Bleu By You

Hello Burgerphiles!

I can not convey to you how excited Husband is about this weeks burger. Wife...less so.

Before we get to that, remember that over to the left you will find a pinned Master List of all of our posts so far. You will also find links to all of the social media I have. Please feel free to like, comment, + any of our posts. We love to hear from everyone!

B-L-E-U, what does that spell? 

I'm actually not terrified of anything in this burger. I don't have a deep abiding love for anything in it either though. It's your basic beef burger, stuffed with bleu cheese (I get it, but this makes them very hard to flip) topped with bacon (which I will attempt to get cut up rather than sliced) and a red wine reduction (onions, garlic, tomatoes and red wine), and sautéed Swiss chard.

It's your basic bacon, bleu cheese burger, with a red wine twist. At least this burger has a condiment... which means it probably won't be dry. Yay! 

Also this week we've got a couple of special guests. Tommy, Kenzie and their tiny human (who probably won't be eating the burger lol). Give them a round of applause for their bravery, not once but twice! Brave souls. Although, I bet you could lure just about anyone with the promise of bacon.

On to the burger.

Husband and I drove to T&K's house, so you'll notice a change of scenery. Who doesn't love a change of scenery. It was a double challenge, both the burger and an unfamiliar kitchen, bonus round...extra people. The four of us, plus 1 toddler and 1 Dalmatian worked together to make the burgers. Our hosts generously agreed to provide side dishes, in the form of fries and corn on the cob.

While Husband worked on the burgers, I worked on the red wine reduction. After a bit of discussion, we sieved the reduction as the recipe required, but rather than pouring it on the burger, I mixed it in with the wilted Swiss chard which we thought would help prevent soggy buns. (DOWN WITH SOGGY BUNS).

Blurry cooking photo

Husband's motto: Bacon makes everything better.

I might have been trying to drink the measuring cup wine....again.

Sort of looks like a fruit compote, it definitely wasn't.

We sat all the plates out, I took photos, everyone sat down, everyone got settled in, everyone took a bite..... then..........SILENCE. Let me tell you what, I felt like a comedian who'd just told a stupid joke. There was no response. Luckily, they were all just weighing their thoughts and soon pens began scribbling furiously and conversation erupted. 

Group shot!

Burgers and fries and beers...OH MY.

Oh yeah, look at that bacon!

Our findings: 

Kenzie: Despite not being the biggest fan of the cheese, the burger itself wasn't that bad. All the flavors worked well together. Cheese was still a bit strong for me, but the bacon helped make it tolerable. Chard didn't make much of an impact. 

8.5/10

Tommy: I like the blue cheese in the burger. The chard adds some nice bitterness to balance the rest of the ingredients. The red wine reduction was a little bland. I think I would have preferred it thicker or blended. (Adding the solids to the burger made a huge improvement.)

7/10 (After the required 2 bites, we added the solids from the reduction 8.5)

Husband: The chard provides a nice note, contrasting the bleu cheese nicely. Adding the red wine chutney (the solids) gives a great additional flavor to the burger. Bleu cheese is awesome!

9/10

Me: Lol no. My first two bites were good, on the third I got a mouth full of bleu cheese and winced. It was entirely too strong. The bacon (I'm generally not a fan but was permitted to crumble it on top) was good and created a nice saltiness. The chard on it's own would have just annoyed me, but mixing it with the liquid added flavor, I still picked most of it off, but not until I added the solids from the reduction. Adding them made for a better texture and the flavors just popped.

7.5 ...... 8.5 (after adding the solids)

That's it for this week. Check back next week for our next adventure. Until then, Keep Sizzlin'!

L xo

P.S. This is the face you get when you tell Gatsby that you are leaving to do Burger Roulette and he won't get his customary burger this week: