Meat as a Conditional Use

Heading into Memorial Weekend and the kick-off for many northern folks of the grilling season. Grilling doesn't mean just meat, but in this instance - we are leaning that direction, though as mentioned below, not quite as often. And with a few more exceptions - using meat as a conditional use if you will.

Photo courtesy via CC

Is living in the Midwest synonymous with eating lots of meat? Not necessarily. Though my family eats plenty. Or at least we usually have some portion of meat with each dinner. Yes, we use those sharper pointed teeth in the front of our mouths. But we're still nice people.

Also, we are eating less meat, overall, and the meat we eat is better quality. I think. Except for our occasional forays to the fast food joints, the majority of the meat we eat is grass fed beef, or bison, or free range something or other. This is the condition we in this household are placing on ourselves - that we eat better quality meat (hopefully). With the "better quality" meat comes higher prices - so we don't eat quite as much of it - thereby filling in our diet with other stuff... like raisins.

However, I have always grown with meat as the primary.
Imagine a plate in front of you. Broken up into various sections - like a pizza. The largest section is usually a portion of some meat... a chicken breast, a hamburger, a brat, a slice of meatloaf - whatever. Say 3/5 to 1/2 the plate is covered with that, then the rest the plate is filled in with some vegetable, finally maybe a slice of bread and a bit of Jello for good measure.

That's that.
Except when I eat some sort of delicious foreign cuisine. Say something good from Southeast Asia that has lots of spice, lots of rice and some sort of sauce with some sort of chunks of vegetables. Perhaps it's vegan friendly, it's filling, it's meatless and with the spice quotient there to pack a punch - it is delicious and satisfying. With this type of meal, meat is a non-necessity to me and my family.

I have also read that meat consumption in America is declining. Specifically beef consumption. And that's all right, just makes more room for bison- that which roamed the plains before cows were brought about and fenced-into lots of lots.

Of course the day may come where my kids don't eat a plateful of food. They may eat a tablet of food, as in a pill - kinda like Willy Wonka's three course gum. Oompa.

But, until that day comes we will still use the grill (charcoal), and I am anxious to start making my infamous bison burgers - as conditions permit.

My bison burger recipe:
- some bison meat
- some egg
- some bread crumbs
- some onion
- some Worcestershire sauce
- a bit of garlic salt
- a bit of ground black pepper

Blend all this stuff together with your freshly washed hands in a bowl; Separate and pat the concoction into patties, then take them to the grill (which was already started and is hot); Heat the patties, directly over the coals a few minutes each side - but beware bison is leaner meat, therefore generally cooks faster.

Viola! You're set, and it works well when there is perhaps a barley pop in one hand and when the raingarden isn't 'bout to overflow before your very eyes.