Feeling a bit fancy I decided to treat my partner and I to home made beef burgers for dinner. And considering I am going a bit camera frenzy with my birthday present, you can witness the outcome of the cooking and maybe even be inspired.

Ingredients:

• beef mince
• onions
• gerkins
• ketchup & mayonaise
• fresh salad
• cheese
• burger buns
• oil & butter
• breadcrumbs
• pepper, marjoram or other herbs

Filling Preparation

It helps to be organised, so prepare some ingredients before cooking. Start with medium sized onions, one would be enough for two burgers. Cut the peeled onion in half and then slice into fairly thin pieces.

Next take a small bowl and put the mayonnaise and ketchup in it. It is the simplest sauce you can make. You could also experiment and use other sauces to complement the burger. Mix both ingredients until the blend completely.

After this proceed to the next item - gherkins. To get long slices you want quite a big variety - I used American Giants. Then rather than slicing vertically, cut the cucumber at an angle which produces bigger pieces.

Next if you would like your burgers to be cheeseburgers grab some cheese. The slices shouldn’t be to thin, and you will need about 2 pieces per burger.

Finally cut some salad, or if you are lazy like me buy a pack of already chooped up green leaves. Put it into a bowl for later.

Meat Preparation

Start by mixing the meat with herbs and pepper. You can use your hands to sqish the mince into a moldable pulp. I use marjoram and pepper, but you could add other spices if you wish.

Shape the meat into round, flat pattes. If the mince is not very moist you might want to add a little bit of water. Make sure you roll it in breadcrumbs on both sides.

Cooking the Burgers

Start heating up a pan with oil. If you want your buns to be crispy warm up the oven and put the buns in at low temperature to warm up and crispen while you fry the meat.

Once the oil is hot put the previously prepared mince into the pan. Turn the heat down a bit and make sure the meat is thoroughly cooked on both sides.

For an extra taste just before the end you can add butter to the pan and finish of frying with it.

Once you are done put some sauce on the bottom of the bun and some onion before you place the meat this will give a nice touch of moisture to your burger if the sauce is on both sides of the meat.

Making Cheeseburgers

If you decided to go for the option with cheese don’t turn of the oven when you take out your buns.

Put the cheese slices on the meat and pop it in the oven for a minute or two until it starts melting.

Finishing the Burger Filling

To finish of add the remaining ingredients and possibly some extra sauces.

Once you are ready put both parts of the bun together. To make things easier I would suggest piercing the burger with a toothpick or a skewer for easier consumption.

Bon Appetit!

Last Saturday I went to London to see the Tokyo Day exhibition. One of the several available attractions was origami, and considering it was one of the few things you did not need to sign up in advance for I decided to have a go at it. I must say it is quite surprising how relaxing folding pieces of papers can be.

There were several templates available, one of which was a set of instructions on how to do an origami penguin. Some of the steps are simple, and some surprisingly tricky. Apologies for the photo quality in advance - my camera broke down, and the only thing I had was my phone, and as we all know the shots from mobiles are not that great.

Before we begin you will need one thing: a square piece of thin, preferably coloured on one side, paper. If you have thicker paper it is still fine, though you might find folding slightly harder. And as for the colour, well it just give a more dramatic effect if one side is coloured.

Step 1 - The beginning

Lay the piece of paper in front of you the coloured face up and one of the corners pointing towards you.

Step 2 - Create the body

Now fold the paper in two and create a triangle. Do this by picking up the let corner and matching it up with the right corner of the initial diamond figure.

Step 3 -Add Wings

Fold the top piece slightly to create a wing. Repeat it on the other side.

Step 4 - Create the Head

To create the head you need to turn the top corner inside out. It is a bit tricky and you need to be careful not to tear the paper.

Step 5 - Add a Tail

Similarly to the head, the tail is done using an inverted fold. But rather then flipping it inside out, you make a triangle on the inside of the body. To get the right creases you might want to first create a triangle on the outside as shown below.

Once you have the right creases folding it inside should be fairly easy and from behind looks like this:

Step 6 - Finishing of With the Beak

The last detail to be added is the beak. Take the tip of the head and fold it inside, next fold it outside again about half way through. This should leave you with a finished penguin looking something like this: