Comfort Food Time!

In lieu of a bad day, I decided (for Sam) that we were going to do comfort food. This one may be of some intrest to Miss Carmen who requested we post the recipe to the cold day favorite 'Mush'. As for me, my preferred food when I'm feeling down is a cheeseburger (contrary to popular belief which would state that my favorite comfort foods are chocolate and potato chips)

So here we go!

Mush
(looks like sick and tastes like GLORY.)

Mush is one of those glorious foods that warm you up from the inside out. It's an easy to make stove-top casserole which makes it perfect for camping (provided you have a fire-proof pot or a camping stove). It's also extremely tasty, despite it looking like the name it owns: Mush.



What We Used:

• 1 lb Ground Beef
• 6 Potatoes, Mashed
• 1 can Corn Niblets
  
• 1/4 Onion*
• 2 cloves Garlic, minced
  
• 1 can Mushroom Soup
• Black Pepper and Salt (to taste)

Everyone knows how to make mashed potatoes, right? You peel the potatoes, put them in a pot with water and a little bit of salt, boil them until they're soft enough to cut with a fork, drain and let the mashing commence!

That's the first step of Mush. Mushing the potato.

Sam followed it up with chopping the onion and the garlic and throwing it in a pan with the ground beef. The beef was browned and seasoned with the pepper and salt, then the corn was tossed in when the beef was almost finished.

Back to the potatoes, we added the can of mushroom soup to the mash and then the ground beef and corn mixture. Mix until awesome.

Sam wants to note that this is where you add some milk if it gets too thick, but that's optional.

Bison Burger with Bacon on Bannok

Obviously, I needed a manly burger for dinner and I happened to have a couple pounds of ground bison sitting in the freezer. I mourn now for my ground bison... the idea of it always being there kept me happy on cold, lonely days.

Bison is leaner than beef, we find, and the taste is almost a bit... sweeter? It is also SO DENSE. I make meatloaf (buffaloaf?) from this stuff and I feel like I ate a brick when I'm done.

A delicious, delicious brick.

Anyway... Bannock, too! Bannock is awesome, and when toasted it makes a wicked bun for a burger. Especially one as epic as these.



What We Used

• 1 lb ground bison
• 1/4 Onion
• Bread Crumbs
• 1 egg
• seasoning salt
• garlic
• Worchestershire Sauce
  
• Monterey Jack Cheese
• Bacon
• Bannock
• Left over Spicy Chipotle Mayo

The first step was to drive over to the Kekuli Cafe and purchase bannock from a member of their fabulous staff. We could've made it, but we're still being lazy and theirs is fantastic.

Sam says: Tomorrow will be less lazy. Tomorrow there will be bread.

The bison, egg, onion (chopped), and garlic (minced) were deposited into a bowl. I seasoned liberally with seasoning salt and Worchestershire, then added bread crumbs until it had a drier consistancy (without the bread crumbs, it's a cold mess that can't hold a shape.)

Patties were formed and put on the grill. The Kitchen of Despair doesn't have a BBQ attachment, so we used Sam's George Foreman thing.

M-Jack was sliced, bacon was fried, and the Bannock was toasted (We find that it holds it's shape longer if it's toasted.) and spread with the spicy mayo.

This, of course, is the point where you can add vegetables (if you swing that way.) In this case, the vegetables didn't make it onto the burger... I just snacked on them while other things were going on.

Construct the burger and enjoy it. :D

What the n00b learned:

• *We have a lot of quarters of an onion lying around. The heck!?

-Jess