Mahalo for Sweet Hawaiian Mini Burgers

It should have been simple, I mean I picked the least demanding of the five recipes offered to me to cook for the Texas Beef Council as part of their Grilling Experience. Y’all know I like easy, but most of the recipes sounded a bit frou frou for this Texas gal. However, they might be to your taste, so don’t take my word for it. You can check them out at the Texas Beef Council Recipe Book, but as for me:

• I didn’t want to ruin a hunk of meat by making Steak with Ginger Plum Barbecue Sauce. That sounded like something one of those psychotic chefs on T.V. would cook up.
• Grilled Steak with Mango Salsa didn’t blow my dress up, either.
• I’m getting tired of eating salads, so I didn’t opt for Caesar Salad Beef Burger on Garlic Crostini. Heck, I’ve never even heard tell of a “crostini!” It’s nothing my Mamaw ever made, for sure.
• I didn’t want to make the Moroccan Style Beef Kabobs with Spiced Bulgar… because “bulgar” rhymes with “vulgar,” and y’all should know by now that I’m a lady.

Sweet Hawaiian Mini Burgers

I chose to make the Sweet Hawaiian Mini Burgers. Go ahead and click on the link, if you’d like (but come right back). I love those itty bitty burgers that they serve over at the burger joint, don’t you? I thought these were worth a try. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted ‘em. They only required eight items: lean ground beef, Worcestershire sauce, pineapple slices, Hawaiian sweet rolls, lettuce, barbecue sauce, pineapple preserves, and brown sugar.

Heck, I already had most of that! All I needed was some fresh Texas ground beef, Hawaiian sweet rolls and pineapple preserves. No problem, right? Wrong.

The ground beef wasn’t a problem, of course. Unfortunately, however, I found that most of the stores around here don’t have the Hawaiian sweet rolls — it comes in a big old loaf. Well, that would never do. I didn’t want a giant burger; I wanted baby burgers. We opted to use just whole wheat dinner rolls.

The pineapple preserves were the problem. I tell you what! I went to both Kroger stores, Albertson’s, Brookshire’s, The Target Super Store, and even the Piggly Wiggly. Nobody had pineapple preserves!

Now, a smart woman would have just changed her mind (because women are allowed to do that, you know). But, by that time my mouth was watering for those Sweet Hawaiian Mini Burgers. I had to have one! Fortunately, the internet is a wonderful thing (when Charter Cable Company’s internet service isn’t down), so I Googled for a pineapple preserve recipe and made my own! It was messy, but it was worth it!

Quite honestly, these burgers were a snap to make — except for those dadgum pineapple preserves. I admit that I was skeptical because the recipe doesn’t call for you to put mayonnaise or mustard on them, but they didn’t need it because of the sauce used for basting the burgers. We wolfed ‘em down in a hurry, too. In fact, I took more time setting up to take this pitiful picture than I did to cook and eat those burgers!

If you want something quick to fix, these Sweet Hawaiian Mini Burgers were delicious. Instead of wasting time looking for pineapple preserves though, just use the jalapeno preserves that are on the shelves of every store in the world. It’ll work. Just lie to folks, “Sure, it’s pineapple.” I bet you’ll get away with it.

This post was written for the Texas Beef Council as part of their Grilling Experience — but I didn’t grill. Are you kidding? It’s hot outside! I broiled).

Other posts you might enjoy:

1. Heavenly Burgers
2. Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner.
3. Chip’s Old Fashioned Hamburger is a Top 10
4. You Scream, I Scream, We All Scream For…
5. Excuse Me, Gotta Run

Tagged as: beef, recipes, review