!!) and enjoy eating a good burger every now and again.  So, the better half, Courtney, decided why not blog about it.  Tyler is here to enjoy the tasty creations and provide some expert opinion while also manning the grill, while Courtney is the creative genius behind the innovative recipes that are sure to come.

Our ultimate quest is just beginning and we are looking forward to sharing our soon to be infamous burger recipes with you.  Until next time, happy burgering!!