Bacon Provolone Cheeseburgers in an RV

 Austerity Dinner...I think this is the twelfth one that I have featured. I sure wish I could shake this bug that got its grip on me...OY! Stubborn lil thing!! Anyhow, back to the story...I started this blog way back when to show people that RV cooking is a helluva lot more than typical burgers and hot dogs. You can cook ANYTHING in an RV...seriously. There are things I've taught myself to do while living in said tin can. I learned a lot of different things. The main thing that I have learned is that I don't need a ton of gadgets to get the job done. Gadgets make a person's life easier, but I am the type of cook that likes to get back to the basics. I often think about how things would have been done in the pioneer days. One of the things that they would have had to do is grind their own burger...that is...if they ate burgers back then. Now I know that pioneers sure as hell didn't have a frigging KitchenAid stand mixer, but I'll bet it would have been a kitchen staple for them if they had electricity and all that jazz!  If you have followed my blog for any length of time, you'll know that my husband has told me all along, throughout our marriage, that he was not going to part with the money for a new KitchenAid stand mixer for me. NO WAY...he said. He told me I could go to hell and wait before he'd do that. Just before last Christmas, I got the opportunity to buy a used one for a song, so I have my coveted KA and, just as guys name their cars and so forth, I named my KA. She is Helen Waite. Is there a point to this ramble? You bet. Upon purchasing Helen Waite from that awesome lady in the Long Beach, WA area, I found the wide, wide, wonderful world of KA attachments opening up for me. I have bought one attachment, to date. That would be the meat grinder attachment. One thing I've wanted to do for years is grind my own sausage and burger. So I set out to do just that. This is ground sirloin and that's about as good as it gets...in my book, anyhow. I made this particular batch an approximate 80/20 ratio. 80% ground sirloin and 20% suet or beef fat. I did make some that is much leaner than this, but a successful grilled burger needs the fat...not only for flavor but to hold that sucker together!! As soon as this Austerity project is up, I'll be restocking my freezer with more sirloin. I'll post a blog soon about sausage making.
I started back up cooking for Ralph. I just make sure I wear a crappy old T-shirt and if I feel the need to cough, I pull the T-shirt up over my nose and mouth and wash my hands afterward. Life should not stop for everyone else just because I can't shake this bug and I know that Ralph misses my cooking...he told me so.
I had some rolls sitting in the freezer. I find these at Safeway and I buy them when 6 in a bag cost $2.99. That's about 50 cents per roll and they are cheese rolls, so that makes them that much better. I break them down into packages of 3.
I crisped up the bacon (el cheapo stuff I found at Fred Meyer for $2.50 per pound...again, I buy 4 of them and throw them in the freezer), drained it on paper towels. Dairy products are on our approved list to purchase for Austerity, so I bought 3 slices of provolone at the cheese counter at Safeway. I always get a funny look because I'm not buying 1/2 pound or a pound, but I don't need that much. I just needed 3 slices. They cost less than $1. That's another thing I've learned since I started living in one of these tin cans...if it's a refrigerated item, I cannot stock up because my fridge is like a dorm size fridge. I cannot even fit a full gallon of milk in it. We've learned to stretch those 1/2 gallons, I'll tell ya. I buy those when they are on sale for 99 cents and I freeze them. Yes, you can freeze milk and I have come to love the taste of ice cold milk that still has a bit of slush in it. Delicious!
I dressed up some mayonnaise for these burgers, as well. I love Penzey's Spices. There is a store, we've discovered to our delight, in Portland, OR. It's not too far away from Bob's union hall. Whenever we need to go to Portland, we always swing by Penzey's. They also do mail order. I'm not being paid or even compensated by Penzey's to promote them...I just really, really like their spices and I think that their prices are reasonable. Click on the name to go to their website and browse through what they have.  A while back, we went through the store, smelling this spice blend and that spice blend and came across their Fox Point Seasoning. It's FANTASTIC!! It contains shallots, garlic, chives, salt, onion and green peppercorns. Fabulous stuff, that Fox Point Seasoning. I took about 1/4 cup of mayo (I am not chintzy when it comes to mayo on my burger...load it on!) and grated a clove of garlic into it and added about 1/2 a teaspoon or so of that spice blend and let it sit for about an hour...WOW! No more plain mayo on my burgers!!

I set the burgers on simple bagged salad mix of field greens...that's about the only type of bagged salad mix I buy and I like it. Next came that delightful, wonderful, on the rare side, grilled burger that I happened to have ground up. It was topped with 1/2 a slice of provolone cheese, 1 strip of bacon (cut in half), the other half slice of provolone, some sliced onion and some of my home-canned pickles (I get told by everyone who tries them that they are the BEST and I have wrote a blog or two about them and will probably write about them again come next September!!) and then the top of that cheesy bun slathered with my dressed up mayo.
 I was not compensated by anyone or any company to mention them or their products...however, if any company wants to send me something to try out, I won't kick it out of bed for eating oats!!
Enjoy...PEACE!