Stuff you can eat… Burgers

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Everyone should have access to great burgers.
Your welcome.

Ingredients
Grilled Onions:
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 medium onions, diced
2 tablespoons yellow mustard
Pinch salt
Special Sauce:
1/3 cup mayonnaise
3 tablespoons ketchup
1 tablespoon yellow mustard
1 tablespoon hot sauce
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon paprika
Burger:
1 pound ground meat (equal parts sirloin, chuck and brisket)
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
6 slices American cheese
6 soft potato hamburger rolls, (recommended: Martin’s Brand)
3 tablespoons butter, melted
2 Roma tomatoes, cut into 1/4-inch thick slices
6 green leaf lettuce leaves

Directions:
Caramelized Onions:
Heat the canola oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and cook until soft and lightly caramelized about 15 minutes. Add the mustard and a pinch of salt and cook for another 2 minutes. Remove the onions from the pan to a small bowl and set aside.
Special Sauce:
In a medium bowl combine all the ingredients and whisk until smooth.
Burgers:
Preheat the broiler to low.
Form the ground meat mixture into 6 equal patties. Do not over handle or compress the patties, keep them loose. This will help create a tender burger. Over mixing and compacting will result in a tough heavy burger.
Heat the canola oil a large heavy-bottomed skillet over medium-high heat.
In a small bowl combine the salt, pepper and garlic powder and season the burgers generously with the mixture. Put the patties in the skillet and cook for 4 minutes. Flip and let cook for 1 minute, then top each patty with a piece of cheese. Cook for another 2 minutes until the cheese is melted and the burgers are medium.
While the burgers are cooking, lightly brush the buns with melted butter and put them on a sheet pan. Broil until lightly toasted, about 2 minutes.
To assemble, split the buns and spread each half with about a tablespoon of the special sauce. Put the burgers on the bottom half of each bun, top with caramelized onions, tomato and lettuce. Cover with the top half of the bun and serve.

GUEST POST: Community vs. Social Media

Video first: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUGmcb3mhLM

 

This commercial is funny because it’s true.

The irony within the youth culture is that they are so socially connected through social media that they don’t actually know anyone.

It’s a façade that many teenagers fall in to thinking that the more friends they have on facebook the more popular they really are… until they realize that they are sitting in their room alone.

Don’t get me wrong I am not here to bash social media. I use social media, I think it’s great, but like anything it can be perverted. Unfortunately this is a perversion of real relationships.

Real relationships start with meeting face-to-face.

And the younger generation is beginning to lose the ability to hold face-to-face conversations.

Everything is being funneled through a computer like product. Another irony within this is that we are closer to people than ever before and yet we are so far apart. What I mean by that is I can chat to someone in China in a split second but I have never been a part of his or her life.

“Being a part of” will soon cease to exist at the rate we are going with technology in this world.

People naturally desire to have real, authentic relationships. It’s built in us because we are created in the image of God.

God is relational and so are we.

Community is the relational setting that we long for.

Today like never before we need to strive as a community of people to really desire to have face-to-face relationships.

Real, authentic relationships can only come if Jesus is at the center of someone’s life.

As youth leaders, pastors, parents, friends, family, we need to see the value in real face-to-face relationships. We need to strive to be in community with each other, not online, but in real life, with Jesus at the center.

By Sean Kappauf, Jr. High Pastor at the Crossing Church in Costa Mesa California.

http://www.facebook.com/seankappauf