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Size Matters

Half-pound lean hamburger, 2 slices melted Swiss Cheese, letttuce, onion (mine would have tomato & pickle, but not Amoeba) & bread.
Half-pound lean hamburger, 2 slices melted Swiss cheese, lettuce, onion (mine would have tomato & pickle, but not Amoeba's) & bread.

Burgers like this aren’t something I cook often anymore. I did make one today for Amoeba. This has slightly more than a quarter pound (pre-cooked weight) of hamburger in it. Amoeba found one burger to be quite satisfactory — along with some star fruit, some dried cranberries and a mound of tortilla chips. However, that’s not the story I wish to tell you. I have another I want to share from my mental archives:

My ex-husband’s son was 14.  We took him and his best-friend on a weekend fishing trip near Dixie, Idaho.  As the sun was setting the first evening, I was preparing dinner over the campfire while the guys set up tents.  I asked Friend how many burgers he wanted.  He said, “Two.”

My step-son  said, “One.  He wants one.”

Friend looked quite shocked.  “I’m really hungry,” he said.  “Two.”

Step-son said, “One.  You’ve never seen her hamburgers.  You don’t know what you’re asking for.”

Friend said, “I’m starving.”

I said, “I’ll tell you what.  I’ll make you one, then after you eat it, if you want another I’ll cook it.”

Friend agreed.  I cooked 4 hamburgers at once in a huge, square skillet set right on the coals.  I cooked them as one big patty — two pounds of beef — and then cut it into 4ths and took them to the picnic table where buns were being doctored.  Friend had a mound of potato salad on his plate, an assortment of raw veggies, and his dressed bun.  I put a cheese smothered half pound beef patty on the bun.  He stared at it.  He looked at my step-son.  He looked up at me and said —

“One.”

49 Comments

    1. Alastair — I always made them for the teenage boys. I generally ate lighter, or if I had a burger that size, I skipped the buns and had my “fixings” on the side as salad.

        1. Alice — I’ve always eaten that way because I am not a bread person – -but don’t think that means I am neat and trim.

          1. I’m a bread addict. Love the stuff!!! Have to cut down on it. Every calorie counts, even though I don’t count calories. 🙂 Yes, there are always other ways to take in the extras… my big weakness just happens to be bread, and of course lots of things that go on or between.

    1. Susan — chances aren’t good you’ll show up on burger day unless you ask ahead. This is probably the first mega burger I cooked in 5 years!

    1. Linda — I probably used 1/3 lb. on Amoeba’s burger. I had about a pound of lean ground beef and I divided it in 3 parts. I am not a big fan of bread — unless it’s homemade — so if I have a burger I prefer bread. Amoeba would have had a bun, but there weren’t any in the house.

  5. GoooooooodNESS! A HALF POUND burger??? Wowza! I’ll have ONE, and save half for later! And some star fruit too… YUMMY! I’ll tell ya what though — when MY eldest son was 14, I have witnessed him consume 4 quarter pounders with cheese — at one sitting. So I do know that SOME teenage boys can do it! (and that child was and IS skinny as a rail!) He doesn’t eat like THAT anymore though… that was definitely a growth spurt! LOL!

    1. Melli — yes, my ex and I used to split one. We fed the others to the kids. From the age of 14 to 16 we couldn’t keep enough food in my step-son. Feeding him was like trying to fill a sink hole. He’d eat, say he was stuffed, and an hour later be ravenous.

      We also had a heck of a time keeping him in jeans and shoes. He went from 5’4″ to 6″ tall in that space of time.

    1. Gattina — this particular burger is a bit smaller than the ones I fed the kids. And I made this for Amoeba. I had star fruit and cranberries, but about an hour earlier I’d eaten a ham and cheese sandwich.

  8. Can I have half of that?
    I’m a bit confused with pounds and quarters, but I’m SURE even half of this is MUCH more than I can handle! LOL!! It looks delicious though!

    1. Jientje — half of what is on Amoeba’s plate probably wouldn’t fill you. That is a small plate. However, half of the burgers I made for the boys would be just about right, I think.

    1. Gigi — yes, I cooked it all the way through. We had an excellent campfire pan made of cast iron and it came with a lid. Cooking the burgers in that pan with the lid on was very much like baking them.

  11. LOL…You should work for Dixie Grill. Have you ever eaten there? They serve that one huge burger and if you can finish it you get your meal free. Yes…I have finished it and felt miserable the entire day 🙂

        1. Thom — Effie Burgers have a full pound of beef in them. You’d eat 3?! Then we’d carry you out on a stretcher! Unless you mean you’d eat 3 of the ones I cooked Amoeba. In that case we’d only roll you out.

          1. Quilly ~ I think Thom added a 3 where he wasn’t supposed to. But then we are talking Thom, he is still a Growing Boy at Heart

    1. Polona — that’s a small plate. You probably could have eaten the one in the photo, but it is smaller than the ones I fixed the boys. One of the big ones would indeed make two meals.

    1. Akelamalu — you don’t know how lucky you are. These two boys completely cleaned the turkey carcass the day after Thanksgiving. They made two sandwiches using about half of an 8 pound turkey!

  15. Love this. Sorry I’m late.
    Reminds me of when the eldest ordered pizza in Paris whilst boasting that a pizza was never enough and he needed chips and other stuff too. Half way through the pizza he admitted defeat…
    Burger looks yummy. Do you make them to go?

  16. I have reached that point where the smallest McDonald’s burger is the right size for me. Anything bigger and I end up leaving half.
    That does look like a good hamburger.

    1. Sorry, Bill. Tonight we are having pork chops and cranberry sauce and pasta with Asiago Cheese sauce and a lovely green salad.

  18. Did I mention that I ate at one of our local burger joints, “Five Guys” for the first time in about 6 months. That juicy burger was sooooooooo darn good. Right now, I am so hungry that I could probably eat TWO of your burgers.

    1. Mumma, It is the meat that is the burger, not the bun. Mumma, Amoeba says what you would call a hamburger has no relation to an American hamburger anyway.

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