6/26/10

People are always doing things and then telling you, "Don't try this at home."  I say that's a bunch of bullshit.  If you never tried anything at home, then you would miss out on a lot of the best things in life.  That's my policy.  So, on the internet I've seen various incarnations of a particular food item that the stoners seem to enjoy.  At first I chuckled.  Then I wondered.  Tonight, after some hands-on secret agent training, I had worked up a bit of an appetite.  So... here goes nothing...

Step 1: Ingredients - (2) 12" or 14" Frozen pizzas, (5) Pounds of ground beef, (1) Package of shredded cheese, (1) Package of sliced cheese, (2) Eggs [half-dozen package pictured], (1) Package of bacon.  Your total bill will be somewhere in the $30-40 range, but the finished product will easily feed an entire family.





Step 2: Turn your oven on and set it at 350°.  Now form the ground beef into a giant hamburger patty and place it on a cookie sheet.  Mix in the two eggs, which will act as a bonding agent and add some stability to the giant hamburger.  Set this giant hamburger in your refrigerator for the moment.




Step 3: Using eight slices of bacon, form a woven pattern and place it on a second cookie sheet.  If this woven pattern is too difficult for you, I recommend enrolling at an SEC university or perhaps Ohio State, then choosing basket weaving as your academic major.  Set this bacon weave in your refrigerator as well.




Step 4: Fry the remaining strips of bacon until they are good and crisp.  Chop them into small pieces (bacon bits, in essence) and set them aside.  Now your oven should be heated, so take your giant hamburger from the refrigerator and place it in the oven.  Set a timer for twenty minutes, pour yourself a beer, and relax for a while.




Step 5: Remove the giant hamburger from the oven and drain the grease from the cookie sheet on which it rests.  Now retrieve your second cookie sheet, with the bacon weave, from your refrigerator.  Place the cookie sheet with the bacon on top of the one with the giant hamburger.




Step 6: Flip the entire arrangement, such that the bacon weave is now on the bottom and the giant hamburger is on the top.  (Be careful not to burn yourself.)  Remove the cookie sheet that now rests atop the giant hamburger.  Spread your bacon bits and shredded cheese on top of the giant hamburger.  For tonight's demonstration, the shredded cheese is a blend of cheddar and Monterey Jack.  Place this combination in the oven and set a timer for fifteen minutes.  Wash and dry the first cookie sheet (that no longer holds the giant hamburger).  Then kick back and relax.




Step 7: Add your sliced cheese.  You'll want to use a creamy variety that melts smoothly for this layer.  Mozzarella and Muenster will work nicely.  Swiss or Provolone may be suitable as well.  Our demonstration project uses semi-soft Havarti.  Place the arrangement back in the oven and set a timer for ten minutes, then relax a little more.




Step 8: Remove your giant bacon cheeseburger and set it on your stove top.  The meat will continue to cook for a period of time after it comes out of the oven and the cheese will begin to solidify slightly.




Step 9: Adjust your oven to the proper cooking temperature for your frozen pizzas and then place them on the center rack.  Set a timer for two minutes less than the time suggested by the pizza manufacturer.  In tonight's case, the recommendation was 400° for 19-21 minutes.  So we set the oven at 400° and the timer at 17 minutes.




Step 10: Check on the pizzas when the timer goes off.  They may need to cook for another minute or two.  They are done when the cheese has begun to brown and the bottom of the crust has begun to darken.  Place the first pizza onto your clean cookie sheet.  Using two spatulas, carefully add the giant bacon cheeseburger on top of the first pizza.  Then place the second pizza face-down on top.




Step 11:  After allowing your masterpiece to cool for a few minutes, cut a slice and dig in.  Bon appétit.




I'll now make a few observations. 

• The process was fairly lengthy, but most of the time was spent sitting and relaxing as each cooking stage proceeded. 
• The one slice from that last picture left me feeling quite full, so I'm not kidding when I say that this thing will feed an entire family.  My colleague for this evening didn't even finish her smaller slice.
• The little draft beer home kit thing from Miller Lite isn't bad, but it's a little tricky to manage the CO² on the nozzle for any kind of consistent pour.  It either dribbles out with no fizz or it fires out with too much gas, depending on how far you turn the cartridge.
• The variety of pizza that I used tonight (DiGiorno Cheese Crust) didn't add quite enough flavor to handle five pounds of beef, a pound of bacon, and two pounds of cheese.  The finished product was pretty good, but it wasn't excellent.  Excellence is our goal at the Fenian Godfather Culinary Institute, so some some tweaks will be required if we are to try this thing again in the future.  Some options would be to (a) use a different variety of pizza, (b) add some chopped green peppers or onions to the hamburger, and/or (c) spread a thin layer of additional pizza sauce between the two cheeses.
• You can never have too much bacon as far as I'm concerned, so adding another pound probably wouldn't be a bad idea.  The only question would be how it would affect the cooking time, but I think that the woven layer would cook similarly even if it were more tightly spaced.  The bacon bits are cooked separately anyway, so that step wouldn't be affected.
• Tonight's secret agent training will have to go back to the movie-watching variety.  I'm feeling rather sluggish and not cut out for any more activity at this point in time.

I guess I didn't really do a whole lot today, but the couple of things that I did manage to accomplish were pretty groovy.  Still plenty of time to deal with the more mundane stuff before I have to go back to work.