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Friday, August 13, 2010

Skillet Cheeseburger and Oven-Baked Fries


A simple cheeseburger made just to have some extremely addictive Oven-Baked Fries!

I went to my local Target, now a SuperTarget, after work in hopes of finding something that sounded good to have for dinner. No luck.

When ready to cross the lot to my truck, I decided to make a quick swing into Henry's Market. I smelled meat grilling in the air and did not want to eat fast food so made a last-ditch effort to prevent my truck going into a drive-thru.

I wandered the store and nothing sounded reasonable as far as time or taste was concerned. Until I saw that ground beef was on sale for $1.99/lb. Normally, I buy ground beef for $2.49/lb at Costco. And I had a potato at home...fries sounded really good. Burger and fries? Oh most definitely.


I swung through the fresh bread section and snagged a bag of buns.


Then a tomato.

At home, I divided the beef into Ziploc freezer bags and saved enough to make a couple thin large patties, generously salted and peppered.


Taking turns, each patty was fried in a hot cast-iron skillet. First on one side taking care not to press on the patty (that'll only force the juices out and I wanted a moist burger!). Once the top of the patty was nearly covered in a pool of red juices and the edges browned, the patty was flipped.


Immediately the second patty was carefully covered in highly-expensive cheese. The first patty was allowed to cool and then refrigerated for lunch.

Meanwhile a bun was split open and allowed to broil until nicely browned.


The bun was dressed with ketchup, mustard, diced onion, pickle, mayo, lettuce and the fresh tomato before the cheesy beef was placed smack in the middle.


Mmm. Oh yeah, good, really good with the fries*. So, so very glad I didn't give in to the drive thru. Mmm. Yeah.

Cost:

  • beef: $0.40
  • bun: $0.37
  • fixin's: $0.50
Total: $1.27 for the burger; $0.15 for the fries. Dinner tonight? $1.42!

*The first time I made fries for one, I used one Russet potato and a too large baking sheet, resulting in too-baked fries. This time, I used one Russet potato in a 7x11" baking dish and they came out perfectly!

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