What's for dinner July 25, 2010

I have a long lived love (say that three times fast!) for all things miniature. When I was a girl, I went through a phase where I would rush out and agonize over which teeny tiny little dollhouse accessory to blow my allowance on. And while I intend to build myself Cheeseball her own dollhouse at some point, for now I content myself with making big things small. Tiny little cookies in tiny little boxes. Teeny little bowties on little knitted coffee sleeves. And, tonight...teeny little burgers on mini little buns.



These are a lot of fun for a party. We've put on a mini burger bar before with all the fixings you can think of - different kinds of cheeses, bacon, avocado, sauteed mushrooms, veggies, sauteed onions, etc... - so everyone can try several different combo burgers without filling up too fast.

But, they're also fun for an evening at home with the kiddos. I made two different kinds of burgers.


Raw hamburger...less than appetizing.

On the left, I took a quarter kilo (which I think is about a half pound) of ground beef, pressed a big clove of garlic over it and drizzled some olive oil. I added about a third of an egg. Then, I ground some sea salt and pepper and scissored some fresh basil with my new toy.

How badass are these!?

In the burger mixture on the right, I made my patented World Famous Burgers, known to at least 10 or 12 people. I just eyeballed the ingredients, since it was such a small amount of meat. But, I'll include the recipe at the end of the post.

This was the first time I'd tried the basil, and they came out well! They're even kind of pretty when cooked.


Well, as pretty as hamburger gets.

I chopped some mini fixins.



For our mini burger bar party, I used frozen dinner rolls, since they're so nice and perfectly round and look just like "I'll gladly repay you..." Wimpy's burgers. But, defrosting and rising the rolls was more trouble than I was going to go to for a Sunday evening Q with the fam. I just toasted up some dinner rolls.



I sliced yellow potatoes, and tossed them in peanut oil in our mini-fritteuse (which I believe is called a deep fry to the rest of us), then seasoned.



Yummy, teeny tiny and fresh. What more could I want?

World Famous Sushi Burgers

1 1/2 lbs 80% lean ground beef
1/2 a smallish onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup cheddar cheese
1/2 Tbs soy sauce
1 Tbs worcestershire sauce
1 egg
1 envelope Lipton Beefy Onion soup mix
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper, to taste

Rapid fire gift giving.

When we dropped Cheeseball off at kindergarten this morning, I learned that although school isn't over for the year until mid-August, today is the day they do gifts to the children and the children bring gifts for the teachers. Wait, what!?!?! This is the last week of German grade school for the year, so families start going on vacation next week, taking their kindergarteners with them.

Well, this left me with nothing to do but speedwalk/sprint home and start brainstorming. I was going to consult a German friend to see what would be the typical kinder-to-lehrer (teacher) end of year gift. But, then I thought wait...when I have friends from exotic places, I don't want them to bring me whatever I'm used to! I want to check out whatever they're used to. So, I decided to bake something American. Apple pie would be a little tough to wrap up and transport and also I suck at it. What's more American (though, less American than apple pie) than chocolate chip cookies!?

Unfortunately, the move and corresponding gutting of the kitchen for the movers still has us a little low on staples. The baking soda, the brown sugar, the flour, really everything is different here and the Internet told me you can't mix American baking recipes and German ingredients. So, I had to drive to post and by then, it was time to bite the bullet and buy ready made cookie dough.

But, the packaging could be homemade! I downloaded some box templates and used an adorable wrapping paper template by Kellie Medivitz that I'd saved previously.

Download the box templates here.

Download the tags and wrap here.

I printed the wrapping paper print on one side of cardstock and the box template on the other.



Then, used craft glue (even though craft glue and mod podge both claim to be non-toxic, the craft glue seemed even nonner-non-toxic to me) to line the inside of the box with wax paper.



I cut the wax paper off the flaps and scored the dotted lines. Then, put the box together! I recommend gluing flap by flap as you go - both so that the glue stays fresh and because until you're putting it together, it's tough to figure out which flaps you're going to want to glue on the inside and which on the outside.

I had cut the pre-made cookie dough squares in half to make smaller cookies. I stacked the cooled cookies inside the boxes.



Then, closed them up, tied a pretty ribbon and attached a coordinating gift tag.



All in all, I thought it was a pretty cute, very last minute and with limited supplies kind of gift!

And, the teachers asked "sind diese amerikanischen cookies!?" and they seemed pretty excited about it. So, I think bringing an American gift from their American kinder was the way to go.

Although I ended up having to use pre-made cookie dough, I'm posting my totally awesome chocolate chip cookie recipe anyway. I use a half a bag of chocolate chips in these, and the girl who originally gave the recipe to me uses a bag and a half, so go with your own chocolate lover level.

2 sticks butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla (or better yet, scrape the inside of one vanilla bean)
2 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Cream together butter and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth.

Combine dry ingredients in separate bowl. Slowly add to egg/sugar mixture. Stir in chocolate chips.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes. Enjoy.

My town has fleas.

I've been trying to make it up to the Saturday flea market (flohmarkt, here) in Stuttgart for what seems like ages now. For one reason or another, I just haven't been able to make it. But, last week, a flea market came to me! What luck!



And when my little village has a flea market, they have a flea market. Oh my goodness, it was amazing! There were bands...


And I mean bands.

...food, beer gardens, wine booths, camels...


Seriously, camels.

...and booth after booth of wonderful flea market finds for the taking. At first, I was doing it wrong. Nothing had prices marked and I kept asking "was viel kostet das? (what does that cost?)" until I finally ended up side by side with locals at a few booths. They just name a price, haggle from there and make a deal. Fun!

I ended up walking home with some things I really wanted. I was on the hunt for tea cups for Cheeseball. She loves tea parties and throws them for herself and her dolls on a regular basis. Now that she's a little older and a little less prone to random breakage, I'd like to replace her kiddie tea set with vintage cups and saucers. In my mind, I picture a set wherein nothing matches but everything is pretty. So, I was mainly looking for those, but ended up with this instead.



I can now report that sewing machines are heavy when you walk all the way home with them. I am quite pleased this one came with a handle. I've been looking for a sewing machine with European plugs and now I have one! I just need to figure out what all the German on my machine means and then how to sew. I mentioned recently that I was on the hunt for a "new" alarm clock and I found one!



Isn't it cute!? I wasn't quite used to actual ticking, so at first it felt rather like trying to fall asleep next to a bomb. Unfortunately, Jack Bauer didn't pop up while I was dozing off, but neither did the clock explode. So, there's that. And I wasn't quite used to a clock that needed to be wound, so I forgot to do it at first and it stopped ticking. But, the clock and I have an understanding now. And the best part of all of this is that I only spent around € 25!!