Beer and Burgers

Hey all!

Sorry about the long time frame. I will try and make this more regular from now on. I love that phrase 'try to' - it's like making a promise, but without the commitment.

I have started brewing my own beer. Yes, beer. As a friend of mine says 'lesbians and beer' - I mean is there more to life? Usually at that stage I have to disillusion him - ie 'the lesbians in porn aren't real lesbians.' Then he cries. Fun times.

My first batch of beer was from a kit. It's very ordinary, like the lager you get on tap down at the RSL, but at 10 bucks for 2 slabs (cartons for the non-Aussie amoung us) I figure I'll be able to give it away to someone.

The batch I've got on the go at the moment is lemonade. Yes, alcoholic lemonade. Mmmm - probably won't turn out, but at least I used up some of the lemons. I'll let you know how it turns out, and post the recipe I used later.

Meanwhile I'm trying to learn more about beer in general. Good beer (no that doesn't include VB). I grabbed a couple of pale ales from Dan Murphys to compare. And decided to make some food to go with. Steak burger it was, and man did it turn out well (and go great with the beers).

Ingredients
Toasted Bun (dark is better kids, anyone eating white bread or buns needs spanking)
Steak, cooked how you like it (medium-rare for me)
Sweet chilli sauce
Egg (runny of course)
Bacon (crispy)
Good cheese (I used swiss)
Good greens / lettuce
Good tomatoes (leave them out if it's a choice between that and supermarket ones)

There you have it folks - was delicious. And went really well with the beers. According to folks I've spoken to Little Creatures Pale Ale is meant to be the signature Aussie brand. I enjoyed it, but not as much as I enjoyed the Wicked Elf ('the little brewery').

Steak and Beer folks. Can life get any better than this?

Call that a burger?

This is a burger!

I saw the burgers at the diner this morning (OK, afternoon) when I was having breakfast. God they looked good, and I wanted to give it a go. Weasel Woman came around for tea before the movie and we both had one. I might still be hungover, but this helped.

The burger 'bun' was one of those bacon and cheese rolls. I cooked up the bacon and the meat pattie. While that was cooking I roasted some capsicum, and chopped up the salad (I used the last of the rocket and lettuce mix, spanish onion, cheese, and some tomato. I also cut some pineapple, but ended up eating that instead of putting it on the burger =).

When the meat was done I put it and the cheese on the rolls and toasted them in my sandwich press. God I love that thing! Then I cooked the egg (on a lower heat than the meat - otherwise the eggs go nasty). I put the egg in the burger and served them with some corn chips. I was going to make sweet potato wedges to go with, but was too lazy =).

I put the salad plate out separately (so WW could choose the salad she wanted on the burger - none it turned out =p). I at least delude myself that hamburgers are healthy by putting green stuff on them - sheeh! I used tomato salsa instead of sauce. Man, I'm going to have to try that again. Next time I'll leave out the egg - it was a little eggy/cheesy for me. I tend to only have one or the other on my food - both is a little rich, even for me =).