How we do it: hamburger

Let me ask a question: what kind of hamburger do you buy?

• I examine each package for fat content
• I buy what's on sale
• I throw in one of those plastic sleeves of hamburger because I can't stand the look of ground meat.

If I had a meat grinder I'd grind my own meat. I'm not so sure what actually goes into the hamburger coming out of the large processing plants and I'm not so sure I want to know. Your local (add your favorite market) does not grind their own meat for hamburger. Once they did but for some reason they decided butchers were too expensive to have around each store and now it comes from a town far, far away. Well, unless you live near a meat processing plant but I think our meat comes from Pleasanton, CA and anyway, I like to know just what is in my ground meat.

A few months ago I noticed Von's had a boneless chuck roast for sale and asked the man stocking the bins if he could grind this for me. Oh, it was his pleasure and was back in just a few minutes with my ground chuck. And when I cooked this hamburger it actually tasted like something other than cardboard; it tasted like beef. Imagine that. So when I hand the butcher my chuck roast it comes back just that chuck roast and nothing else.

I've been fortunate to find boneless chuck roasts on sale. This one was $2.99 a pound and I don't think that's too much for good tasting chopped meat. I'll leave it up to you but I now look for roasts on sale and when I do we have dinners like meatballs or meatloaf or chili, but the chili, that's another post.

If you try this let us know. Do you taste a difference or if you think this is way too much trouble and just buy one of those plastic sleeve o'meat.

The gauntlet has been tossed

Food events are shameless attempts to enhance a blogs following and Freya and Paul at Writing at the Kitchen Table are, pardon the pun, cooking up a fine one. This Big Burger Ballyhoo 2007 comes just it time to limber up the BBQ muscle and cook up a mess o'burgers.

This is a challenge to all you burger-loving mommas and papas and especially the other women here at PBE, to get your boyga on. Plenty of time, May 15, is the deadline for entries. Check out their post for more info.