Inside out burger

  A few years ago I was watching an episode of Steven Raichlen's grilling show, I don't recall which one it was, when he fixed an inside out burger and I've wanted to try it ever since. Well I finally got around to fixing it and my first attempt was a bit of a flop. The problem was that I put to much cheese into to little meat, which led to all the cheese to melt and then drain out leaving an empty cavity in it's place. I will be attempting this again at some point and will be sure to try and correct my earlier mistakes.

  The recipe is from allrecipes.com and is for a burger by the name of Jucy Lucy or Juicy Lucy. Now I will be honest I have no idea the history of the name or the idea, but it definitely makes for a great burger.

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
3/4 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
4 slices American cheese (such as Kraft®)
4 hamburger buns, split

Directions

1.Combine ground beef, Worcestershire sauce, garlic salt, and pepper in a large bowl; mix well. Form 8, thin patties from the beef. Each patty should be slightly larger than a slice of cheese.
2. Cut each slice of American cheese into 4 equal pieces; stack the pieces. Sandwich one stack of cheese between 2 ground beef patties. Tightly pinch edges together tightly seal the cheese within the meat. Repeat with the remaining cheese and patties.
3. Preheat a cast-iron or other heavy bottomed skillet over medium heat. Cook burgers until well browned, about 4 minutes. It is common for burgers to puff up due to steam from the melting cheese. Turn burgers and prick the top of each to allow steam to escape; cook until browned on the outside and no longer pink on the inside; about 4 minutes. Serve on hamburger buns.

Pizza

This is a twist of a recipe that I found in the Deceptively Delicious cook book. I’m sure I sound like a representative for her, but I’m not, my cooking decisions have been directed at finding good nutritious foods for my little girl. I do plan on branching out, I promise. Anyways, the original recipe was for Pita Pizzas and they were a big hit with the family. But making three to four personal pan size pizzas for dinner seems like a lot of work, and I don’t always have the room to cook them all at once. With that in mind I decided to make a large pizza, taking Jessica’s idea and applying it on a new scale, something I greatly enjoyed and look forward to doing again in the future. I don’t have time or the skills to make my own pizza dough, though I do plan on acquiring them at some point, when life slows down. Which is why I usually buy the prebaked wheat pizza crusts from the store, it’s healthier, quicker, and easier than making it. I also choose to cook the pizza on my gas grill, which simply gives you a crunchier crust and if you use a charcoal grill you will get that wonderful brick oven flavor. If you plan on doing this, you will want to look into some sort of pizza pan or a pizza stone. I have the pan, and it’s got a bunch of holes in it and it does a decent enough job. If you would like a picture of it let me know. Now, grill set up is pretty simple, you’ll want to do indirect cooking so simply shove the coals off to each side of the grill with a large alluminum baking pan in the center of the charcoal grate, and put the pizza in the center on the cooking grate. In a gas grill it works better if you have a grill that has multiple controllable burners, if so light the burners not directly under the pizza. You can even add, to both grills, wood chips for a little smokier flavor.

8 (4-inche) whole-wheat pita pockets (or use a one large whole wheat pizza crust)
½ cup spinach puree (any vegetable will work, I have used both and the thicker the puree the better)
2 cup bottled tomato sauce
2 cups thinly slice part-skin mozzarella

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees (in this case the grill)
2. Spread the spinach puree on each pita so that the spinach comes to within about ½ inch of the edge. Spread the sauce over the spinach; it should cover the spinach and come to within about ¼ inch of the edge of the pita. Now lay the cheese over the sauce, covering any place where the green comes through.
3. Place the pizzas on a foil-lined baking sheet and bake until the cheese melts and begins to brown, 5 to 10 minutes. Let the pizzas cool 5 minutes before serving so the cheese cools and doesn’t pull off (and the spinach stays completely invisible, well almost)