Harvey's Revisited

During our recent move we ate out and had take-out a bit more because it was practical when living for fifteen days between two houses and during the settling in period.  Once we were back from our fall vacation the first week of October, we quickly got into the routine of cooking at home again.  We generally go for wings at Crabby Joes on Tuesday nights and to our favourite English fish & chip restaurant on Friday nights leaving five nights a week most weeks for home cooked meals.  The weather has been getting gradually nastier so we even skipped going out the last couple of Fridays in lieu of have a nice home cooked fish dinner.  My husband surprised me last week by bringing home Harvey's burger and fries.  He seldom does this because he knows I usually have dinner on but that particular night he had a couple of meetings so was running late for dinner.  It's a good thing I didn't have dinner on!

I wrote about the Canadian restaurant chain, Harvey's before.  By far, Harvey's is one of the very few fast food restaurants I will eat at.  Their charbroiled on a flame grill burgers are very much like the burgers we make at home on the outdoor grill.  The burgers are deliciously unpretentious with custom toppings of your choice.  What is really nice is you can order a topping like pickles on the side.  They are quite generous if ordered this way. 

Pictured is the old fashioned cheese burger with fries and dill pickle slices on the side that my husband brought home for me.  He had a double original bacon burger and we shared the fries.  It was a delightful taste of summer on a cold, dreary, rainy evening.

We grill year round but during the months of November and March, the weather tends to be the nastiest.  Quite often it is raining or drizzling or sleeting or whatever else Mother Nature wants to toss at us making it not the nicest grilling weather.  It doesn't help that its dark by 5 PM in November either.  It's nice to have an alternative like Harvey's where the burgers are very close to homemade to enjoy should the craving for a grilled burger arise during those months.  Now the biggest difference between our homemade grilled burgers and Harvey's is the actual burger patty.  Our homemade burger patties are handmade, never flattened or frozen into a pattie so if you want to make one Harvey's style you need to flatten the patty using a burger press then freeze and grill from frozen without thawing.

Canadian Made - Harvey's

There are very, very few fast food burgers that I like.  Most are too high in fat, carbs and salt but sadly lacking in flavour.  How the fast food restaurants could manage to ruin something as simple as a good hamburger is beyond me.  Well, thinking about it the all mighty dollar does have a factor in the equation with the fast food restaurants constantly trying to cut costs to meet the ever rising demands of consumers for cheaper priced burgers.

Years ago while still dating, one of our favourite burger joints was Harvey's.  It continues to be one of our favourites for fast food restaurants.  Harvey's a Canadian owned and operated fast food restaurant chain with locations concentrated in southern Ontario, southern Quebec, the Maritimes, Manitoba, British Columbia, and Alberta.  Harvey's was founded in Richmon Hill, Ontario in early 1959 by George B. Sukornyk and Rick Mauran .  The first Harvey's opened on April 1, 1959.  Headquarters are located in Vaughan, Ontario.  It is the second-largest Canadian-established restaurant chain next to Tim Hortons, and is the fourth-largest burger chain in Canada.  The restaurant's popularity stems from having your burger your way.  The burger patties are char-gilled, placed on the wrapping paper then transferred to the loading station that is a choose your own topping counter with an employee ready to top your burger with your choices from a selection of eleven items.  It's quite similar to a Subway set-up with the employee on one side of the counter, customer on the other and delectable toppings in between. 

Frugal Kitchens 101 - Top Ten List of Take-out Food That is Cheaper to Make at Home

Busy families often turn to take-out foods under the misguided perception that the food in inexpensive and a rather good value.  Don't get me wrong as I'm not against take-out foods.  What concerns me is not considering take-out food as part of the overall food budget.  If someone budgets $150 per week for grocery shopping then picks up take-out twice and eats lunch out daily their actual food budget is more in the line of about $225.  The problem is take-out being a spur of the moment, I'm too tired to cook thing can seriously put a huge dent in your pocketbook.  The worst part of this is there is no mental connection that take-out food really is part of your total food budget.  This week's Frugal Kitchen 101 focuses on my top ten list of take-out foods that can be made cheaper at home and quite often just as fast.

