7 Perfect 4th of July Burgers for your Celebration!

Happy 4th of July Weekend, Slow Roasters.  Just in case you are still looking for the perfect burger, I put a few together for you.  With 7 fabulous extraordinary burgers to choose from you are sure to find a crowd pleaser.  Have a great grilling weekend!

Red White and Blue Berry Popsicles

These fantastic Red White and Blue-Berry Popsicles make the perfect 4th of July treat!  Cold, refreshing and packed with vitamin C, antioxidants and power boosting protein! Stunning to look at and spectacular to eat.  Kids and adults alike will gobble these up!

These popsicles are simply delicious and have only 5 ingredients.  Made with fresh fruit, all natural yogurt, honey and your favorite vanilla.  This is definitely a dessert I am proud to feed my daughter and I love to watch her dive into this popsicle.  She eats the center first, the vanilla honey yogurt layer is her first choice.  Go figure.  She knows what she wants!  Which layer is your favorite?

Tantalizing Strawberry Mojito

It's summer time and we are going to take you on a fabulous journey to a nearly deserted island in the Caribbean.  Setting sun, sand, incredible cocktails and tranquility are the order of the day.  Relaxing on the beach listening to the sounds of the ocean.  You hear the waves breaking and beach around you is still.  You smell the salt in the air the wind gently caresses your cheek.

Simple Peanut Butter Fudge Chocolate Brownies

Has there ever been a more perfect fusion than peanut butter and chocolate?  How about a scrumptious triple chocolate brownie with melt in your mouth peanut butter fudge frosting on top?  Do I have your attention yet?  Let's drizzle it with melted chocolate and sprinkle some peanuts on top.  THAT is a dessert  masterpiece!

Smoky Beer Cheddar Cheese Sauce

This is the most amazing cheese sauce you will ever sink your teeth into.  Beer and cheddar cheese perfectly combine with the smoked paprika and ground chile de arbol to create a rich, smoky deep cheddar cheese flavor that you just can not get enough of!

TSRI's Barbecue Bacon Cheddar Smokehouse Burger

ARE YOU READY FOR THIS?  Welcome to the smokehouse, Slow Roasters.  Today, we will be checking your inhibitions at the door, this burger is packed full of bravado.  This is THE burger to wake up your taste buds!   From the smokehouse flavors to the bacon and bbq sauce, flowing all the way down the river of beer cheese.  This burger will have your mouth watering at first sight and your taste buds dancing with pure delight!

I was looking for the ultimate grilling creation to make for Chad (it is his birthday this week).  I knew it had to be bold and passionate (like me).  It had to be big, flavorful and loaded with cheese and bacon. I knew a burger would be perfect for this occasion.  I have to search for the exact words to describe this burger...  Maybe love.  Can you feel love for a burger?  Well if you can this is the burger.  Chad looked like a kid on Christmas morning when he saw this burger.  Once he took his first bite, his eyes rolled back in his head and the air was filled with mmmmm's.  I love that sound!  Needless to say this burger is a member of the clean plate club.  Not even a drip of cheese was left on the plate.  He licked it clean!

Did you take a REALLY GOOD LOOK at this tantalizing burger???  Go ahead, I'll wait.  8 ounces of ground chuck perfectly spiced with chipotle chile pepper.  It is served over a bed of sweet and spicy TSRI's Signature Barbecue Sauce.  A heaping scoop of luscious Beer Cheddar Cheese Sauce is poured over top, with 4 bacon strips all on a toasted ciabatta roll.  This is the definition of burger heaven.  Purely decadent and delicious.  Chad has requested this for his birthday dinner too.   

We are also excited to share with you our Anniversary Celebration Giveaway for this week...   TSRI is having a 4 month grilling celebration, so what would be better than an amazing grilling giveaway to Celebrate our 1 year Anniversary?  This will get all you Slow Roasters  out on the patio and grilling your own summer treats!  Check it our after the recipe!

Congrats to our winner KellyR78!

Scrumptious Strawberry Banana Popsicles

Nothing says summer quite like a luscious fruit popsicle on a warm summer day.  I love to watch my munchkin devour these, it makes me think of summers when I was a kid.  Bomb pop in one hand, running in the back yard, playing by the water.  Right arm dripping in red, white and blue.  How much fun was that?  I can't say that I have had the enjoyment of watching my munchkin dripping in ice pops, she devours them too quickly.  But, with temps of 110 and climbing here in the valley of the sun, I am sure it won't be long.

