The Real Gourmet Burger

This is actually a bit late, I made these burgers last week, only now getting round to blogging about them, and only to make use of the photo's I took the effort to take.

The fact is my home-made burgers are the best burgers that anybody who has tried them has tasted. All these fancy "gourmet burger" places, some of which I've tried, and nice as they may be, thay can kiss my backside because my burgers surpass greatness, they are like erotic extasy in one's mouth!

Basically, my secret is in the patty itself. Each time I make them the ingredients vary slightly, with a few staples, but this particular batch came our almost perfectly with little loss on content from juices cooking out!

Here goes, my Blue-cheese, Beetroot & Parmesan burgers:

• The patty: Each patty weights around 250 to 300 grams each when they go in the pan. Usually I use a mix of ostrich & beef mince but this time I used normal (not lean) ground beef. Firstly I cut up a whole medium onion, lop it in the food processor with an egg, a hearty teaspoon of garlic paste, splash of balsamic vinegar, about a quarter cup of Jimmy's marinade, a dash of dried mixed herbs. Hit the On button briefly to mix it all up and cut the onion up even finer. Then throw in about a kilo of mince and blend it up until it's all mixed up into quite a fine fairly thick viscous mush. Seperate into 4 big mushy balls and plop into the pan, spread the patties out in the pan with your fingers to an even thickness. Cook thoroughly so the innner meat, onion & garlic is cooked through.
• Butter up some fresh Portuguese rolls.
• Lay a single layer of thickly cut beetroot on the lower half of the roll, sprinkle a small dash of parmesan on the beetroot.
• Park the dlelicious sizzling well cooked patty on top of the beetrook.
• Slice off a pile of creamy blue sheese and lay onto the hot patty so it melts onto the meat. 
• Sprinkle a load more crumbed parmesan onto the blue cheese, spread it evenly.
• Pour a dollop of Mrs Balls Original chutney onto the cheese. The chutney balances out the bitterness of the blue cheese, it works like a dream!
• Close the burgers and serve!

Enjoy!

2 weeks ago I made similar burgers with cheddar cheese and fresh avo, also delicious!

Gross!!!

That would be my lunch today - gross! I found a tin of spaghetti & viennas in tomato sauce in my desk drawer. After a long morning on my feet surveying one of the bigger buildings on Medical Campus I'd worked up quite a hunger so it seemed more appetising than peanut butter on toast! Picture this: the contents of the abovementioned tin, a big red pile of schlop with shriveled looking dark brown sausages that looked like a couple of dried thumbs sticking out the spaghetti, on a bed of toast with cheese slices, topped with a generous dollop of mayo and splattered with Nando's chilli sauce!

It was edible, and I ate it all like a ravenous hyena that's not eaten since the last dodo died out, but it didn't taste too good! But beggars can't be choosers, and at this stage of my fanancial month (3 days from payday) I'm close to begging!

This morning I surveyed the Werner & Beit North block, not the most interesting survey, I didn't see any bizarre labs or human body parts.

Yesterday's session at the gym was the first in quite a few weeks (probably closer to 2 months!) and I can really feel it today; that stiff sore muscle feeling after the usual first time at the gym after a long absence. As usual my manboobs feel the most sore, though admittedly it's quite a satisfactory ache, it's the sign of muscles growing after a hard workout!

I think maybe this evening I'll go again, if not then difinitely tomorrow. Hopefully there'll be a squash court free too.

The last few weeks I've bought quite a few tickets in the Lotto and Powerball, and I've won twice in the last week - a grand total of R21,50! Whoopee-fucking-hooo! But I'll keep playing in the hope of getting lucky someday, hopefully soon.

I still haven't started that big assignment that needs to be submitted in less that 2 weeks. Maybe tonight will be a good time to start. I was quite excited about this course, it's just hard work motivating myself to do the studying after so many years since I attempted to study anything, especially with 2 demanding girls at home! The course is about entrepreneurship, because I would really like to start my own business in the near future. It just seems like such a daunting task, I'm not quite sure exactly what business I'd like to embark on, and more importantly I don't know where the funding will come from. Being a white South African I've got very little chance of help from the government and I'm not sure a bank will help me or how ridiculously expensive their interest rates will be!

I've got some ideas, predominantly photography and I'd really love to run my own restaurant and bar. The restaurant will need a ridiculous amount of money to start up though it's a business I will be good at; the photography less expensive to start as a photographer though I'll need money for decent equipment, a studio facility, and the time and money to get a professional qualification. It's also a very difficult market to crack, highly competitive! Ideally I would like to run a photography shop selling photo equipment and developing and printing images with a studio on site. It will be expensive and high risk business, but I reckon it could work and it's something I enjoy - photography. Another idea I have is a rehearsal and pre-recording studio, though that will be more of a sideline thing because the income won't be very hight.

See the problem I have is a lot of ideas and what-ifs, but I can't even make it to the end of every month on my curent salary so where the hell will the capital to start a business come from! If and when it happens I will make a damn success of it because I don't want to struggle forever and I don't want to just be another employee doing a menial job working for somebody else and taking shit over the most ridiculous issues because people in position are on power trips (prime example this very second I got crapped on because I'm writing this blog when lunch finished 2 minutes ago!)

