Black & Bleu Bacon Burgers- and a couple notes on friendly meat eating

I LOVE burgers, with a passion that is only surpassed in the food world by my love of steak. I don't want to offend my Vegan and Vegeterian friends- but I have always thought a nicely cooked piece of beef is heaven on a plate.  Because I love beef, and meat in general, I try to purchase humanely raised and farmed beef, pork and poultry.  I have a great butcher- Shameless Plug Here-- Giuntas, in Reading Terminal Market- he gets his product locally and naturally raised whenever possible.  I trust him, I trust he sources as he says he does, and I get awesome meat and poultry from him.  He is the only butcher I go to here in Philly- I have a fish guy- but that's another story for another day.
Back to friendly meat- whenever possible, I think you should source your meat from safe, reliable sources, local and natural, whenever possible. Netflix "Food, Inc"  or read Kingslovers "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" and you will see why. It's good for the planet, it's good for the economy, it's good for your wallet, and it will keep you healthier.

Getting off my soap box now (should probably find a graphic for that)

Tonight I made Black and Bleu Bacon Burgers for dinner, and they were soooooooooo insanely good. Beef, bacon, Bleu Cheese, onions, I was in heaven, and the Dude was pretty happy too!! I have a vegetarian option for this in the notes that follow- yes, a veg version of a bacon cheese burger...  Rod (aka The Dude) and I are watching our carbs, so we skip the buns, but this would be really good with toasted potato rolls or an onion kaiser roll spread with a spicy horseradish-mayo blend. without further ado, here is the recipe.

Black & Bleu Bacon Burgers

Ingredients:

• 1 lb Ground Sirloin
• 1/4 cup Steak Sauce (I use A-1)
• 2 Tbsp Olive oil
• 1 Tbsp onion powder
• Salt and Pepper
• 8 slices bacon
• 4 oz crumbled bleu cheese
• 1 large onion- thinly sliced
• 1 Tbsp Butter

Directions

• Move oven rack to top 
• Place a cast iron grill or griddle pan on the top rack
• turn oven to highest temp possible or broil
• While oven is heating, melt butter in a skillet on low
• Add onions to the skillet, stir, and leave them alone- on low (you can stir every 5-10 minutes , but seriously, you want these done LOW and slow) should take 30-40 minutes- they should be transparent but not brown or black when done
• Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, mix ground beef, olive oil, steak sauce, salt, pepper and garlic- use your hands
• Form meat mix into 4 equal patties- set aside
• on the grill pan, place 2-3 slices of bacon, cook until desired crispness, for me- about 3 minutes each side, 
•  drain cooked bacon on a plate lined with a few sheets of paper towel
• repeat with remaining bacon
• When all the bacon is cooked, place the ground beef patties on the griddle- in the bacon drippings
• For Med Rare burgers- cook for two to three minutes on each side
• After you flip the burgers the first time- place 1 ounce of bleu cheese on each burger- cook for an additional 2-3 minutes
• Remove the burgers from the griddle pan- let rest for at least 5 minutes
• Turn onions off
• To Serve: put burgers on plates, put 2 slice of bacon on each burger, pile onions on and serve

Variattions

• for Vegetarian burgers:
• Use Portabello Mushroom caps
• Marinate Mushroom caps in steak sauce, olive oil, salt, pepper and on tbsp cumin for 20 minutes
• grill mushrooms as desired, adding bleu cheese on the flip side 
• If desired, use veg bacon to sub for the real stuff
• Other-
• you can make this on a real grill- ie BBQ- just get your coals or grill hot and make the bacon in a pan on your stove
• You can make this stove top- pan fry your bacon, then fry your burgers in the bacon fat
•  MMMM Bacon

I will get pictures up soon