New Grill'd at Belconnen

New Grill'd at Belconnen, a photo by brazen20au on Flickr.

We visited today for the first time...

we were curious, and excited, because they said they did gluten free!!!

unfortuantely when we read on it turned out that the gluten free buns were toasted in the same toaster as the gluten buns, so therefore not safe for rora. As it turned out we sat right next to the salad bar / assembly line and there is NO way they are gluten safe, and unfortunately rora won't be having anything except chips and possibly the meat from there (and she didn't like the chips lol). I watched them put too much sauce on a bun, scrape it off, back intot he bowl... put too much  salad on and pick up the excess of the bench (which i hadn't seen them clean) and throw it back into the salad bowls. I guess if she really wanted salad i could insist it not be from the salad bar but it all seems too hard. I also watched the way the girl doing the buns handled the GF ones (there were a few went through) and there was plenty of opportunity for cross contamination out of the toaster, quite apart from the toaster crumbs...

so, geoff had the "front" (something) steak sandwich, i had the "simon says" chicken burger, emelia had the chicken & cheese burger kids meal and ryan had the beef (and bacon instead of cheese) kids meal. I also ordered a regular chips for rora and one for G & i to share. this was a mistake as they were way bigger than i thought and we could have all shared one serve, especially at $4.80 per serve and with rora just licking the (way too much) salt off!

to buy that, with no drinks for G, rora or I was over $50, so a pretty expensive lunch. Ryan and Emelia LOVED theirs and can't wait to go again, G & i enjoyed ours but didn't think they were special enough to justify the price. we'll probably do it again but not in a hurry.

oh, it is worth mentioning that from time of ordering to delivery of food was less than 10 minutes, closer to 5 i think - excellent! they seemed to have great customer service :)

My chicken burger

Geoff's STeak sandwich

The kids' meal in box

and the queue a few minutes after i ordered (i only had one person in front of me ;)), out the door!

Grill'd website

Thermomix Chicken Burgers

Geoff just made these for our lunch - read the review over at Thermomix Magic :)

CAULIFLOWER & BACON SOUP & HOMEMADE HAMBURGERS

catch up....

CAULIFLOWER & BACON SOUP

1 large cauliflower, cut into large florets
bacon, maybe about 4 or so rashers, with fat removed and diced
1 large onion, diced
small amount olive oil
chicken stock (i used 3 cubes but my cauli was huge!)
black pepper
water
1 tin evaporated skim milk

heat oil, fry onion and bacon for a few minutes
add some water, then cauli
top water up so it comes about 2/3 of the way up the cauli
add stock cubes and pepper
cook until very soft and starting to fall apart
puree with stick blender, add evap milk and puree to mix.

based on a weight watchers recipe. i highly recommend you DON'T do this one in the slow cooker, the taste of the cauli is incredibly strong and not all that pleasant!

surprisingly the kids all ate 2 bowls of it for lunch!!!



HOMEMADE HAMBURGERS

500g extra lean mince
1 onion, cut into quarters
1 carrot, ends cut off and cut into inch pieces
1 egg
around 2/3-1 cup of instant oats
garlic if desired

using thermomix chop onion, carrot and oats (and garlic), hmmmm speed 6-7 for maybe 5-10 seconds
add mince and egg and mix using reverse and speed 2-4 until well mixed

if possible chill mix in the fridge

use tupperware burger maker thingie (i forget what it's called!) to make burgers - whatever you don't use can be frozen raw or cooked

if possible chill in fridge again before cooking (i say if possible as i never remember to leave enough time to chill it at all lol)

fry in a pan sprayed with cooking spray or a little oil until nicely browned on the outside and cooked through.
you can also fry sliced onions if you like

we served ours on toast because we had lots of sliced bread and nothing else to use LOL but generally i would use rolls from my local bakery (because the burger buns you buy at the supermarket have preservative 282 in them). i've tried making my own rolls but they haven't been very successful :(

toast bottom layer of whatever bread you are using. top with onions if cooked, then a slice of cheese and grill til cheese is melted.
top with sliced tomato, beetroot (we used the organic ones i cooked the other day) and lettuce, some sauce of your choice and serve. you can serve with chips if you like but i think the burgers are too yummy to spoil with chips LOL

you can make a million variations of this of this of course, with herbs or spices in teh meat patties and various sauces or different cheeses on the burger. geoff loves his with a fried egg and bacon it as well.

any leftover cooked patties can be frozen (as above) or crumbled up and used in bolognaise or similar.

bigger versions of photos and more photos here (i don't want to put the original pics here, the file size is ginormous!)