Happy Cheeseburger Day!

Happy Cheeseburger Day!

It seems I'm looking for an excuse to have a party these days.  Any excuse.  Last Wednesday was National Cheeseburger Day!  Party time!   I had a few friends over last night and we made...wait for it...CHEESEBURGERS! 

Rule number one when it comes to entertaining, is to never try something new on your guests.  Always try it out yourself first to see if it needs tweaking before you share it with others.  I am a rule breaker!  I think it's perfectly acceptable to try something new when you have guests over.  You just need to know your guests and how flexible they are.

So last night, I had two of my favorite peeps and their awesomely well behaved teenaged kids over for dinner.  I decided to try two new things.  A recipe I made up, and a new stove top grill pan. 

I gained the inspiration for my recipe from those delicious (or disgusting for some) hot dogs with the cheese inside.  I used to love those things!  Smokey hot dogs cooked just right on the outside and delicious melted cheese on the inside.  Yum!  I made stuffed cheeseburgers.  

Ahead of time, I made two very thin patties for each serving, cut up, crumbled, sliced and shredded the ingredients and wrote everyone's name on a flat toothpick.  I gave everyone a pre-printed card with all the stuffing options.  I had them put their name on it and circle which items they wanted inside their burgers. I preheated the grill, stuffed the burgers, stuck each one with the corresponding toothpick and began the experiment!

Mistake number one.  Did you know indoor grills create smoke?  A LOT of smoke?  
Mistake number two.  Did you know said grill pan can overflow with grease, creating a really big mess?  

 

We opened all the windows and doors, turned on the fans, and invented new ways of trying to suck up hot molten grease as fast as possible.  Turns out my peeps are pretty inventive.  

Several paper towels, some aluminum foil and one melted turkey baster later, we all sat down to enjoy our individualized, stuffed cheeseburgers in a mostly smoke free environment.  We topped the night off with a cheeseburger cake I made earlier in the day.  

At the end of the day, it's not about what you eat, what you do, or how you do it...it's who you do it with.  And I'm pretty lucky to have such great friends to make the days more fun.  

Happy homemaking!

Crescent LoMonaco

The Coastal Homemaker