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With a frozen rock of ice-cream waiting for me in the fridge, it was time to move onto the July cover and attempt cheddar burgers with balsamic onions and chipotle ketchup. First off I made an executive decision and decided to buy store-bought burgers. I’m really partial to the “Angus Burgers” sold at Fred Meyer/Safeway – they’re great. For cheese I was going to go with a Havarti Dill.

I think the real star of this combination is the Chipotle ketchup. I’ve never bought chipotle chiles or adobo before – this was a real first. It was super easy to make, and tasted great. This ketchup is definitely a keeper for the bag of tricks.

Next onto the onions. I’ve done numerous versions of carmelized onions before – but this was a new wrinkle by doing it directly on the grill. This was super easy to do and the balsamic gives it a great twist. Superb !

So how was it ? This was pretty good – the chipotle ketchup and the onions gave this a nice zing, and something a little different from a regular burger. I think the biggest dissapointment was the english muffin however – it seemed a little crumbly and didn’t quite hold-up. I think this was the weak-point in the overall recipe. If I was going to do it again – I’d try a bit harder for a quality ciabatta roll or a sourdough bun. Still not a bad burger !!!

I’m now officially out of panic-mode – with at least one of my four recipes behind me.