Tuesday: 24 Burgers, a Gluten-Free Pizza Experiment & Leftover Gravy Soup

We got up this morning and finished off the last of the bacon.

And my 11-year-old decided she wanted a baked potato with her bacon.

Which I love.

She really likes potatoes for breakfast, and I think that’s a fantastic breakfast. Potatoes and bacon? Absolutely.

Then we got started on schoolwork.

We’re taking a little fall break this week, but we’re still trying to get some work done here and there.

And around 10:30, I looked outside and thought, you know what?

I’m going to grill burgers for lunch.

Twenty-Four Burgers Before Lunch

It was such a beautiful day, and I had all that ground beef from Costco waiting in the refrigerator.

I knew I was going to be busy later in the afternoon and evening, so I figured I might as well get some of the cooking done early.

I quickly made 24 hamburger patties.

And when I say quickly, I mean quickly.

I don’t add a bunch of ingredients to my burgers.

Just ground beef and kosher salt.

I make the patties fairly thin and press a little divot into the center of each one.

Here’s why I make that little divot:

As burgers cook, the meat contracts. If you make a perfectly flat patty, it can puff up in the middle and turn into a little meatball.

Or a hockey puck.

Neither of which is what I’m going for.

So I make them thin, press a little indentation in the middle, and season both sides with kosher salt.

Then onto the grill they go.

They cook so quickly, especially when they’re thin.

And suddenly I had 24 burgers ready for lunch and leftovers.

Ground Beef for the Freezer

While the burgers were cooking, I took the rest of the ground beef, probably about two pounds, and started browning it on the stove.

No elaborate seasoning.

Just getting the meat cooked so I can put it into the freezer and have it ready for another meal.

I’m thinking I’ll make chili later this week, and having the beef already cooked will make that incredibly easy.

This is one of my favorite ways to handle a big package of Costco ground beef.

Some of it becomes burgers.

Some of it gets cooked and frozen.

And now I have several meals’ worth of protein handled without needing to cook ground beef again later.

For lunch, we had the burgers with chips, fruit and vegetables.

I made mine into a burger salad on a bed of arugula.

I love a burger bowl. You get all the flavor of a hamburger, but you can pile on whatever vegetables and toppings you want.

And there were plenty of burgers left for another day.

My Gluten-Free Focaccia Experiment

After lunch, we finished up our schoolwork.

Then the kids had their Tuesday piano and violin lessons, which gave me some time to work on a couple of kitchen projects.

First up?

My ongoing attempt to make a really good gluten-free focaccia pizza.

Here’s what I’m trying to accomplish.

I want a gluten-free focaccia that is big, bubbly and delicious, but I also want it to be approachable.

I don’t want a recipe that requires people to buy six obscure ingredients they’ll never use again.

Ideally, I’d love to make it with a regular gluten-free flour blend that people can easily find at the grocery store.

Well.

Today’s experiment was not exactly a success.

It tasted good!

The kids actually liked it.

But big and bubbly?

Absolutely not.

It was much closer to a thin-crust pizza dough than focaccia.

Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

In fact, I decided to save it because tomorrow I’m going to try turning it into a thin-crust pizza for lunch.

The kids all agreed that sounded delicious.

So perhaps I accidentally developed a gluten-free thin-crust pizza recipe while trying to develop a gluten-free focaccia recipe.

That’s how recipe testing goes sometimes.

I’m beginning to think I may need to add a few more specialized ingredients if I really want that airy, bubbly focaccia texture.

But I’m not giving up yet.

The Pumpkin Streusel Cake That Everybody Loved

My other kitchen project today was much more successful.

Remember the pumpkin streusel bread I made a couple of weeks ago for Ingredient Household After Dark?

I’ve been tweaking that recipe, and today I made it again and filmed the updated version.

And it was phenomenal.

I’m not exaggerating.

This is one of those desserts that I think is especially wonderful if you’re cooking for someone with food allergies.

It’s gluten-free, dairy-free and egg-free.

It does contain nuts, so it’s not suitable for everyone, but if you’re avoiding gluten, dairy or eggs, this is a fantastic holiday dessert option.

And here’s what I loved most.

All my kids tried it.

My kids can eat regular desserts, so they’re not automatically impressed by something just because it’s allergy-friendly.

And they all agreed that it didn’t taste gluten-free.

It was just really good.

Period.

That’s exactly what I want when I’m developing an allergy-friendly recipe.

I don’t want people to say, “Well, that’s pretty good for something gluten-free.”

I want them to say, “That’s delicious.”

And that’s what happened today.

Double the Streusel. Trust Me.

One of the biggest changes I made was doubling the streusel topping.

And I absolutely recommend doing that.

