This fourth of July, my family celebrated our independence with a good ole fashioned grill out and a day long marathon of The Twilight Zone (courtesy of Syfy network). As with any good grill out we made hand-formed burgers, grilled veggies and a cake. Now, you may not think this seems like a very fussy celebration, and to be honest I didn't think so either! So I decided to jazz up our burgers Paula Deen style y'all and add a little (OK a lot of...) butter to the patties, stuffed 'em with some American Cheese and turned an OK American classic into a show-stopping, moist, and delicious super burger that would knock anyone's socks off from sea to shining sea...But don't think that's the end of my festive food frenzy, no ma'am! I fancied up our boring little cake and transformed it into a deliciously fresh and oh so sweet ode to Betsy Ross's finest work. So strike up a chorus of America The Beautiful, say a thanks to our troops and read along for a delicious and easy way to celebrate our nations independence!
For the burgers, don't you be thinking I was kidding when I say I added butter and stuffed those bad boys with cheese because I'm as serious as a heart attack (and if you're not careful, you may just get one from these burgers!)
What you'll need:
1 1/2 lbs ground chuck
4+ slices of American cheese (I prefer Boars Head brand but you can use what ever is available, after all, its still cheese)!
6 Tbs room temperature salted butter (cut into small cubes)
splash of garlic powder
pinch of onion powder
dash of Italian herb seasoning
Take your ground chuck in a large mixing bowl and add your spices to taste. I prefer to use the ground chuck because its a lot more lean than other ground beef so it doesn't shrivel up and lose as much size in the process of grilling. After you have incorporated the spices, add all of the room temperature butter into the ground beef and combine until most of the butter is incorporated. Form the mixture into large meatballs then make an indentation in the middle and put one slice of cheese in the indentation and close the cheese in the middle, flatten into desired thickness and shape for your patties, then grill. This should yield about 4 large patties. Put the burgers onto a nice soft bun and top with grilled veggies and enjoy the moist, buttery, and cheesy taste!
For the cake I just made a regular store-bought cake mix according to the instructions on the box and let cool on top of the oven for a good hour or more. While the batter was in the oven I took one package of fresh strawberries and sliced them and put them into a Tupperware container with fresh blueberries and sprinkled them with about 1/2-3/4 c. sugar and stirred the fruit to coat. I put this into the fridge for the remaining time of the baking and cooling process. Adding the sugar to the berries and cooling them will make a really sweet and fruity syrup because the juice from the strawberries will moisten the sugar and make some delicious magic happen. :) Once the cake is cool enough, I frost it in the pan with store brand vanilla frosting then add the berry and sugar mixture on top. This simple fix to an ordinary cake is perfect for a summertime celebration and perfect for being festive and fun and will always be a holiday favorite!
Hope you've enjoyed reading today's easy and festive twists on old favorites! I know you will enjoy trying them out for your next get together! As always thank you for reading and pass it along if you've had as much fun reading as I have writing. If you have any family favorites, classic crowd pleasers, or inventive solutions give me shout, I would love to try out and add some new recipes to my cookbook! :)
thank you food network for letting me steal your ideas! for full recipe go to
Cool post. Your cake looks awesome on facebook ;)
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