Thursday, January 24, 2013

My Toddler loves Hamburgers

You know, I'm not really sure the right definition of toddler.
Maybe 2 1/2 years old is no longer a toddler? 
Oh well, that's the title!

I've recently learned the easiest way for me to make a bunch of hamburgers at one time.

This lesson was due to: Jasmine's love of hamburgers, and her tendency to go through random spurts of time where she only wants to eat one kind of food.
If I make up a bunch of hamburgers and freeze them, life is pretty simple when it comes time for her random hamburger cravings.

At first I tried to make a bunch and cook them on the stove top. But it took forever, I had to stand there watching them the whole time (which meant Blake needed to be home to watch the girls) and I ended up getting the grease to smoke after cooking for a while (so we were trying to fan it out the door to save ourselves from the fire alarm).

Then I decided to try baking them.
Awesome!

It takes a while for them to bake, but its not hands on time.
Only the forming of the patties is. (Which I do when you girls sleep.)

So apparently when you bake hamburgers you have to add liquid so they don't get all dry and chewy. 
And I guess, then they are technically called Salisbury Steak -- huh! I had no idea!

A lot of people add cream soup -- but for Jasmine's no dairy issues I came up with this.

You can use onion soup, which I cheat slave away making from "scratch" and just use:
Some water, beef bullion (or beef bullion paste) and onion powder all whisked together.
Then I just mix the beef into that. I don't put so much that it feels liquidy, but it kinda just feels more fluffy. Its probably about two cans worth of liquid. And then I sprinkle some of our "McDonalds Seasonings" in and mix some more.

Really easy.

Form patties (they will shrink once baked.)


Then cover with aluminum foil

And Bake at
350 degrees for 30 minutes


I made three trays in the oven and rotated them half way through baking.


You can ignore the two pans in the picture, they are just there because I only had enough time to cook, not clean, during nap time!
The big bowl was where I mixed the meat in with the liquid and seasonings.




And now you have a whole bunch of fully cooked patties ready to freeze and reheat at a toddler's moment's notice!


Its kinda a nice nap time project.
(But you have to decide to relax and enjoy it as alone time, and not think of it as a chore.)

P.S. I tried to make the photos a little less gross -- but I found taking pictures of meat, both raw and cooked, to be gross! Hopefully you aren't disturbed. I did my best. :)

1 comment:

  1. I can't wait to try this! Thanks for the idea! :)

    ReplyDelete