I Can Has Locally Grown Grass-fed Cheezburger?

K and I have started visiting a Saturday morning farmers' market in our county. We've been able to purchase leeks, onions, garlic (for a taste test at home against our own) sweet little Japanese turnips, strawberries, eggplant, eggs, and grass-fed beef. Next week, one of the farmers will have free-range chicken available.

The farmers' market is satisfying on so many levels. First, there is David, the "garlic guy." He has lots of other veggies and eggs -- but the first time we met him he treated us to such an eloquent, intelligent, informative lecture on the various varieties of garlic, when they should be harvested, how long they need to cure before being eaten...that he will always be "the garlic guy." Last week we bought some turnips from him. K was under the impression that he hates turnips. So David grabbed one, peeled it with his pocket knife and sliced us each a little sweet sliver of turnip. K started filling a bag with turnips so fast that he actually started a run on the turnips.

And then there were the strawberries. They were red all the way through. They brought back sense memories from when I was a little girl eating strawberries. These strawberries had a complexity of flavor that isn't available from a strawberry grown 2000 miles away. Kenny was eating them so fast that his hands were a blur.

The beef has been the big prize. I had almost no experience cooking grass-fed beef. It is leaner than grain fed beef, so it can get tough, or dry, or rapidly overdone. The first week we bought ground beef. The second, T-bones. Last week we bought a London broil and a sirloin tip roast.

Here is my recipe for grass-fed cheezburgers.

1 lb grass-fed ground beef
3 bulbs of garlic (no, I don't mean cloves)
1 small onion
1/8 cup + 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon of water
1 free range egg, lightly beaten
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Place the unpeeled onion with the unpeeled bulbs of garlic (yes, really, the whole damned head!) in a piece of aluminum foil. Sprinkle with the tablespoon of olive oil and the tablespoon of water. Fold the aluminum foil around the onion and garlic, making a sealed packet. Place in preheated oven for one hour. (This step can be done a day or so in advance -- roasted garlic and onion are actually really nice things to have in your fridge to add flavor to all sorts of recipes.) Remove packet, open it and let the garlic and onion cool. Once cool, squeeze the creamy roasted garlic out of it's skin and peel the onion. Run a knife through these ingredients, making sure that there aren't any too big pieces.

Place ground beef in a medium mixing bowl. Add the egg, the remaining olive oil and the roasted, minced garlic and onion plus a bit of salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly with your freshly washed bare hands. Form four patties. Salt and pepper the outside of the patties.

Cook in a non-stick pan over medium heat with a smear of olive oil. Place slices of your favorite cheese on the patties after you flip them, letting it melt as the burgers cook. I prefer a nice cheddar.

For the safest burger, you should use a meat thermometer and cook your burger to an internal temperature of 160 degrees. As a nurse, I recommend this -- especially if you are using grain-fed beef. I believe grass-fed beef to be less dangerous and I enjoy it at medium rare, 130-140 degrees. However you like your beef, I think using a meat thermometer the first few times you cook with grass-fed ground beef is probably a good idea. It just cooks faster.

Serve on a good bun!

Michael Pollan, in his book The Omnivore's Dilemma, does a really good job of explaining why grass-fed beef is safer (microbially speaking) than grain fed.