These Scrumptious Strawberry Banana Popsicles are there and gone in an instant.  So delicious!  The vibrant, sweet and tart strawberries wake up your taste buds and carry you into the surprisingly more mellow, tender banana yogurt and then round it out with the mouthwatering strawberry again.

Cherry Limeade Cocktail

 

Summer heat and sunshine bring memories of lip smacking, icy cold drinks on the sandy beaches of southern Florida.  Lemonade, iced tea, orange coolers, pink grapefruit cocktails and luscious cherry limeade still bring a smile to my face and wonderful memories to my mind.

Chad, our mixologist, developed this Cherry Limeade Cocktail for my Mom and I during our vacation.  We agreed that it is a refreshing cocktail to tantalize your taste buds.  We certainly kept him mixing up these cocktails during the vacation.  Cherry Limeade Cocktail features a delightfully mouth puckering cherry vodka that is tart and sweet at the same time, with the sweet and sour zing of lime.  This drink will make your mouth water and your cheeks pucker and believe me, you will ask for seconds!

Do yourself a favor and use a bigger glass and make it a double!

Simply Delicious Classic Fresh Basil Pesto

Does your mouth water when you think of fresh basil pesto?  Oh, mine does.  I love summer for all the fresh fruits and vegetables, but mostly for the fresh basil in my garden and the reasonably priced large packages of basil at the market. 

Hi Slow Roasters, thank you for joining us to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of The Slow Roasted Italian during TSRI's Summer Grilling Celebration.  We shared an amazingly delicious Tuscan Summer Sun-dried Tomato Burger with you that had an fantastically flavorful and bright pesto on the toasted ciabatta bun.  

This Simply Delicious Classic Fresh Basil Pesto was amazing using Bella Sun Luci's Extra Virgin Olive Oil. A fruity and fragrant olive oil that is a treat to the palate, combined with the rich and spicy, slightly peppery flavor of the fresh basil, it is a perfect match.  A Tuscan Summer Sun-dried Tomato Burger served over a bed of Simply Delicious Classic Fresh Basil Pesto would then be a match made in heaven.

Herb Roasted Cheesy Bacon Potatoes

Hi Slow Roasters, thank you for joining us to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of The Slow Roasted Italian during TSRI's Summer Grilling Celebration! Today I am very happy to be sharing these amazing Herb Roasted Cheesy Bacon Potatoes with you.  They were the perfect side to go with our Tuscan Summer Sun-dried Tomato Burger that we had yesterday.

A fast and simple dish that will disappear in the blink of an eye.  Seconds, thirds, all gone...  You bet! A delicious red potato covered in olive oil, garlic and fresh herbs.  Cooked to perfection and tossed with enough crispy bacon and ooey gooey cheese to make you weak in the knees!  I know you are going to love these.  If you are looking to add a "WOW" factor to your meal, this is it!

Just a reminder as part of our 1 Year Anniversary celebration we are having an amazing giveaway from Mooney Farms Bella Sun Luci fabulous line of sun-dried tomatoes.  Today we are adding a bonus entry.  

Earn this bonus entry by Tweeting about our giveaway.  Click here for more details. 

Tuscan Summer Sun-dried Tomato Burger

Hi Slow Roasters, thank you for joining us to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of The Slow Roasted Italian.  It has been such an amazing year.  When I first started this blog, I thought I would just be making a record of the recipes that I use regularly, something to look back on and a place for my family to be able to go to pull up the recipes they love.  I never really knew that it would be such a fabulous experience.  I can't believe how much I have learned over the last year.  Flavor profiles, descriptive words, testing recipes, photo composition (although, except a few lucky shots I am still at a loss on this one) thank goodness my amazing husband and partner is such a wonderful photographer.

Blueberry Vanilla Yogurt Ice Pop Popsicles

Hello Slow Roasters!  Welcome to our Summer Grilling Celebration.  Isn't summer wonderful?  Even with the heat in Arizona I love summer.  The energy is just more happy and fun.  We enjoyed an amazing vacation in Sedona with my parents and can not even describe how breath taking Sedona is.

We are back from our fantastic trip and I am so excited to be home.  Vacations are awesome, but coming home is lovely. Tonight I am kicking back and enjoying my last night with my parents.  They leave tomorrow morning.  Where does the time go? 

My mom and I have had so much fun in the kitchen while she was here.  This popsicle is a special creation I made just for my mom and my Munchin.  It is a perfectly sweet treat, packed with delicious vanilla yogurt and luscious fresh blueberries.  It is succulent, fruity, and creamy.

Cotton Candy Martini

It's Ladies Night Slow Roasters!  Tonight we are bringing a carnival favorite home in an incredible cocktail.  This mouthwatering pink cotton candy martini is the perfect summer drink.

