Food For A Holiday Weekend

     Sunday, I grilled burgers.

     Yes, burgers.  Nothing exotic -- well, okay, they were pre-made Hatch chili burgers, with chopped-up bits of the hot peppers and some cheese in them.  Tam bought Kaiser rolls* and I had a bagged salad ready to assemble.  It made a quick, delicious meal, with good flavor from the lump charcoal.†  I found the burgers to be plenty spicy.  With a slice of Hvarti cheese and plenty of ketchup, mine was fine, but between the heat and the size (huge burgers!), I wasn't tempted to try another.  And I'd made four.

     Ground beef, hot peppers...  H'mm.  Yesterday, I was running late getting out of work.  (Yes, I worked Labor Day.  Needed the money; my real estate taxes went up again.)  I picked up a container of diced onion and another of sliced, multicolored bell peppers, plus a third of a pound of bulk sausage.  I had a large can of crushed tomatoes on the shelf and picked a generous handful of tiny cherry tomatoes from our patch on the way from the garage to the house: chili!

     I browned (and drained) the sausage with a little chili powder while the left-over burgers got defrosted, and had added the onion, tomatoes (plus a few slightly larger store-bought cherry tomatoes that were going soft) and chopped peppers.  By the time the burgers were thawed enough to cut up with kitchen shears over the pot, they were all cooked through.  Added the can (really a carton) of crushed tomatoes, stirred it, put the lid on and ignored it for fifteen minutes: chili!

     Would it have been better if it had simmered longer?  Absolutely.  But it was darned good, and plenty hot for me.  Tam added hot sauce to hers.
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* We're not big fans of the last reigning German monarch (absolutely not who they are named for), but my instructions were "Get baker-made hamburger buns or crusty bread. No brioche!"  I dislike cushiony-soft hamburger buns.  A lot.  Our corner store had made a big batch of their excellent version of a standard burger bun -- and were sold out by Sunday afternoon.  The Kaiser rolls were a good compromise.
 
† If you're not using this stuff, you should be.  The end result tastes better, and it burns better, too.  The downside is that it isn't as easy to work with as briquettes; sometimes I have to use a little hatchet to split the bigger pieces, and the smallest ones are tiny.  But the flavor of the meat (etc.) is so much better that it's worth it.  Around here, the big Meijer stores sell it for not too much more than pressed briquettes.