Friday, May 30, 2014

Memorial Day Menu: Hamburgers and other tasty sides...

Eat what you store & store what you eat...
This is what I made for Memorial Day dinner & it made me very nervous. But, yet again I learned a lot.
First the entire menu is all from storage. To qualify that: when I say it is from storage, it means I have multiples of whatever I am using in my stores already.

MENU
Hamburgers with mushrooms and loaf bread.
Potato salad
Baked beans

Well, I started the day rehydrating potatoes. These were probably my very first batch of dehydrated potatoes, simply cut and dehydrated, not precooked. That is why the potatoes are a funny color. But, I was determined to use them, they are perfectly fine food.

 


As you see, I simply cut them up, add mayo, mustard, pickle relish, salt and pepper. It was great to find out I was out of mayo in the fridge and sure enough, there was plenty on my shelf to save the day.

While I was working on this, I started rehydrating mushrooms to put to top of the hamburgers. Have I mentioned I love mushrooms. I find that if I cover them with water, slowly cook them on the stove & add more water; doing this about 4 or 5 times they turn out pretty good. They tend to be a wee bit chewy, but DH really prefers them this way. Who knew? I added butter and Adobo, one of my favorite spices.

 

Then I started making bread. Now I used a mix (Hodgsons) and my bread maker.

 

Then I unjarred the hamburgers. Yes I have canned hamburgers. http://perkypreppinggramma.blogspot.com/2013/10/canning-hamburgers.html
I rinsed off the fat and spiced them up, since I know canned hamburger tends to lose a lot of flavor. I used Adobo, salt, pepper & garlic. Let them sit in the fridge.

 
We decided to cook them on the grill to give them even more flavor & it was Memorial Day after all.

Then the baked beans. I simply used a can of Bush's Baked Beans with added brown sugar, which I made myself (how to...). 


Here you have it. The bread, the potato salad, the meal. 

    


Lessons Learned:
1. Blanching potatoes before dehydrating, which I now do already, makes it look prettier.
2. Store water, more water. Rehydrating takes a lot of water.
3. Seasonings, more seasoning
4. Time, cooking like this takes more time & planning.

5. Practice more

No comments:

Post a Comment