Cheeseburger Pinwheel Picnic

It’s no secret that I spend more time in the woods lately than I used to. Why not ? I’m retired now, so why not make the best of it instead of sitting around the house and staring at the walls ? I’m into eating better food these days and I can’t afford restaurant prices — so I cook my own.

Today’s recipe is an experiment. I don’t have an actual recipe for this, so I decided to just “wing it.” The prep time for this dish is about 30 minutes, and about 20 minutes on the grill.

I placed a single burrito wrap on a sheet of aluminum foil. I sliced up some pepper jack cheese to put on it.

Then I squeezed out enough hamburger to make a small burger patty. Instead of making a wad of meat, I spread it thinly over the wrap, and used an old glass in my kitchen like a rolling pin to pack the meat flat.

Then I just went wild with the ingredients. I diced some red, yellow, and green bell peppers. I added some diced tomatoes and green chilies. I sliced onions and added some minced garlic. The entire wrap was then given a liberal douse of turmeric, black pepper, crushed red pepper flakes and some harissa hot sauce.

I began to roll the wrap as tightly as I could.

Once it was rolled, I cut it into 1 inch thick sections.

Then I ran a pair of bamboo skewers through the rolls to hold everything together. After this, I wrapped everything up in the sheet of aluminum foil so I could place it in my cooler.

I loaded my portable kitchen into the sidecar Harley along with the dog, and we were off on another day adventure. I found a nice spot by a lake with picnic tables and set up to cook.

By the way, the brownie in the foreground was store bought. I didn’t bake it.

I grilled everything on my wood fired Biolite grill. Now let me tell you just how great this tasted. As the pinwheel wraps were cooking — I basted them in my own homemade sauce. I melted a tbsp of white truffle butter. Yes, there’s such a thing. White truffle mushrooms blended into an organic whole milk unsalted butter.

1tbsp truffle butter

1tbsp low sodium soy sauce

1 tspn chili oil

A splash of single malt scotch.

Blend this mixture together and paint it on the wrap as you grill it.

The flavors are hard to describe in one word, but I’ll try. It was MAGNIFICENT. A blend of umami with the hint of peatiness from the scotch, mixes in with the sweetness of the bell peppers. The acidity of the tomatoes are balanced by the turmeric and black pepper, and the crunchy texture comes from the fire of the grill slightly singeing the soft flour wrap.

Of course once I had the dish on the plate, I had to break out my hip flask and pour myself two fingers of scotch into a shot glass to enjoy along with the meal. And what kind of scotch, you might ask ? 12 year old Macallens single malt cask conditioned. Only the best. Of course I backed it with a bottle of spring water in a separate cup. I’m not stupid….because I know scotch and Harleys don’t mix.

Afterwards, I took the dog on a mini safari where she stopped to sniff everything and anything she could jam her nose into.

We found a path to go down to the lake, naturally.

The view from our picnic tables. Why spend a fortune in a restaurant when I can have a view like this with my lunch ? And there was nobody around to ruin our vibe.

And here we are after packing everything up to head back home. Many more days like this and I might just stay in the backwoods. Never bother returning to “civilization.”