Good morning! Hopefully this finds everyone safe, healthy and busy! My fall and holiday seasons were so busy with extra sewing projects for friends, that I can’t believe it is already February! With all the projects I had, doing some of the Christmas baking before Thanksgiving would have been helpful. I wish I had been more faithful with the Year-Round Christmas Challenge, but I can try again this year!
Thankfully, we were also busy camping and campfire cooking in the fall. With so many fun pictures and camping recipes to share, and then with the upcoming maple syrup season, I’m sure the winter will fly by too!
One of the fun campfire meals that we cooked, Hamburgers with Onions, was not a new meal. We just tried a new way to cook it.
We usually cook hamburgers on the grill. Actually, I should say the husband cooks hamburgers on the grill- I don’t grill often.
The grill works great because we can do quite a few hamburger patties at once. There is usually room to cook extras, which is nice since the kids will eat leftover hamburgers. I have read about cooking hamburgers in different pie irons, even ones with holes to drain grease, but I don’t have 12-15 pie irons (yet!).
One fall weekend, between school and work schedules, we cooked hamburgers for just the two of us. I was able to try Hamburgers and Onions in a Pie Iron-I just love cooking and trying new things over the campfire!
Preparing
Our hamburger patties are a very easy meal- at home or camping. They are prepared and frozen when hamburger goes on sale at our local grocery store. We buy a 10 pound tube when it is on sale, then the husband uses an electric knife to cut it into quarter pound patties. The husband is getting good at cutting the patties, even though he doesn’t weigh them. Last time he cut 39 patties, we should get 40 patties from a tube.
After the hamburger patties are cut and separated, I stack them. I put either wax paper or cereal bags (kept in a freezer stash, thanks to our youngest’s cocoa pebble cravings) between the patties.
Later, when they are frozen, the wax paper/bag makes it easier to separate them for thawing and cooking.
The stacks of patties go into bread bags, then they are ready for the freezer. I used to put the bread bags into freezer bags, but we eat them fast enough that freezer burn is not a problem.
The frozen hamburger patties are a great back-up meal to take camping. When I pack the camper, I grab a stack of frozen hamburger patties for the camper freezer. If we have company for supper, it is easy to separate the patties and thaw them in the microwave(at an electric site). If we don’t use them, the still frozen patties can go back in the home freezer.
Cooking
Cooking the Hamburgers with Onions in a Pie Iron, was fairly easy. We don’t have a hamburger pie iron with the holes to drain the grease, we just used our regular pie irons.
First, we put a nice layer of chopped onions on the bottom of a pie iron. Then, we placed a thawed hamburger patty on top. Our quarter pound patties fit nicely inside the closed pie iron.
Like other pie iron recipes and campfire cooking, cooking time for the hamburger patties depends on the heat of the fire. We kept them in the heat enough to hear the patties sizzling and cooking, but not in a roaring part of the fire.
We opened the pie irons to check the patties every 3-4 minutes, they need to be cooked through but not burnt by high flames. I didn’t keep track of how long they took to cook, but it is similar to frying a hamburger patty in a pan at home.
Our pie irons don’t have holes to drain the grease. So when we checked the hamburgers and saw a lot of grease and moisture from the onions, the husband tilted the closed pie iron and drained some off.
The pie iron was firmly latched shut, so the hamburger didn’t fall into the fire. We were also not close to the campfire- the grease really makes the fire flare up!
We cooked the hamburger patties on both sides, just flipping the pie iron over to cook the second side.
I probably should have checked the second side more often, it got a little crispy. Not totally burnt, still edible-but definitely crispy.
The Hamburgers with Onions in a Pie Iron was definitely yummy though! I love cooking over the campfire, and finding a new meal to use with the pie irons was great! I can’t wait for spring, to camp and to cook these again!
Happy Camping (and cooking over the campfire!)
Frugal Campasaurus