Burgers: Bleu Cheese/Balsamic Sauce and Roasted Veggies

The evening began at my friend Rebecca's house with some beverages and watching Man V, Food on the travel channel.  The episode was all about burgers, big, spicy etc.  Anyways I decided I must have a burger it had been so long, while I sat there I was like ok I'm so tired I don't want to make one, but I also am needing to save money cause its the holiday season....so I decided I had no choice I must cook one up tonight, which we all know I normally love to do....but lately I've been pretty tired.  So as I went to meet up with my other lovely friend Elisa I called her and said come outside, get in my car and lets go to the store I have a vision! Once we were finally back home we began the process to success!  I will say that obviously this is a burger and we used a ton of cheese, so this is one of my fat kid recipes!!! Enjoy! Also please notice in the picture that there is cheese oozing out of the burger...yep that is because I also wanted a Juicy Lucy, and if u don't know what that is look it up:)

Makes 2 burgers

The Ingredients
4 slices of sourdough bread
2/3 pound lean ground beef
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon Italian spice
1 teaspoon chili flakes
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 cups balsamic vinegar
4oz creamy bleu cheese
1/4 cup milk
1/8 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded
1/8 cup Gruyere cheese, shredded
1 zucchini, sliced
1 small head of broccoli, thinly sliced
1/2 small red onion, chopped
1 small tomato, sliced
1 cup mixed greens, (for lettuce) 

The Process
1.  Start by turning on oven to 450 degrees and in glass cooking dish toss olive oil, and some salt and pepper to taste with zucchini, red onion, broccoli, and two cloves of the minced garlic.  Put in oven and cook for about 15-20min or until roasted.

2.  Next take the balsamic vinegar and put in sauce pan over medium heat.  This will take about 20min to reduce, and you want a slow steady simmer, not boiling because then the vinegar will burn.  Stir often and just pay attention to it.

3.  Time to spice up the burger meat, in medium mixing bowl add raw beef, pepper, salt, Worcestershire sauce, chili flakes, italian spice, garlic powder, and rest of minced garlic, mix well with hands.

4.  Mix together the two grated cheeses.

5.  Heat up pan over medium-high heat and take meat mix and flatten into two thin burgers.  Add half of grated cheese mixture to the center of each burger and fold side over to look like a taco.  Then reshape each burgers slightly to make round again. Add burgers to the pan and cook each side about 4mins (because they are thin they will cook fast), or cook until done.

6.  Put sourdough bread slices in toaster and toast.

7.  Slice tomatoes and rinse mixed greens and set aside. 

8.  When balsamic vinegar is reduced add the bleu cheese and milk and whisk until smooth and blended and take off of stove.

9.  To assemble first put roasted veggies on bread, then the burger patty, then the balsamic bleu cheese sauce (lots of it), then put on tomatoes and mixed greens then other piece of bread and eat eat eat!!!


We also added our own bacon to the burger but its not necessary because the burger was so flavorful already.  There is a lot of balsamic cheese sauce so definitely dip your burger in it too.  And it is pretty awesome because I felt like I was in one of those Carl's Junior commercials with sauce dripping everywhere and big ol' burger in my hands....but it was cooler cause Carl's Junior is nasty and my burger was gourmet!!


I also wanted to give props to this hot sauce shelve in my friend Elisa's fridge because every fridge needs to have that much variety of hot sauce! I approve!!