Recipe: The Breakfast Bomb Burger

Again, because I've actually committed to a budget, it means I have to get extra creative with my pantry. This may also be partly due to my insane laziness when I get home from work, which I pass off as dog-mom-guilt and not wanting to bail on the pup for any more time during the day than I must. Excuses. I know.

But happily for me, I remembered to thaw a random pound of grass-fed beef from my freezer yesterday and so I got home from work and realized that hurray! I have dinner. Burgers. Who doesn't love a good burger?

Now, the rest of the meal may end up paltry (I'm making this up as I go and am more in the "planning dinner" stage than making it as I sit here a type. This should make 2 servings, I hope. 

Ingredients

• Bacon (4 slices)
• 1/2 lb Grass-Fed Ground Beef, divided
• Brie 
• 1/2 onion sliced thinly 
• Olive Oil
• Salt & Pepper
• Frank's Red Hot
• Toppings as you'd like: Fried Egg and Arugula for me. 

Instructions

1. Cook bacon on the stovetop til crisp. Pull off the burner, place bacon onto a paper-towel lined pan and reserve the bacon fat in a small jar or container. Immediately place the bacon fat in the fridge. Crumble up the bacon into a bowl once it's dry into smaller (but not tiny) bits.
2. While the bacon is cooking, remove the beef from the fridge and put into a bowl. Season with salt and pepper and a dash of Frank's, mix with your hands, and then separate this into 4 thinner patties. Don't squish them too much or they'll be too tight when they cook.
3. Again, while bacon cooks, heat up a tablespoon or so of olive oil in a pan and sauté the onions until they're well-sauteed. Once they're done sautéing, take them off the heat, and put them in the bowl with the bacon crumbles. 
4. Near the end of the onions cooking, cut a few small slices of brie (remove the rind), put the slices in the middle of two of the patties. Top this with the onion/bacon mixture, and use the remaining 2 patties as covers. Crimp down the edges with a fork, and then reform to seal fully.
5. Top each patty with a dollop of what should be the cooled bacon fat, and cook (bacon fat side up first) on medium-high on a grill as you normally would, searing for 4 minutes or so on each side (and flipping only once). 
6. While the burgers are cooking, plate the rest of your dinner if you so choose (I am topping mine with an egg, so I'm using this time to fry it up), and when the burgers are done, get ready to feast! 

Happy Cooking!

CJ