We recently celebrated National hamburger month, the weather is great, and we're grilling like mad!
Once you've bought or thawed some ground beef (go for the kind with 20 per cent fat), make up some delicious hamburger patties! Even if you’ve got a super recipe for hamburger patties, it’s nice to go beyond the basic cheeseburger, bacon cheeseburger, or pattie-lettuce-and-tomato combination. Try some of these variations on the classic burger.

1. Instead of topping your burger with goodies, try stuffing it! This deceptively easy technique will definitely wow your friends and make you look like a gourmet chef. Try a blue cheese burger filled with a seasoned cream cheese/blue cheese mixture (If you’re not a fan of blue cheese, replace it with feta) or whip up a caprese-filled version. If you have forgotten what caprese is, check out number 12 on this list of simple appetizers.
2. Alton Brown (the Bill Nye of food) will teach you how to make mini-burgers, also called “sliders” on an electric griddle.
3. For a burger with outdoor-gourmet-bistro flavor, put your burger on a sunflower seed-topped bun, and top it with salty cheese, sun-dried tomatoes (get the kind in oil, not the ones in the bag), and balsamic mayonnaise. For the mayonnaise, just use what you usually use, with a bit of balsamic vinegar mixed in. You can get everything else at your grocery store … no need to buy them at a gourmet shop!
4. These pepperoni burgers have real pepperoni mixed into the beef! Make it a pizza burger by topping with marinara sauce instead of ketchup, and adding a slice of mozzarella cheese while the patty is still hot. Delicious!
5. Try these Tex-Mex cheeseburgers. The meat is loaded with flavor (and cheese!) and the recipe includes a delicious green chili pepper sauce.
6. Grill some southwest-style chili burgers and top them with pepper jack cheese, avocado slices, and jalapeño peppers.
7. Giada de Laurentiis makes a Mediterranean version of the classic burger by topping hers with arugula, portobello mushrooms, and mayonnaise flavored with lemon juice and garlic. She serves them on focaccia bread.
8. Top a burger with roasted red peppers, feta cheese, and fresh mint for a Greek twist on the classic.
9. Mix teriyaki sauce and water chestnuts into your meat before cooking your hamburgers for a sandwich with Asian flair.
10. Top your favorite patty with sautéed mushrooms and caramelized onions for a delightful conglomeration of flavors.

If there aren’t enough ideas here to whet your appetite, take a look at this alphabetical list of 100 ways to build a burger. And if 100 still isn’t enough for you, this list one-ups the previous list with 101 burger builders. However you top your burgers, enjoy!

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Whether your Fourth of July celebration is a family affair, a neighborhood gathering or a bash with friends, you’ll want to enjoy great food. You’ve already figured out decorations and maybe even a fireworks display, but what to serve? This mix-and-match menu will help you get everything planned so that your tastebuds can party with the rest of you.

Pick one or two options from each section and you’re all set.

Appetizers

• Chips and dip: Try fresh salsa, 7-Layer Dip or guacamole
• Vegetable platter

Main Courses

• Anything on the grill: Try hamburgers, hot dogs, grilled chicken or Weight-Watcher-friendly kebabs
• Don’t forget the best ever vegetarian burgers, if you have guests of that persuasion
• Pulled pork (barbecue), especially if you’re in the south!

Side Dishes

• Pasta salad of any kind works well, but definitely try this chicken pasta salad with mint and parsley pesto
• Herb potato salad with Dijon mustard (there’s also a bonus recipe for lamb kebabs at that link!)
• Corn on the cob
• Southern tomato pie, sort of like an eggless tomato quiche.
• Broccoli salad with black olives and feta
• Baked Beans – try this recipe that has root beer extract in it!
• Get the kids involved in helping you make deviled eggs

Very Berry Summer Pie, photo courtesy of Kelly Wright, Sass & Veracity blog
http://sassandveracity.typepad.com/sass_veracity/2008/06/summer-in-a-pie.html

Desserts

• Fruit Salad: Try it in a smiling watermelon bowl!
• Watermelon
• “Patriotic” desserts, like the famous flag cake, made with white icing, strawberry “stripes” and blueberry “stars”
• Rhubarb strawberry crisp, made from local and healthy ingredients
• Very berry summer pie (pictured above): We found this recipe on Kelly Wright's Sass and Veracity blog. With a dollop of whipped cream, it’s red white and blue! Thanks Kelly, for letting us use your mouthwatering photo!
• Berry trifle, also with the colors of our flag
• Strawberry shortcake: quite simple when you use biscuit mix
• Homemade ice cream: Get everyone involved with this ice cream ball!

