Huzzah for Hamburgers!

You could make a package of ground lean beef or bison into meat loaf, but then you’d have to heat up the oven. and the weather is seldom cool enough for that yet. You could grill the meat at a picnic as burger filling. But evenings have cooled off quite a bit, and we’ve even had some showers and rainy nights as I write this for you to read near the end of August.  Can you remember  back from present global warming to when we sometimes got frosty morning in late August?

It is cool enough now to cook in my kitchen. The other night for my grandson James and me, I made hamburgers like these, using half a pound of the leanest ground, grass-finished beef. You could use ground bison, turkey, or chicken.

 Beef or Bison Burgers
        Makes 3 or 4
½ lb leanest ground beef or bison meat
1 teaspoon salt or to taste
1/3 teaspoon coarse-ground black pepper
1 teaspoon finely minced garlic or ½ teaspoon garlic granules
½ teaspoon crumbled sage
1 teaspoon dried crumbled oregano or 1 Tablespoon fresh oregano leaves
¼ cup water or ¼ cup each water and burgundy wine
Mix well with fork or wooden spoon.
Add
½ cup oatbran
¼ cup olive oil or bacon grease

Mix in the oatbran. Heat the oil or grease in a wide skillet. With a heaping tablespoon put blobs of meat mixture in the hot pan. Gently, though. You don’t want grease to splatter and burn you.  Flatten and shape to the size of your hamburger buns.

Cook on medium high until browned on underside. Flip. Reduce heat. Cook on, until there’s no pink left inside any of the meat patties. An instant read thermometer should come up to 170 degrees. This is to insure that all the bacteria the meat picked up in being ground and worked with  by butchers and cook get fried or grilled to death.

To assemble the burgers, tear off the top three or four inches of as many dark great or “red” lettuce leaves as you have buns. Cut the same number of beefsteak tomato slices.  Assemble mustard, ketchup, mayo, a small dish of sliced pickles, a platter of cooked meat patties, another of big tomato slices and lettuce leaves, and another of halved whole-grain hamburger buns.

Let each diner assemble his or her own hamburgers, choosing the accessory ingredients of their desiring.
If it’s a warm enough evening to grill the burger patties outside, enjoy  them in the fresh air. If the weather turns cold or rainy, serve them indoors as an easy buffet supper. For desert may I suggest diced nectarines, peaches, or blueberries with spray-on whipped cream or raspberry or strawberry ice cream decadently drizzled with melted bittersweet chocolate? (If uninterested in gaining weight, you might skip the dessert except for the fruit.)