Burgers, buns and more... Homemade heaven!

This year we finally joined millions of Americans and began the backyard grilling season. For 7+ years we've put off buying a grill, but for our Memorial Day BBQ we decided that we needed something to BBQ on! This year we are savoring the smokey, char-grilled summer veggies and perfectly spiced meats on a regular basis. Yes, we are charcoal grillers. It does take a little extra time, but boy is it worth it.

With my grass-fed beef "value pack" (Dixon Family Meats), I received two packages of 5 oz. hamburger patties. We season with just salt, pepper, garlic, onion and maybe a sprinkle of Emeril's essence. Yum!

A perfect accompaniment is homemade Ciabatta. This combo is so good that we had it Friday AND Sunday! The buns are SO easy to do – I keep a basic boule (dough) in the refrigerator and we have buns baked and ready in 40 minutes. Come on back...I'll post on the Artisan Bread boule this week.

The tomatoes in the photo were flavorful, fresh from Mike O.'s garden. In addition to the onion, squash and zucchini pictured with the burger, I found some lovely little peaches at the farmers market this week that went into a simple peach-blackberry cobbler (oats, whole wheat flour, cinnamon, agave and a touch of brown sugar). We enjoyed that this morning with our coffee on the patio...a lovely idea that my husband had. Summer goodness!