DIY takeaway - the burger edition

Hi Leanne here, with some lazy-cooking/staying-at-home rambling.

As a family we have been slow to venture into the frozen chips section of the supermarket… but a few months ago I was strolling through the freezer section and spotted the McCain shoestring fries.

I generally try to avoid big supermarkets, because when I do go I feel burdened with the role of mothering (it takes so long etc. etc.) … and thus find myself buying the easiest to make meals I can think of for the upcoming dinner following said experience.

Which I find is hamburgers. And with the addition of these fries, I’ve elevated my go-to ‘post supermarket shopping meal’ to a whole other level of happiness for my children.

And … I do have a range of take-away-burgers-at-home in my repertoire now … that I’ll share with you today.

I started out cooking what I liked to present as a McChicken. I bought those bulk packs of chicken burgers … having grown up on chops/sausages/steak with three veg I personally quite like them (also I used to work at Maccas in my youth). But they weren’t quite up to scratch for the gourmet palettes of some of my inner urban darling children!

So I explored steak sandwiches (reminiscent of Grill’d when they first opened - but now sadly scrapped from the menu). Ciabatta rolls, sizzle steak, beetroot, Gouda cheese slices and some rocket, tomato, cucumber. Everyone happy.

Then … I found the sandwich pickles (pickles sliced longways!) and moved on to beef patties with pickles and mustard (yes, hello Grill’d again).

Then … most recently I stumbled across the southern style crumbed chicken fillet at Coles (they also have them at Woolies but I like the Coles ones better). In the section with the fresh popcorn chicken etc.

And I think this rounds out my hamburger-at-home range perfectly. Because hello KFC.

Most excitingly with this meal, the fries and chicken fillets took the same time to cook. I dumped them on a separate tray each and popped them in the oven. Then I cut up half an iceberg lettuce, got out the mayo … and toasted the rolls for a minute at the end. Excellent minimal effort cooking if I do say so myself!

Now I just need to pull out the babywipes Clive keeps to clean his bike (and perhaps sprinkle them with some 4711 perfume) and fold them up into little squares … and we’ll have the whole takeaway-burger-made-at-home experience perfectly down pat!