Ground Hog Burgers or Not-So-Sloppy-Joes and Homemade Fries

Happy Groundhogs day! My kids really get into holidays (okay maybe I really get into holidays) so we have had a themed day in celebration of Groundhogs Day! For breakfast we had ground hog-in-a-hole. You make these by buttering both sides of a piece of bread, cutting out a circle, laying it all on a frying pan at medium heat, cracking an egg in it, let it cook, flip, and let it finish cooking. We usually call these egg-in-a-hole, but we changed the name just for today.

Then, my son pointed out we had all brown food today, because for lunch we had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on whole wheat bread. For dinner, I had planned on making the Not-So-Sloppy-Joes, and mid day I realized I needed to change the name to Ground Hog Burgers! The funny thing about this is my son really thought it was groundhog meat, and he still ate it!

For dessert I made our traditional ground hog in dirt, which was basically the dirt recipe below this post, with a picture of a ground hog taped to the spoon.

With our Groundhog Burgers aka Not-So-Sloppy-Joes, we also made our homemade fries, so I will incude the recipe for that too.

Not-So-Sloppy-Joes

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 6-ounce can tomato paste
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 4 hamburger buns, toasted
• 1/2 cup grated Cheddar
• 1/2 cup sour cream

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, and red pepper. Sauté until fragrant, about 3 minutes. 
2. Add the ground beef and brown, about 5 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste, chili powder, cumin, black pepper, cinnamon, and salt. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has thickened slightly, about 12 minutes. 
3. Spoon onto the buns, sprinkle with the Cheddar, and top each sandwich with a dollop of the sour cream.

* I would leave out the cumin and cinnamon next time, and replace it with galic powder, it was a little too sweet for my liking. I also did not use the sour cream.   

Homemade Fries

4 or 5 russet potatoes

hot oil heated to 375, deep enough to completely cover the fries

steak seasoning

Slice up your potatoes in desired fry shape. Drop into oil for 3 minutes. Remove fries and drain on paper towels. Let the oil heat back up and the fries cool down. When oil is back up to 375, cook fries again for 4 more minutes. Remove onto paper towels and sprinkle with steak seasoning. Double frying the fries will make them nice and crispy. Now if only In-and-Out would learn this lesson...