Day Three Hundred and Sixteen - Orgasmic Onion Burgers

Dear all,

We are experiencing a balmy 11 degrees today and to celebrate Darren and I got out Ted's Burger book and got cracking on a new and interesting burger!

I couldn't believe that we hadn't tried this burger before: it's the Orgasmic Onion burger, using our favorite seasoning, Orgasmic Onion! We have used since we found the recipe, ( 3 *large*batches) that I had to make a fourth in order to crack on with the recipe. It is by far, one of the best, all round seasonings you can have in your kitchen and I would recommend it to everyone.

Ted called for a 'port wine gravy' to be used on the burgers so I got to work reducing some beef stock while simultaneously making a red wine reduction with onions, garlic, thyme and a bay leaf. It smelt fantastic!

I mixed in 1/2 cup of Orgasmic Onion (i.e. a lot)to around one pound of beef and let it sit for a while in the fridge.

Once the red wine reduction had bubbled away for around half the size, I poured in the beef stock and let them both simmer down until it formed a gorgeously rich gravy.

In the meantime, I had put the burgers in our cast iron pan and let them cook away for about 15 minutes.

I quickly made up some mini roast potatoes by par-boiling some mini red potatoes and then putting them in the oven for doused in olive oil and (woops) some lard.

the result was wonderful! they were great burgers; spicy and succulent. Another brilliant recipe from our favorite BBQ master, ted!

And in other news:

1. I have been making more Muffins from Mary Lous cookbook, this time ' Sunny Cranberry Muffins'.

It involves a lot or orange zest and [of course] cranberries..

And a whole can of evaporated milk. Very good for the soul.

They turned out great and sent in a load into work with Darren (we can't eat 24).

I also cooked up a banana tea bread from the 'Hookery Cookery' website (!?!) with a couple of spare bananas and (again) some orange zest. Unfortunately, during dis-embarkment, the core of the bread fell out onto the board so it now resembles a Banana 'pie' but it tastes great!
http://www.hookerycookery.com/banana24.htm

** Mutter, don't look at the oven. I'll clean it later.