Delicious Burgers, Two Ways

I L-O-V-E LOVE cheeseburgers. I'm always on the hunt for a good burger. A couple of months ago, I found a recipe for homemade burgers, and decided to give it a try. I'll never go back. I make amazing burgers. Yum.

For my vegetarian friends: I've never had a gardenburger, so I'm not sure what they're like. But maybe they're malleable and can be manipulated to work with this recipe? Or maybe there's something out there like Tofurkey, but for burgers? I encourage you to play around and make it work for you.

Four buns of your choice
One pound of ground beef (I like to use 85% lean organic)
One half of one small onion, minced
Ground red pepper
One egg
Worcestershire sauce
One cup of bread crumbs
Cheese, ketchup, mustard, lettuce, tomato, etc.

Put the beef in a big bowl. Coat the beef in a good layer of red pepper (at least two teaspoons--I give it ten or twelve good shakes). Give four or five healthy shakes of Worcestershire, toss in the bread crumbs, onion, and egg, and using a spoon or your hands, mix together.

Coat a cookie sheet with tin foil or parchment paper. Using your hands, shape the beef into four similar-sized balls. Flatten the balls between your palms and place them on the cookie sheet.

Grill and serve. I've used an outdoor grill and my trusty George Foreman to do these; either works. Just watch them and don't flip too many times. Don't be scared. Throw them on the grill and enjoy the smell of cooking burgers and summer.

Mix it up: Instead of making four balls of beef, make eight. Flatten one ball, put a bit of shredded cheese, sliced garlic, mushrooms, or whatever in the center. Flatten another ball over the top and squish the two together for a super yummy stuffed burger. Be careful when putting these on the grill because they're heavier and a little harder to flip. They WILL leak and drip and be messy and OH-so-good.

Alternatively, you can dump some cheese in the bowl with everything else and mix it straight into the beef. This works better with a hard, crumbly cheese like feta or gorgonzola than it does with shreds, but either way will be tasty.

Mix it up, have fun, add whatever you want whenever you want, and enjoy the taste of summer any time of year.

The boring stuff:
Serves four for every pound of beef.
Difficulty: 3
Takes twenty minutes to a half hour plus grill time.