The pumpkin base is soft and moist, and then you get this generous layer of sweet, crunchy pecan streusel on top.

It’s such a good combination.

I also added a quick maple glaze.

I’m thinking this is the dessert to make for Thanksgiving or any of the upcoming holidays when you need something allergy-friendly that everybody will actually want to eat.

I’ll include the full updated recipe here….a little sneak peak before I post it as a full recipe on the website!

Pumpkin base

• 1 (15-ounce) can pure pumpkin
• ¾ cup packed brown sugar
• ¼ cup granulated sugar
• ½ cup melted coconut oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1¾ cups gluten-free 1:1 baking flour
• ½ cup almond flour
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• Optional: ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
• Splash of dairy-free milk, only if needed

Double pecan streusel

• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• ⅔ cup gluten-free flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 pinches salt
• 8 tablespoons melted coconut oil

Maple glaze

• 1 tablespoon dairy-free butter
• About 1 cup powdered sugar
• Splash of maple syrup
• Splash of vanilla extract
• Water, as needed to thin

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a 9×13-inch baking pan with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, mix pumpkin, sugars, melted coconut oil and vanilla.
3. In another bowl, whisk together the gluten-free flour, almond flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices.
4. Combine the wet and dry ingredients. The batter should be thick but spreadable. Add a small splash of dairy-free milk only if needed.
5. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan.
6. Combine the streusel ingredients until clumps form, then distribute generously over the pumpkin batter.
7. Bake for approximately 28–38 minutes, checking for edges beginning to pull away from the pan and a toothpick coming out without wet batter. Moist crumbs are fine.
8. Let cool. Stir together the glaze ingredients, adding a little water until pourable, then drizzle over the bars.

This is the version I’d put directly into your Kitchen Log under the pumpkin streusel section. And I think Pumpkin Pecan Streusel Bars with Maple Glaze is a much better name than pumpkin bread.

Chick-fil-A for the Kids

Meanwhile, my mom was handling violin transportation.

And because the violin lessons are conveniently located near a Chick-fil-A, she stopped and picked up dinner for the kids.

She does this sometimes.

And by sometimes, I mean most weeks.

Which is incredibly nice of her.

So the kids had Chick-fil-A for dinner, and I only needed to figure out something for myself.

And I knew exactly what I wanted.

Soup.

Leftover Gravy Makes the Best Soup Base

I’ve been waiting to make this soup.

On Sunday night, I made those apple-Dijon pork chops, and I ended up with a lot of extra gravy.

When I sear meat and then let it simmer in a covered pan, I like having plenty of liquid around it.

That keeps everything moist and gives the meat a really flavorful cooking environment.

But it also means I often end up with more sauce or gravy than we can possibly eat with that one dinner.

And I am absolutely not throwing that away.

Because leftover gravy is one of my favorite soup starters.

It’s already packed with flavor.

You’ve got all the browned bits from the meat, the seasonings, the broth and whatever vegetables or other ingredients you used to make the sauce.

It’s practically a head start on homemade soup.

Tonight’s Refrigerator Soup

I started with a simple mirepoix:

• Onion
• Carrots
• Celery

I sautéed those in olive oil until they started to soften.

Then I added:

• About 3 cups leftover pork chop gravy
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1 can cannellini beans, drained
• Some frozen cooked ground beef
• Salt and pepper
• Garlic powder
• Italian seasoning

I stirred everything together and let it simmer for about 20–30 minutes.

And that was dinner.

It was delicious.

The leftover gravy gave the soup such a rich, savory base, and the tomatoes, beans, vegetables and ground beef turned it into a really hearty meal.

No special soup recipe.

No elaborate planning.

Just ingredients I already had in the refrigerator, freezer and pantry.

And somehow those are often the best soups.

The only problem is that when you make a soup like this, you can never recreate it exactly.

You can make something similar, sure.

But you’re probably never going to have precisely the same leftover gravy and combination of ingredients again.

So when somebody says it’s the best soup you’ve ever made, you just have to tell them to enjoy it while it lasts.

I love soup in the fall and winter.

I even like eating it for breakfast.

And there’s a very good chance I’ll be having some of this tomorrow morning.

Setting Up the Rest of the Week

Today was a really productive kitchen day.

I grilled 24 burgers, cooked extra ground beef for the freezer, tested a gluten-free pizza dough, made a fantastic pumpkin streusel dessert and turned leftover gravy into soup.

And the kids had Chick-fil-A for dinner.

Not bad.

Now the only proteins I have left from my Costco trip are some bratwurst and a whole chicken.

I’m thinking I’ll make brat bites for lunch tomorrow and cook the whole chicken for dinner.

Then we’ll have plenty of leftovers to carry us through Thursday and Friday without much additional cooking.