National Burger Day

It was National Burger Day on Thursday... and we missed it. For some reason when we were doing meal planning we thought it was on Friday and so we celebrated it a day late. But boy did we celebrate it! We used locally sourced beef, my daughter and I made pickles, and I made slaw and homemade hamburger buns. It was a friends birthday and so we enjoyed this feast and had a socially distancing picnic in our back yard and then enjoyed a drive-in movie.

My first project was making the pickles. I looked at several recipes for overnight refrigerator pickles and came up up with my own version.

Ingredients

1 bunch of fresh dill sprigs/ or a generous sprinkle of dry dill

4 garlic cloves minced

2 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes (I just used a couple of packets of red pepper flakes that I got with my last pizza delivery.)

1 small chopped onion

3 cucumbers, sliced (I just used the standard cucumbers rather than buying cucumbers that were specifically for pickling.)

3 cups water

1 1/2 cup white vinegar

2 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoons salt

black pepper, to taste

Sliced jalapeño peppers and sweet peppers and any other fresh herbs you think would complement the pickles (I had some fresh basil on hand)

Instructions

Place dill, garlic, red pepper flakes, fresh peppers, fresh herbs and onion in a large mason jar and then fill the jar to top with cucumbers.

Meanwhile, place the water, vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper in a saucepan over high heat. Whisk until the mixture comes to a boil. Pour hot liquid over cucumbers. Cool slightly, then refrigerate overnight.

As for the buns I used the 40-minute Hamburger bun recipe. The texture wasn't as light and airy as I normally like in a hamburger bun... but they were super fast and much better than your average store bought buns.

For the slaw I used a ramen coleslaw recipe from allrecipes.com. It was pretty good. I didn't have almonds so I used walnuts. I also substituted white onion for the green onion and added red bell pepper for a little color and crunch.

After this fabulous meal we enjoyed a drive-in movie. The perfect ending to a wonderful day.