Burger me (again)

I could watch Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives for hours on end, or at least until I get hungry and seriously consider installing a flat-top in the kitchen.  I love the kind of hamburgers where they take a ball of fresh ground beef and smash it on the griddle with a huge spatula.  Jake's (Del.) makes them this way and I miss being able to go there.  So Steve and I experimented with making burger patties uniformly so they didn't fall apart on the gas grill.  They were good, but not amazing.  Same with our sliders (which I took photos of but never blogged about, and I don't care about dangling prepositions).  A year went by and another grilling holiday was approaching when Steve decided that he wanted to make burgers.  He grills a mouthwatering steak so that's what we usually have since our experience with backyard burgers is that they're inevitably dry, too thick in the center, shrink up too much, or a combination thereof.  Golf balls.  When Steve started talking about making thick burgers I remembered something I picked up recently from watching Cooking Channel/Food Network: Bobby Flay forms his (sausage) patties with an indentation in the middle to combat burgers' (even those pre-formed from the store) tendency to get too thick in the center.  This time we went with 80/20 ground beef and the same seasonings: L&P Worcestershire + Lawry's seasoned salt and oh. my. golly.  Turns out my husband has a gift for burgers.  We had more the next night, too. 

4th of July with my folks.  Ready to eat!

Mini cupcake for the little one

Rain chased us inside for dessert, but cleared out in time to watch fireworks.  Olivia hopped from lap to lap saying, "That was a good one!"    

Also over the weekend we got to see our friends Dave & Sarah.  I met Sarah freshman year in college and we'd get together while I was visiting my brother in Florida, and then Kentucky.  Now they live in Maryland, just an hour away, and I couldn't be more thrilled!  Their daughter Catie is adorable and so pleasant and of course I have no photos to share, but here are some others...

Cow Train at Marker-Miller Orchard
(also Rachel & her kids and Anne-Marie's MIL & daughter Jordyn)
There was a dog riding in the cow in front of Olivia

Helping Daddy water the grass

Staying cool