So this business thing's gotta work, but the end of the tunnell is so far away I can't even see the light! It's so frustrating!

That's why I'm doing the course, to give me some basic idea of how to start up and run a small business. Hopefully after the course, which ends with an exam in May, the proverbial light will be visible down that very long tunnell!

If you're reading this and have any suggestions or ideas I'm all ears!

Meantime, I better get on with my job! I feel like I'm permanently treading on thin ice to make sure I don't piss people off because I can't afford to not have this job, I won't get another one like it because I don't have any qualifications and this job is not going anwhere other than where it is now! And I detest having to suck up, it makes me hate people and it makes me angry which is not good for the old ticker!

Muscles & Mussels

The title gives a hint to a tasty morsel of the events of my day, this day being Monday, a rare Monday of chillaxing! Thanks to South African history for a pubic holiday on a great summers day! I do appreciate the reason for this Human Rights Day, based on historical events. I don't fully agree on current political reasoning's for recurringly fucking our economy on past events, but, well....

Further from my earlier blog of how the day started at 3am with a very happy cheerful Tammy, the little terrorist has not stopped going like the energiser bunny on E all friggin day long! She really is the sweetest kid on the planet, she has the most beautiful personality of any 3 year old I've ever had the fortune of meeting, but she's also the busiest!

I was on the phone to my mom chatting about all kinds of stuff, including the events and people at Saturday nights party, when Tammy's other granny, Liezel's mom (Ma) turned up unexpected.

Saturday night's party, the reason for the party being a combined party for my uncle Luigi (his 60th), and his oldest son Luigi (his 40th) being a unique father and son century (100 years combined) birthday party was a brilliant event at a stunning venue near Stellenbosch!

As for the 'muscles' part, Liezel & I went to the gym today for the first time in around a month! We both had a nice enough workout. I really didn't enjoy my game of squash because I'm unfit and out of practice, but I enjoyed the workout upstairs in the weights circuit. Liezel, however, worked up the biggest sweat I've ever seen on her. I was well proud!

Regarding the 'mussels'  my lovely mother-in-law pitched up with a bag of black mussels she had hand picked in the morning on the rocks at low-ish tide off the beach not far from where we live. Something I've never done, though she's clearly a pro of sorts!

Mussels and other creepy crawlies from the sea are not normally my fancy, and they looked gross in the pot after boiling, the ones that opened anyway. But when she grilled them with garlic butter and cheese they were quite irresistible! Seafood always looks good, it just doesn't do it for me besides fish, I'm just not a fan, and calamari makes me feel ill for some reason (the only food other than brinjil that grosses me out makes me want to hurl) but I tried one... a freshly picked mussel baked in garlic butter & cheese, and I loved it!!!

So I had 6! And I really enjoyed them! Genuinely!

Thanks Ma, brilliant!

But not quite a meal for me and my hungry wife and child, so I made boerewors rolls for all!

As I'm type this my sweet Tammy has crawled on my lap because she wants to sleep on her dad which she's promptly done. We had such fun playing soccer and cars and stuff this evening. She is a warm loving gorgeous joyful kid, the most awesome angel heaven has ever let loose in this world! So excuse me while I go put my princess to bed!

Home-made pizza - with extra cholesterol!

Howdy folks, I'm back after an absence of a few weeks, for no real reason other than laziness! If you had to see me now compared to 2 months ago you'll understand why - I've put on a haft ton of weight again. A fact which I have now realised after seeing photo's of myself at a party on Saturday night, it looks like I've been inflated to a near perfect sphere! Well from today I'm gonna do something about it, again, starting with another phase of regular gymming, less booze, and less fattening food. Though that doesn't include last night's dinner:

Before the avo.

Pizza! Glorious home-made 2-inch thick pizza loaded with grease. It was truly the most delicious pizza I've ever tasted, I'll say so myself, it was oozing with a technicolour of flavours, crispy on the outside and thick and juicy in the middle. My wife is already begging for more this morning after she had her last piece for breakfast!

With avo.

The recipe:

• Take 2 standard frozen supermarket brand pizza bases with tomato.
• Spread a generous layer of cheddar cheese, ensure the whole base is evenly covered right to the edge. Pat it down (this is necessary so the upper layers down fall off!
• Finely chop half a large onion (That Twista gadget works well, quick & noisy) and mix with half a yellow pepper, also chopped up into fairly small pieces. Spread evenly over the pizza. 
• Sprinkle some salt, pepper & oregano.
• Grate up a handfull of mild cheddar for each pizza and spread so it's a fairly thin layer of cheese over the onion & pepper.
• Sprinkle parmesan cheese liberally over the mild cheddar. Pat it all down gently.
• Slice some mushrooms and cover the pizza pretty much completely.
• Use a pack of bacon bits and spread loads over the top.
• I was going to use feta cheese too but there was already too much, it would have just fallen off the side.
• Load into a pre-heated oven and cook until it looks cooked, for me they took around half an hour in a fully heated oven. I put the pizza's on a foil base and folded the sides up around the edge of the pizza to keep the melting cheese on top of the pizza.
• Once out the oven slice up half a large avo per pizza, remove from the foil, and serve once it's cooled down sufficiently that the toppings are no longer trying to flow off the edge like volcanic lava.

