When I was a young bride, I loved to entertain. It was during those early years – B.C. (before children) when I had all kinds of pep, even after working all week.

On the weekends, I loved to invite our friends over for the evenings. I took great delight in coming up with interesting hors d’oeuvres for refreshments.

Among the most popular was my:

“Mini Cheeseburger Shish Ka Bobs”

They were just something that I put together one night, when we were expecting the group to come over. There’s no formal recipe, but I’ll talk you through it. 🙂

Now that’s it’s holiday season, maybe you’ll make these and then you, too, will hear the oooh’s and ah’s – or at least all the giggles of surprise – as you serve these little appetizers. They’re special because they’re TINY!

Mini Burger Recipe

Ingredients

wooden skewers, cut in half
medium size wooden toothpicks
Hamburger
cheese (American is easy to use for this)
loaf of sliced bread
cherry tomatoes
onion
peppers – green, yellow, red
small mushrooms

Preparation:

Use the washed cover of either a pill bottle or a large soda bottle as a “cookie cutter” to press out many circles of bread – these will be the burger buns. You can place them on a cookie sheet and pop them in the oven for a few minutes just to give them a light toasting. Set them aside.

Now you need to prepare the other layers of the cheeseburger:

1. Cut circles of cheese for your burgers (again using your cookie cutter)
2. Slice cherry tomatoes thinly
3. Cut small pieces of onion and the peppers
4. Slice baby mushrooms thinly

Next, make little patties from the hamburger (use your “cookie cutter” to get the size) and then finish shaping them with your hands. Pop these on the cookie sheet and then into the oven @350 degrees, until they’re cooked. It won’t take long. Test one after a few minutes.

OK, now it is time to assemble everything onto the wooden skewers!
Everyone will want to help at this point.

Pick up a skewer and carefully push it through one piece of the “bun”, then an onion piece, a slice of tomato, piece of pepper, mushroom, cheese, hamburger pattie, more cheese, piece of pepper, then the second half of the bun.

You can add or subtract items as you choose. The important thing is to make a colorful mini ka-bob!

Now lay your assembled ka-bobs on a cookie sheet and place them under the broiler for just a couple of minutes. You are only trying to melt the cheese and warm the veggies slightly – the meat is already cooked!

Before serving, quickly and carefully transfer each ka-bob onto a medium-sized toothpick, keeping each ingredient close to the one beside it, so it looks like a miniature version of a mile high burger.

Perhaps you’ll surprise your friends or family with these for New Year’s Eve. Who wouldn’t want his or her own little burger with “the works”!

Have fun! 😀