Cheddar & Onion Smashed Burgers with Cilantro-Lime Corn on the Cob

I recently found a blog called The Bitten Word. The owners started it for the purpose of actually using their food magazine subscriptions by setting goals of making a certain amount of recipes out of food magazines each month. I particularly like this idea because I am horrible about bookmarking pages in my food magazines and forgetting about them. While food gawker and food blogs are so easy and accessible for finding recipes, I’ve decided I also need to find some time for my magazine subscriptions.

One of the recipes included in the June 2011 issue of Food & Wine was Cheddar-and-Onion Smashed Burgers. The recipe was really simple, but looked great for an easy summer weekend meal. The burgers were actually supposed to be cooked on a griddle, but we used the grill since we wanted to take advantage of the weather before it got too hot.

To assemble the burgers, I sliced onions into paper thin strips and patted them onto the tops and bottoms of some hamburger patties. When the burgers were close to finished on the grill, I put some thick slices of cheddar cheese on top. We also grilled the buns for a couple minutes to get them nice and crisp.

For a side dish, we placed some ears of corn on the grill. I took a spoonful of margarine and mixed it with lime and cilantro, then brushed the corn with this mixture as soon as it came off the grill.

I made another side a few days later that would have gone great with this also. I had some butternut squash that needed to be used, so I cut it into small squares. Some extra virgin olive oil was drizzled on the squash and then sprinkled with a little salt and pepper before roasting it at 400. I allowed it to cook for about 30 minutes before brushing a mixture of honey, lime and cilantro on it and letting it roast for another 10 minutes. My kitchen smelled amazing. The idea for this side came from this recipe.