The trick is to make more than you can eat in a meal so you have some for breakfast! Like any pizza it's even better the next day!

Tammy didn't have any last night because she was sleeping. The lazy bugger fell asleep in the car on the way home from the beach at around 3pm and she didn't wake up for the rest of the day. I was a little concerned because she had a bit of a cough and she'd slept in the bed with her sick granny the night before so I thought she was coming down with something so we left her to sleep. But then at 3am this morning she woke up wide eyed and bushy tailed ready to play, and talk! OMG did she talk this morning, from 3am, it's now 10.30 and she still hasn't stopped! I tried hard to sleep through it, even moving between beds and the couch, she just followed me diligently. If I turned the other way she promptly climbed over me to face me and carry on chatting. I got a foot in my face a few times in the process. All the while leaving her mom in peace, which I'd have also done the way she barked at Tammy for climbing on her. Occasionally she'd find a toy to chat to when I wasn't responding and I'd be left to doze off for a while longer until she came to tell me her new story.

But shame, the little angel was very cute and cheerful. Sleepy as I was (having been up watching movies until late) I didn't mind her too much, eventually I gave in at around 8am and took her down for breakfast, which was pizza, which she gobbled up then wanted Oatees cereal. Not surprising seeing as the poor kid hadn't eaten since about midday yesterday!

Anyway, today is Monday, and we are all enjoying a lazy day at home, being a much needed public holiday! After this I've got a few other things to do on the PC, then I need to mow the lawn and clean up the yard, clean the house, vacuum the floors, and have a go at the mountain of clean washing that has been dumped on the spare couch over the last 2 weeks. I can't afford the maid until next week (pay day).

And of course I'll spend some time with Tammy before tackling my next assignment for my Unisa course!

Oh yes, the gym needs to be squeezed in sometime too!

There's no cricket today, for a change. I've been following the cricket world cup religiously, even been watching it over the internet in the office during the week. It's weird not having cricket to watch, but the quarter finals starting Wednesday are going to be crackers!

The best burger in town!

Of all the nice enough dishes I make many say my burgers are the best they have ever tasted! Many being my wife, and a few family members. But I believe them! The garlic burping out my nose uninhibitedly right now is proof!

Ants

I really believe that God has a cruel sense of humour towards us humans sometimes, I know this because he gave us ants and flies. And many feel the same about mosquitoes too, though I'm not bothered by mozzies because they don't bother me. Everybody around me gets bitten by mozzies, when we went to the Okavango swamps in 2009 the other guys nearly got carried off into the bush and eaten alive by the mozzies, but they didn't come near me. I wonder why with mild amusement.

On the other hand ants and flies piss me off to no end, though lately more ants than flies. They are just everywhere these days, they get in everything resulting in a lot of good food having to be thrown away and wasted, and that seriously pisses on my battery because I can hardly afford to feed myself, I certainly can't afford to feed the local fucken parasitic wildlife!

Last night I found them in the pantry cupboard, they found the syrup. One bottle I managed to rescue and rinse off, the little fuckers hadn't got into the bottle, but the other one they got in and many were drowned in the syrup.

Last week they found Tammy's sweets and lollipops, had to chuck a load of that too.

Like everything possibly attractive to ants has to stay in the fridge, which is chockablock fulla stuff that doesn't need to be in there! It's really annoying!

Last Friday we had a braai with the outlaws. I purposely made a shitload of spare ribs because the leftovers are just delicious the next day, especially with a hangover. So I left the food in the oven overnight, like we often do after a braai and it's normally clean and safe to eat the next day. Saturday morning I got up and had a few ribs... delicious!!! Saturday afternoon I opened the oven and the food was swarming with thousnads of the little black fuckers like some kind of demonic disease! I wanted to cry! At that point I lost all respect for ants as "God's creatures" and have since murdered ants mercilessly wherever I come across them. I've poisoned their nests and gassed them with insect spray that I've been through bottles of the stuff! I have proudly exterminated literally millions of them and I feel good about it! That'll teach the bastards to fuck with my food, and y'all know how I love my food!

Anyway, I had to dump the whole lot of food in the outside bin, which broke my heart. At least I got some joy in turning the bin into a gas chamber to murder the thousands of ants on my beloved food. But by this morning my bin naturally stank like any week old carcass rotting in the hot summer sun would smell - it was rank when I opened it! Fortunately it's council bin day today!

I actually look forward to winter when most of the annoying bugs of summer seem to disappear. I wish they all died!

I realise they have their place in nature, which is fine, as long as they stay out in nature and mind their own business. But come onto my property and they will not be tolerated, they will be mass murdered!

Same goes for flies! I'd love to catch them all, cut off their wings (rendering them as 'walks') and feed them to the ants before annihilating the ants entire colonies!

Since last weekend I've had an annoying cold again that seriously getting on my tits today. I'm almost convinced I got this from the ants too!