Drinks

• Make sure your friends and family stay hydrated with lots of water!
• Lemonade, limeade, or strawberry lemonade – the old-fashioned way
• Iced Tea
• Beer

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A huge welcome to Guy Kawasaki who has shared with us his world famous recipe for teriyaki sauce, which we have turned into a video.

This blogpost contains not only the script/recipe of his video but also a description of how to use his sauce to make Teriyaki Grilled Chicken. Move over Paul Newman!

Cheers!
Kathy

***

Script of Guy's video

Welcome to startcooking.com…I'm Guy Kawasaki here to make my famous teriyaki sauce!

All it takes is six ingredients - pureed in a blender:

• green onions
• soy sauce
• ginger
• jalapeno peppers
• an orange
• and some sugar

Start with half a hand of ginger. You can peel it if you want to, but you don't have to. Just be sure to give it a rough chop.

Cut two jalapenos in half remove the seeds and chop them up.

Trim the root ends off half a bunch of green onions and chop them up as well.

Peel an orange. But just half is needed for this recipe.

Measure out 1 cup of soy sauce and 1 cup of sugar

Now add everything to the blender. Cover it and let her RIP. Keep blending on high speed until everything is liquefied.

This is a great barbeque marinade for about 2 and 1/2 pounds of beef or chicken.

Oh and it's got be charcoal. Gas is for wimps!

Enjoy!

***

Thanks Guy, this is a fantastic recipe! Now for the Grilled Chicken!

Guy told me that from this point on, he "boils the chicken in the sauce on top of the stove, for 15 minutes - then finishes cooking it on a charcoal BBQ just to get the BBQ look".

As many of you know, I live in a condo in the middle of Boston and have never fired up an outdoor barbeque in my life. Consequently, I'm going to show you how to do this indoors! (At the bottom of this post I have listed several links to some really great barbeque sites and recipes!)

Everyone should first take a look at my video on Grilled Chicken Indoors.

I'm going to be following that cooking procedure, but instead of a dry spice rub on the chicken, I'm using Guy Kawasaki's Famous Teriyaki Sauce to marinate the chicken first.

For the "indoor" version of this Teriyaki Grilled Chicken, I'm using boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

You can marinate your chicken for up to 24 hours in this marinade. Be sure to use a glass or plastic dish or a plastic bag, and not a metal dish for marinating.

Remove the chicken from the marinade…

…and place on a plate. Pat the chicken dry with a paper towel.

Put the remaining marinade in a medium size pan.

Bring the marinade to a boil.

Oops! This pan is way too small! As the marinade comes to a boil it will spill right out of this pan. I'm pouring this into a deeper sauce pan!

That's much better. The marinade needs to get boiled for 15 minutes to kill off any of the raw chicken bacteria. If it gets too thick, add 2-3 Tablespoons of water and continue cooking.

Strain the marinade through a fine sieve. For those that want a bit more teriyaki sauce on their chicken, this is going to be delicious drizzled on top of the chicken.

Cooking the Chicken:

Non-stick pans are great in that it is not necessary to add any oil to the pan when cooking the chicken.

Be sure to follow my instructions in the Grilled Chicken video on preheating the pan. When grilling or frying you do not want to over-crowd the pan. You may have to cook the chicken in two batches.

The sugar in the marinade is making this chicken develop really lovely grill marks on both sides.

Depending on how thick your chicken breasts are you will need to cook them about 3-5 minutes on each side.

Enjoy!

Here are the links on Barbecue-ing that I promised you:

Emily Chapelle has done a great post here at startcooking.com called A Beginners Guide to Barbeque!

Jennifer Iserloh over at Skinny Chef has a great selection of Skinny Marinades!

Steven Raichlen, is a barbecue guru, with a show, cookbooks, etc. He has a site called Barbecue Bible:

http://www.barbecuebible.com/

Ted Reader is a Canadian barbecue guru (also with a show, cookbooks etc). He's got a nice site with lots of recipe videos at:
www.tedreader.com

Kalyn's Kitchen has a big recipe section on Grilling:
http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com/2005/04/grilling.html

Here's a single guy's blog on "all things barbecue, food and drink"
http://www.barbecuebachelor.com/

Here's a women-focused site called Girls at the Grill:
http://www.girlsatthegrill.com/thegirls/introduction.asp

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