Pizza Burgers

Ever try the Pizza Burgers from the Schwan's truck? I used to love these things as a kid. It took a little creativity to figure out how to season the meat, but it's actually quite simple. I don't have exact measures for the ingredients I used because I was basically winging it, but they're close. These turned out really good.

Pizza Burgers:
1lb Lean Ground Beef
4oz Tomato paste
1 tsp oregano
1tsp basil
1/2tsp garlic salt
swiss style processed cheese

Combine the beef, tomato paste, oregano, basil and garlic salt thoroughly. Press into thin rounds. Add a round slice of cheese and another round of beef mixture. Pinch sides closed.
I used a biscuit cutter to cut my slice of cheese and then used the excess as the filling of the next burger. (waste not!) You'll want to keep the beef slices rather thin because you don't want them to take forever to cook. If they take too long the cheese all melts out. The finished burger in the photo was almost too thick.
Cook burgers over medium high heat on a grill pan.
Enjoy!

Home made Play-Doh

I made my first batch of Play-Doh this week. I have to admit, I think I've been playing with it more than Baby D has. It has proven to be an invaluable addition to our kitchen though. I was able to make dinner the other day while she played with the Play-Doh at the kitchen table. This stuff is worth its weight in gold for the twenty minutes of free time it gave me.
I cut this recipe in half. A full batch is pretty big.
No Cook Playdough
3 Cups Flour
3 Tbs Alum
1/2 Cup salt
2 Tbs. cooking oil
2 cups boiling water
Add 10 drops of food coloring to liquid or 2-3 Tbs dry tempra to flour. Adjust color intensity as desired.
Mix ingredients in order given. Knead well. Keeps up to 6 months in plastic zip bag.

Scalloped potatoes wih buttermilk

Everything tastes better with buttermilk. That's a universal constant. Pancakes, biscuits, even scalloped potatoes.
Today I tried something different. I've become a fast fan of precooking the potato slices in a milk/ heavy cream mixture in a skillet on the stove top. I didn't have any heavy cream so I substitited buttermilk instead. At first it was pretty scary. As soon as buttermilk hits the heat it turns into a cottage cheese consistency. I was afraid I had ruined the whole dish. In time and at a slightly lower flame, it smoothed out and started cooking nicely. I layered the potato slices and cream with some cheddar cheese and leftover ham. I baked it at 350F for about an hour. I kept checking it every twenty minutes to see if the potatoes were done. I should have precooked them on the stove longer I suppose. For such a tasty dish, this sure does take forever to bake.