My top ten take-out foods that can be made cheaper at home are:

1. burgers -  In general take-out burgers from fast food chain restaurants are cheaply priced but a very poor value nutritionally.  They are laden with salt, sugar and fat.  These burgers can be easily made at home not only cheaper but better in nutrition with the key secret to the burger patty is thin and frozen.  Other take-out restaurants often offer take-out burgers, usually of higher nutritional quality than the chain restaurants but they come with a higher price tag.  These burgers can be duplicated at home for less than half the cost. 
2. hot dogs - The simple hot dog usually goes for somewhere around $1.50 and nine times out of ten it is the smell of them cooking at the hot dog cart that draws you in to buy.  Each weiner costs about 20¢, the bun 22¢ and toppings 5¢ for a total of 47¢ to make at home.
3. soups - Soup is a rather popular take-out food especially amongst the lunch crowd who haven't realized brown bagging it is cheaper.  Take-out soup costs roughly $2.50 per bowl or higher.  Ready-to-serve commercially canned soup cost about $1.79 while homemade soup comes in at about 30¢. 
4. salads - The average individual take-out salad costs about $2 but some are as high priced as $7.  The main ingredient in these salads is iceburg lettuce, a lettuce that is nutritionally poor and really only good for its crunch.  Toss in a couple of tomato wedges (not even a full tomato), a few pieces of cucumber and onion then a packet of chemically and fat laden salad dressing for a salad that costs about 40¢ at most in ingredients and takes less than 5 minutes to put together and yet folks will pay $2 or more.  Did you know some take-out salads contain more fat than a burger?
5. sandwiches - Take-out sandwiches are popular with the lunch crowd as well but most are high priced in comparison to homemade.  Consider the assorted sub that costs about $5 can be made at home for about 60¢ then brought to work and warmed up just as the take-out sub. 
6. French fries - French fries are just popular plain and simple but did you know you are getting more than you think with many take-out fries?  Sugar is added to help with that golden brown colour and then there's the salt.  A large fry will cost about $1.50 but is about the equivalent to one extra large potato or two medium.  The raw ingredient cost in that large fry is about 10¢.  Consider that potatoes are usually priced at about 99¢ to $3 per 10 lb bag that would be enough to make 20 or more servings of large portion size fries.  French fries are very easy to make at home, they taste better and they are better quality than take-out fries without all the sugar and salt.
7. onion rings - Onion rings have to be about one of the most overpriced take-out foods there is.  A large onion ring take-out will cost about $2.  If you count the rings there is likely about 20 of them or the equivalent to 2 slices from a large onion if that.  A large onion will yield about 6 slices so the take-out serving gives you one third of a large onion.  A large onion costs about 20¢ so one third costs about 7¢.  Add in the batter that would not even cost 3¢ so the onion rings they charge $2 for costs only 10¢ in raw ingredients.  Onion rings like French fries are extremely easy to make at home.
8. pizza - Take-out or delivery pizza may or may not be expensive as far as price.  Where we live delivery pizza costs about $30 but with specials at our vacation home costs about $20.  Large take-out pizza go a low as $9.99 but the toppings are limited.  Pizza consists of dough and toppings.  The dough is the ultra cheap ingredient coming in at a cost for homemade pizza of 32¢.  Adding in the price of sauce and toppings a homemade pizza can easily come in at under the $2 mark so even that $9.99 pizza is looking rather expensive.
9. fried chicken - We do not buy much in the way of take-out chicken especially from the most popular chain where one of their secret coating ingredients is powdered milk that contains lactose which isn't good for those of us who are lactose intolerant.  One of our friends insists on bringing two buckets for the superbowl party.  I just about died when I found out two buckets cost just a little over $80!  Chicken has gone up in price but still making fried chicken at home either stovetop or in a deep fryer is considerably less expensive especially if the chicken is bought on sale.
10. tacos - The most popular taco restaurant in Canada sells tacos for 99¢ which is over priced according to the lawsuit claiming the meat product used cannot even be claimed to be beef since it is only 30% beef.  While the price is cheap the quality is beyond cheap.  Other taco restaurants offering take-out are higher priced.  Even at the 99¢ price though, tacos are over priced with the raw ingredients coming in at about 40¢ and that is using 100% ground beef not a meat product.

A Pit Stop At Checkers

If you have been following this blog you will know my husband and I are not huge fast food fans by any stretch of the imagination.  From time to time we hear about a fast food restaurant that we are familiar with.  Depending on the recommendation we may make it a point to try out the food when we are on a road trip.  So it was with Checkers.

Checkers is a drive-in restaurant only.  There are no on site seating arrangements.  This keeps their overhead low and that definitely is reflected in their food prices.  The Checkers restaurants are rather sleek with a lot of chrome combined with a red, black and white theme.

We stopped at the Checkers on US 98 North.  The chrome sparkled with the bright sunlight creating a nice contrast to the deep blue sky.  The drive-in itself is quite small.  We drove in on the right hand side, placed our order then picked it up on the left hand side.  There was a slight wait for our order.  I don't know if this is the norm or not but we really didn't mind.  Our total meal cost came to $11.21 for two people.