The scent of the cotton candy stand at the fair can just about lift you up and carry you across the fairgrounds and deliver you to the heavenly cloud of spun sugar in pink and blue.  The mere sight of cotton candy gives me butterflies.

Chad has taken a summer carnival treat; Cotton Candy, and transformed it into a martini like you have never tasted before. I have never been a big cotton candy lover,  I would eat a handful or two.  Well after the fantastic flavors that Chad came up with...  I am a Cotton Candy convert!

If you missed the announcement yesterday, we are so excited to share with you that Chad and I are writing for allParenting.com.  This article and yesterdays Fully Loaded Tex Mex Turkey Slider can both be read in their entirety on the magazines website.  

Check this article and the recipe out at allParenting.com.

Fully Loaded Tex-Mex Turkey Burger Slider

The Summer Grilling Celebration at TSRI continues with this amazingly flavorful Fully Loaded Tex-Mex Turkey Burger Slider.

But first, we have some exciting news to share with you.  We are absolutely delighted to have just started writing for allParenting.com from the publishers of SheKnows .  It is a fun and upbeat site that focuses more on the parents than the kiddos.  We will have featured articles 4 times this month!!!  We will share with you each time we have a featured article so you can some check it out.  We look forward to seeing you there!

Back to the business at hand, this is an absolutely delicious and simple burger that will be a huge hit at your barbecue this summer.  A celebration of summer with a flavorful seasoned lean turkey burger slider as the star.  With fresh guacamole and a vegetable packed salsa,  it is almost health food.  Well that is what I told myself as I bit into the 2nd mouthwatering juicy slider.  Crunchy, creamy, hearty and flavorful a burger so fantastic you can't help but eat 2, or 3....  I won't tell if you don't.  But, you have to try this!!!

We are calling on YOU our foodie friends to spread some foodie  ❤ ❤ ❤  and come visit us over at allParenting.com.

Read the rest of the article and get the recipe featured on allParenting.com.

TSRI's Signature Barbecue Sauce

Welcome to TSRI's Summer Grilling Celebration!  It has been an amazing few weeks of grilling recipes.  But, what is a season of grilling without your own signature BBQ sauce?  We keep coming back to use this sauce again.  It is amazing!  We have used it on the Bacon Bourbon Barbeque Chicken Kabobs and the Lil Texas Barbeque Sliders it is delicious on everything!  We use it as a dipping sauce, on ribs, burgers, chicken and so many other ways.

We have an amazing burger coming up in a few weeks that uses this barbecue sauce again.  It is our go to sauce.  It seems like a daunting task when you look at it.  But, it is really simple.  It is made in one pan and everything this recipe calls for I keep in my pantry all the time.

It is a well balanced smoky barbecue sauce with a mouth watering aroma.  Its perfectly sweet, with just enough spice to warm your palate.

Trust me, once you make this sauce you won't want to buy store bought ever again.  Enjoy!  Make a double batch and put it in the fridge.  I will share more recipes using this sauce really soon.



TSRI's Signature Barbecue Sauce
makes approximately 4 cups

2 tablespoons canola oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 cups ketchup
2/3 cup water
¼ cup ancho chile pepper
2 tablespoons smoked paprika
2 tablespoons dijon mustard
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 chipotle chiles in adobo, chopped
¼ cup dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons molasses
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
1 teaspoon kosher salt

In a large saucepan heat canola oil over medium-high heat. Add onion; cook until soft, about 4-5 minutes. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add ketchup and 2/3 cup water, bring to a boil.  Reduce to simmer for 5 minutes.

Add the remaining ingredients simmer for 10 minutes, or until thickened, stirring occasionally.

Transfer the mixture to a food processor; puree until smooth. Pour into a mason jar; cool to room temperature.

Click here fora printable version of this recipe - The Slow Roasted Italian.com  

All recipes, photography and content are copyrighted by The Slow Roasted Italian and e3studios.com.  No commercial use is authorized, without written consent from The Slow Roasted Italian and e3Studios.com.   All rights reserved.  The Slow Roasted Italian © 2011-2012.

20 Minute Chipotle Lime Marinade for Grilled Chicken

Welcome to TSRI's Summer Grilling Celebration!  I really am so excited to share this chicken recipe with you.  We have been having so much fun with our Summer Grilling Celebration.  The chicken each week has been fantastic.  Chad, Munchkin and I have loved each and every dish!  

Finally my parents are here and are able to share in the grilling fun!  This simple and delicious 20 Minute Marinade was perfect for a delicious meal after a long busy day. 

