Epic Burger Night, Paleo Style

It was time, we realized yesterday, time to have Paleo Burger Night. In preparation, we gathered pastured bacon and bacon ends, pastured cream cheese, grass-fed beef, jalapeños and avocado, mushrooms, and onions, the ingredients for Son of Grok's BBQ sauce, and proceeded to cook enough food for a small to moderately sized party.

Things started off innocently enough, with grilled Jalapeño Poppers:

Paleo Pepper Poppers

(Makes 16)

-8 fresh jalapeños

-4 - 6 oz cream cheese

-16 strip of bacon

Cut the jalapeños in half and clean out the seeds. Fill with 1-3 tsp cream cheese, then wrap in bacon and skewer with a toothpick to keep the bacon in place. Grill until the bacon is crispy. (Well, we grilled, but you could easily broil them in an oven.)

After the poppers. we moved onto the burgers--more accurately, we made sliders.

Slider Patties

(Makes about 16)

-2 lbs ground beef

-1 egg

-1 or 2 cloves of garlic, minced

-A few dashes each of...

-Worcestershire sauce

-Paprika

-Seasoning Salt

Combine all ingredients in a bowl, then get in there and knead the meat with your hands until well mixed. Shape into balls, then flatten into small patties--ours were about 3" across raw. Grill (or pan fry, bake, etc) to taste. Very delicious and juicy.

At the start, we crafted some burgers with an eye for aesthetics--perhaps a little overboard on the aesthetics...

Above: Cream cheese, avocado and pan-fried bacon ends on a spinach salad.

Below: Cream cheese, cucumber, avocado and bacon on a bacon salad--smart. Nick doesn't mess around with spinach on Burger Night.

But then we got eager....

Above: SoG's BBQ sauce, mushrooms & onions sauteed in bacon grease, topped with bacon.

And then we got gluttonous, sloppy, and out-of-control....

Above: Half a slider with almond butter, cream cheese, avocado, and bacon, garnished with ghost chili hot sauce.

We also made baked sweet potatoes, but the burgers were way too distracting--we never got to them.

Okay, so seriously. Would anyone really miss having a bun amidst all this crazy burger and bacon action? Honestly, I think buns would have slowed us down, trammeled our creativity, and stifled our bacon-sprinkled dreams.

Paleo burger night, FTW.

~Losterman