We ordered a small onion rings with our meal rather than fries.  The onion ring portion was more than enough for two people.  The coating was crunchy but on the spicy side something we were not quite expecting.  They would have been nice with a bit of ranch dipping sauce but that wasn't offered.

Without a dipping sauce the spicy coating on the onion rings was a bit over powering.  I'm glad we didn't order a larger portion or a portion each as they would have gone to waste.  The onion rings were simply over seasoned to the point they were just too much by themselves.

My husband ordered the road house special - 2 road house burgers for $4.  The road house burger comes sandwiched between two slices of Texas style bread. The beef patties were topped with onion rings, American sliced cheese and barbeque sauce.  These were good sized burgers with the bun making them a bit on the unique side both in appearance and taste.

My husband really enjoyed these burgers.  He had one for dinner and saved the other for lunch the following day.  It reheated well which is a nice bonus for a left over fast food burger.  He said the burgers were quite good.

I ordered the buford burger at $3.49 which in hind sight with my appetite I should not order anything called a buford!  The burger came with 2 beef patties, American sliced cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, onions and pickles.  Condiments included ketchup, mustard, relish and mayonnaise.  It was huge, way more than I could eat.  The burger was nice and juicy though.  What was interesting is the burger came packaged in the standard cardboard burger box but it was inside a paper cone for easy holding while eating.  I thought this was a rather interesting concept, one a bit more developed than the standard wrap-around-the-serviette method.  At any rate the buford burger is quite tasty, well worth ordering!

How to Clone a Big Mac & McDonald's Secret Sauce Clone

The fast food industry would have us believe that they and they alone have the secret recipe for the foods they serve.  The reality is that someone, somewhere created the recipe or method they use for their super, duper delight.  That means with a little experimentation combined with trial and error any home cook can duplicate their favourite take-out or fast food burger and more.  The question immediately becomes why would you want to duplicate fast food?

In honesty we are not huge fans of fast food and I can count on one hand the fast foods I've cloned.  They are: the Big Mac, Subway assorted sub, Wendy's now retired chicken caesar wrap, and White Castle cheeseburgers. Fast food in general is not healthy food.  It is laden with sodium, sugar, fat and high in calories.  A homemade clone can easily be made that reduces all of these things without compromising in taste.  The real advantage is being able to control the ingredients.  At the same time the homemade clone will cost about the quarter of the cost of the fast food version.  Another advantage to cloning a fast food recipe is the food can be made anytime you want in the comforts of your home and for those of us living in rural areas there's no travel involved making homemade versions an eco-friendly alternative.  In the following video Todd Wilbur of Top Secret Recipes shows how to clone a Big Mac sandwich.  Following the video are my comments and the McDonald's secret recipe clone that I use.

Quite often in cooking the method is as important as the ingredients especially when cloning a recipe.  Pay particular attention to the way Todd makes the burger patties then freezes them before cooking.  This is an important step in making fast food style burgers.  Freezing helps to reduce thickening in the middle and the thinness of the patty ensures quick, even cooking.  These types of burger patties are suitable for cooking on a griddle or in a fry pan.

When you are attempting to clone a fast food recipe stop for a moment to think of what logical food items that restaurant would have on hand to make something like their secret sauce.  Then do a quick online search for clone recipes as one may highlight an ingredient you didn't think of.  In this case the Top Secret McDonald's special sauce version [search their site then agree to terms before you can see the recipe] differed significantly from the Copykat McDonald's special sauce version and that recipe differs significantly from a lot of other cloned versions. Once you have gather a few clone recipes you will see a pattern emerging of the dominate flavours.  The McDonald's special sauce is a Thousand Island variant so expect those flavours to dominate.  Use those then tweak from there.

McDonald's Secret Sauce Clone
modified slightly from recipe by: John Mitzewich of About.com: American Food

¼ c Miracle Whip®
¼ c mayonnaise
3 tbsp French salad dressing
½ tbsp sweet pickle relish
1½ tbsp dill pickle relish
½ tsp sugar
1 tsp dried, minced onion
1 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp ketchup
pinch salt

Mix the ingredients together well.  Microwave 25 seconds.  Cool.  Pour into squeeze bottle for easy application.   Refrigerate.

White Castle Burgers - Clone Copycat Recipe

Earlier this year I blogged about White Castle® cheeseburgers affectionately known as Slyders™.  Searching through online sources I found a lot of clone recipes that actually came nowhere close to Slyders™.  Some even have the audacity to bake the burger to form patties!  Obviously they missed one of the fundamental rules of cloning a recipe and that it to clone the method as well.