My mom was excited to try this Chipotle Lime Marinated Chicken.  I have to say I was very surprised that she was even interested in tasting it.  I know that I have told you about the spice level in my house growing up.  We never ate anything spicier than basil or oregano and black pepper was really only served on the side.  My Mom dug in and loved this!  

Pineapple Orange Popsicles

Welcome to TSRI's Summer Grilling Celebration!   What is the most refreshing treat in the summer?  Frozen popsicles!  These Pineapple Orange Popsicles are sweet, tangy, refreshing and perfect for your summer barbecue! 

Fresh and ripe pineapple made into a fantastic treat. Popsicles are so easy to make and perfectly refreshing.  We enjoy these frozen treats as dessert and even a snack!

I know you will too! 

Strawberry Shortcake Martini

SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE FOR RECIPE

Hey Slow Roasters, It's Ladies Night! This week we continue with our dessert cocktails for Ladies Night.  The Lemon Cream Pie Martini was such a huge hit that we decided to try another favorite.  Now, as I mentioned last week I may have a little love affair with cake  going on.  Chad says my favorite cake is...  One that has cake in the name, or looks like a cake, or tastes like a cake. If it resembles cake in anyway...  I love it!!!

Strawberry ShortCAKE Martini.  It meets all the requirements.  But, seriously this is a dessert cocktail that you will fall in love with.  The appearance of the vibrant red Martini will draw you near and the divine aroma will have your mouth watering.  As the first sip crosses your lips you will notice a perfectly sweet strawberry flavor, followed by a rich cake flavor and a fabulous creamy end note.

After working many hours in the cocktail lab, our mixologist and cocktail artist Chad has developed the most delicious martini I have ever had.  As a matter of fact we had a disagreement over who got to drink the last cocktail from the photo shoot, we enjoyed it that much. I know you will love it too!!!

Bacon Bourbon Barbeque Chicken Kabobs

CLICK FOR PRINTABLE RECIPE

 Welcome to TSRI's Summer Grilling Celebration!  We have enjoyed some lighter chicken options the last few weeks. The  Garlic Beer Marinaded Grilled Chicken  and Simple Rosemary Lemon Marinaded Grilled Chicken are both incredible chicken recipes, and great for watching your waistline. This week we decided to kick it up a notch or two.  We spiked the barbecue sauce and covered the chicken in bacon!!!  Seriously.  This could be the best chicken to ever come off of my grill.

Seasoned Grilled Fries

Welcome to TSRI's Summer Grilling Celebration!  We have a fantastic week coming your way, full of grilled and summer favorites.  When I whipped up the burger and chicken for this weeks posts,  more than anything I wanted fries to go with these dishes.  I did make some incredible Grilled Sweet Potato Fries last week, so I opted for a change.

These Seasoned Grilled Fries we made with large Russet potatoes and my favorite new spice, ground Chile de Arbol.  Grilling these left a fantastic crispy exterior and tender interior.  Firm enough to stand up to my favorite Beer Cheddar Sauce (that recipe is coming up soon).

I think the size of the fry intimidated my Munchkin.  Seriously, she told Daddy "Uh, No!" when he asked her if she wanted fries.  Chad was very happy to hear this.  He devoured these fries, and the cheese sauce.  Apparently sometimes 3 pounds of potatoes and a quart of Beer Cheddar Sauce are not enough.  So, these fries received fave reviews, I loved them as well.

The Suburban Cheeseburger

We are delighted to be participating in The Secret Recipe Club this month.  It is so exciting, kind of like Christmas.  This is how it works...  A name is 'drawn' and assigned to you.  "You simply choose any recipe from the blog you are assigned, make or bake it, and blog about it on the date specified..."

We drew The Keenan Cookbook.  We were very excited to find this blog.  It is a joint venture by husband and wife Chris and Rachel from New Jersey who have one child (and one on the way, congrats!!!).  I really enjoy husband and wife blogs, I appreciate the difference in style when it is a collaboration (much like TSRI).  At The Keenan Cookbook he cooks and she photographs.

Sublime Strawberry Popsicles

Welcome to TSRI's Summer Grilling Celebration!  Nothing beats the summer heat like an icy cold summery treat.  I love popsicles!  They are light, refreshing, so easy to make and made perfectly sweet for you, as you control the sugar.  There was not much thinking when I was deciding what flavor to make.  Chad and I scored the best strawberries at the grocery store last week.  We ended up buying around 70 pounds total.  Needless to say, we are stocked for the year on Strawberry Jam and have been enjoying manye summery desserts.  It truly was lucky to get such great strawberries for such a great price.