As I have mentioned before, we purchase a cow with some family and store our share in our freezer in the basement. It works out to $1.98 per pound for lots of tasty t-bones, porterhouses, sirloins, tenderloins, ground beef , soup bones, short ribs and roasts. Plus it is "grown" locally and the farm does not use hormones.Pre-made store bought burgers are expensive, flat and not that tasty. But they do have one thing going for them, they are convenient. For the best of both worlds, I make my own burgers using our own ground beef (it comes packaged in 1 lbs packages and we usually get about 35 pounds from our share of the cow). Here is what I do:
Two days before I plan on making the burgers, I take the meat out to thaw and put it in a dish in the refrigerator (to catch any of the juices from the meat as it thaws).
When I am ready to start, I put the meat into my stand mixer (you can easily do this by hand, so if you don't have a mixer, roll up your sleeves!).
I add various items and it always changes. I always put in some Worchestershire sauce and dried onions. You can add onion soup mix or spices like thyme, rosemary, basil or garlic (or some combination). If the meat is not holding together well, you can add an egg and some crushed saltine crackers (say 3 or so per pound). This time I had a Grill Mates free sample that I just dumped in with Worchestershire and dried onions. Tasty!
Next, you form the meat into patties. I generally use about 1/4 pound, but you can adjust it however you like. This particular time, I used 4 pounds and ended up with 17 burgers. We happen to have a burger forming thing that we received as a wedding gift and, in the interest of use it or lose it, we put it to use, but you can just make a patty using your hands, too. I put the patties on a baking sheet lined with waxed paper and set them in our freezer for about 8 hours.
Once the patties are firm, I wrap each in plastic wrap and then bag them in a freezer bag (make sure it is a freezer bag and not just a storage bag). We usually eat them up within 3 or 4 weeks.
When you are ready to use them, just take out the number you need, put them on a plate to thaw and you are good to go!
Some tasty options:
- wrap the burger around some cheese for a burger melt. Serve it with fried onions and BBQ sauce.
- add your usual meatloaf ingredients and serve with this sauce (ketchup, mustard and brown sugar combined).
- add taco seasoning to make taco burgers (just label the bag, so you know what you have). When you make the tacos, just add mexican cheese, lettuce, salsa, guacamole, whatever you like on your tacos.
- if your kids like the burgers plain, do some up separately for them (you can make them smaller, too) and mark those in the freezer.
For a side dish, make your own fries by slicing potatoes into sticks (cut them into slices and cut the slices so that you end up with fry-shaped potatoes - leave the skin on). Drizzle them with oil or spray with cooking spray (generously) and some seasoned salt. Bake at 425 for 30-40 minutes (or until crisp and golden on the outside and tender on the inside).
For a real treat, add your own homemade root beer floats!
6 comments:
What great & helpful ideas! Isn't it awesome how everyone's blogs are different and meet different needs and purposes? I'm a rather "new" blogger like you -- keep up the good work!
This sounds like a great idea. Only thing, though, I hadn't realized that you could thaw meat and then re-freeze it again without it being cooked first.
I was always thought that if it was thawed, it needed to get cooked before it could be frozen again.
Learn something new everyday!
Thanks!
Anonymous has a great point - I can do that because the meat I get from the cow has only been frozen once. Meat from the store has usually been frozen and thawed once already, so you might want to make it into burgers right away and freeze it then.
Good point!
another make ahead tip for you... we also get our own beef, I will brown about 4 or 5 pounds with a couple onions salt, pepper, garlic. then I feeze and it is ready for soups, sauces, hash etc. You never know it is frozen and saves so much time and if you take it out of the frezzer when you start preparing the rest of the meal it with thaw enough to get out of the bag. I also make it strech this way too. If I cook 4 pounds I freeze it in 6 bags and use that helping insead of a lb in recipes so it is like getting meat for two meals free :)
I do the same thing with our store bought ground beef.
I buy it in family packs and portion it out the day I buy it. I make 20 or so patties and lay them out on cookie sheets to freeze like you do. I wrap to frozen patties in tinfoil and stack them in the deep freezer. Perfect portion control for my family. Also, we cook our patties still frozen. That way when we grill them, there isn't all that grease flare up. It also helps when Mom forgets to take something out of the freezer for dinner.
I also brown up 5 pounds of ground beef that day. Then I put it in small zip bags. My family won't go meatless, but they don't complain when I put very little beef in the pasta, chili, etc.
I do something similar but if you have an "indoor grill" like a George Foreman or a GE that gets hot on both sides. You don't have to wait for them to thaw. Just put them on the preheated grill and wait about 10-15 minutes until they are done to your liking.
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