White Castle® burgers start out with thin frozen burger patties with a characteristic 5 hole pattern to help them cook quickly without flipping.  I started with lean ground beef (1) then rolled it with a rolling pin (2) between two pieces of wax paper.  I kept rolling until the ground beef was thin and squishing out the sides of the wax paper sheets.  The next step was trimming the ground beef into a rectangle (3) which actually sounds a lot easier than it is because raw ground beef simply does not cut easily.  I used a combination of a chef's knife and pizza cutter.  After the the rectangle was formed I used the pizza cutter to score the actual patties and a clean marker top to mark where the holes would go (4).

One of the characteristics of White Castle® burgers is each frozen patty has 5 holes.  The holes serve the specific function of ensuring the patty cooks all the way through without flipping.  At the same time they let the steam from the onions waft through the cooking burger to permeate the bun.

Pictured are the burger patties after I removed the holes.  Each patty was about 4 - inch square.  Removing the holes involved a toothpick and a slight swirly motion that wasn't quite as bad as it sounds.  It was a bit tedious though.  The finished patties were then covered with wax paper and placed in the freeze to freeze solid before cooking. 

I used the griddle similar to the cooking surface used at White Castle®.  The frozen patties are  placed on a bed of onion (traditionally reconstituted dehydrated onions) then topped with the bottom of the bun.  When the burger is cooked it is removed, a slice of American cheese is added with optional but traditional pickle slice and the top bun is added at White Castle® so that's what we aimed to duplicate.

The patties look huge compared to the bottom of the buns but as you can seen with the middle burger at the top the patty shrinks considerably.   I made a fundamental error during the cooking process by using the onion flakes as is rather than reconstituting so that will be something to consider for the next attempt.  The result was still good just not exactly right so a bit of tweaking there and they will be about as close to the perfect clone for White Castle® burgers as you can get.

I used store purchased dinner rolls for this clone recipe.  Each mini burger was topped with a half slice of American processed cheese. I omitted the traditional pickle slice because my husband does not like dill pickles so we never get them even when getting Slyders™ at White Castle®.

Overall I am extremely pleased with this first attempt at cloning Slyders™.  The only real tweaking that needs to be done is the onions and I already figured out what I did wrong.  Watch for the second attempt later this year with the onion problem corrected. 

White Castle

If you have been following this blog you will know that we are not huge consumers of fast food. In fact we seldom have fast food which is fine with me. We were out on Boxing Day to finish up a bit of shopping for our Christmas celebration on the 28^th. Boxing Day is a statutory Canadian holiday with some stores holding huge sales. We decided to avoid any shopping crowds so headed to the US. On the way home we picked up a bit of take-out food.

Crave Case™

White Castle® is a take-out burger chain that specializes in the cutest little burgers you have ever seen. I'm not sure what it is about these burgers that are affectionately called Slyders™ but you either love them or hate them. There's no in between. Those who love them are called cravers and their purchase of choice is the Crave Case™. This is a case of 30 burgers with or without cheese or pickle. A sack of 10 burgers is available or you can buy less but this is one time to buy more!

The exterior of the White Castle® buildings is designed to look like a miniature white castle with blue trim. Food can be ordered through their indoor take-out counter or their drive-through. The burgers themselves are unique for two reasons. First they are miniature burgers and second the burger patties are steamed on a bed of onions yet they are never flipped in a process called steam-grilling. White Castle® first opened in Wichita, KS in 1921 as the first American burger chain. They did not use frozen patties until 1931. The all beef patties are square with a signature 5 holes similar to the 5 face on a die. The chopped onions are placed on a hot griddle then the patties placed on top of the onions followed by the bottom buns. When cooked the burger and onion is slid onto the top bun. A signature pickle slice is added for those wanting pickles and cheese is an option. The miniature burgers. Each burger is about 2½ x 2½ - inch square and about 1½ - inch high. They are the perfect size for toddlers but count on a lot more for adults.

White Castle® Cheeseburgers

These burgers are so well loved by Cravers that cases of them are taken home then frozen and reheated as the crave hits. White Castle® restaurants are located in Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. They are so popular some of the grocery stores in these states sell frozen White Castle® burgers in the frozen food section with or without cheese but no pickle. Pictured are two Slyders™ from the Crave Case™reheated and ready to enjoy.

Cravers living where they don't sell Slyders™ have been known to even fly in a case or two of Slyders™. Recently there have been copycat recipes online to make these little beauties at home. I checked out a couple that use fresh onions but White Castle® uses rehydrated onions. At any rate that shows how far Cravers will go to fulfill their craving. I may even try making Slyders™ at home just to see how close I can come to the original. These would be great for Superbowl Sunday entertaining!