A Trifling Experiment with Cheeseburger Pie

You may imagine from this blog that I only ever eat out at restaurants. It's not true. Sometimes I eat out at other people's houses.

I have met lot's of Americans here. And some of them have been kind enough to invite me for dinner. And they cook American food. American food is cool! Way cool. I mean come on, 'Cheeseburger Pie' – what an awesome name!!

So the name is sort of descriptive, if you translate it into American. 'Cheeseburger Pie' is a cross between a cheeseburger (in that it contains burger meat) and pie (if by 'pie' you mean a pasta bake crossed with toad in the hole). It's apparently very easy to make. You fry up ground beef (I.e. minced beef) and onions, and add some 'seasoning mix' (no idea exactly what it contains but some kind of chilli powder, plus salt and pepper, and various E numbers I guess?). Then you pour over a ready made box mix of something called 'Bisquick' which makes a biscuit mix (or a kind of doughy substance similar to yorkshire pudding). Finally you top it off with grated cheese and stick it in the oven. Yes, my American friend has an oven. She also bakes cakes and cookies (I mean biscuits)!

And voila! Cheeseburger Pie is served. I liked it. Crispy on top, lots of red meat with a kind of Tex Mex chilli con carne flavour that American's do so well, the sort of doughy stuff that binds it all together. I had thirds.

For dessert another friend had experimented with trifle. In a kind of 'well I don't have sponge cake, or jelly, but I have custard and random biscuits and some fruit. Lets's sort of throw it all in together and see what happens' way. It tasted good! Custard with all sorts of exciting bits of fruit or biscuit lurking where you least expect them. Plus the top was covered with 杨梅 (yangmei) or Yumberries. I had never eaten them before. They are slightly sour and tangy, but sort of sweet as well. They went nicely with the custard, bringing a tartness to the sweetness of the trifle.

Aren't you all impressed with my new American food vocabulary? Yeah? Oh weeeell, it's reeaal naaice of y'aaall to saiy so. [I never said my American accent was any good!!:)]