“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you.” Jeremiah 1:5

Over the weekend my family celebrated the 33^rd birthday of my oldest daughter Lisa. It’s hard to believe she’s 33 when I feel like I’m in my forties. At least I feel that way until reality smacks me in the face whenever I look in the mirror. It was a great day, our adult birthdays are much more low key than the kids’ birthday celebrations. The temperature reached 90 degrees, so we swam all day, grilled burgers and served mozzarella with tomato (caprese salad) – Lisa’s summertime favorite!

I love grilling during the summer and often I’ll grill premade burger patties from Krogers or Sam’s Club, but the best burgers are the ones I hand make from fresh ground chuck. The recipe my mother used is a family classic. However, she never measured, just estimated the catsup, spices, and herbs, hence I do the same thing. However, I tried measuring for the purpose of this article, but it’s not exact. It is a flavorful burger, and a short story about my mother follows. Enjoy!

Betty’s Button Burgers

Ingredients:

1 # Ground chuck (80/20) you need some fat for the burgers to sizzle on the grill

2 eggs slightly beaten

1/3 cup breadcrumbs

½ cup catsup

2 Tablespoons prepared mustard

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup chopped onion (dehydrated onions works great)

1 Tablespoon Italian herbs (or whatever you have, Oregano, basil etc)

1 Tablespoon garlic granulated

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

In a bowl slightly beat the eggs, add meat and all other ingredients. Mix with hands until all ingredients are evenly distributed throughout the meat.   Shape burgers, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Grill, and enjoy!

 Betty, my mother, was the queen of feeding her large family on a tight budget. We ate hamburger almost every night of the week, never on Friday of course, that was a no meat day. Mom had an endless supply of hamburger recipes, but her go to recipe was simply adding the ingredients above and pan-frying the hamburgers. I didn’t realize until I was older, but the bread crumbs, (and she used cheap day old bread, not the can of breadcrumbs that I buy), helped stretch the meat to feed more kids.

Mom would shape beautiful burgers, then she would toss them into the frying pan and they would shrivel to half the original size. They were normal to the family, but when my older sisters brought home their future husbands they laughed at mom’s burgers. Both Terry and Tim have a lot of brothers, and they were both big burger eaters. They saw mom’s little burgers, one for each child, and they facetiously nicknamed the burgers, “button burgers”.

As a child, I ate so many button burgers, that I swore to my husband I would never pan fry a burger! For the most part I kept that vow. However, I love Mom’s recipe for the grill, and during the summer my husband and I grill burgers almost once a week. Thanks Mom!

Delicious! Try some today!