Here's the recipe from ATK, which I've been meaning to try but haven't gotten around to yet. It's for oven-fried onion rings: Oven-Fried Onion Rings We had the best results with kettle-cooked potato chips. Makes 24 rings, serving 4 to 6 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 1 large egg, at room temperature 1/2 cup buttermilk, at room temp 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper S&P 30 Saltine crackers 4 cups kettle-cooked potato chips, crumbled into small pieces 2 large yellow onions, cut evenly into 1/2" thick rounds 6 tbsp vegetable oil 1. Adjust oven racks to lower-middle and upper-middle positions and heat oven to 450 degrees. Place 1/4 cup flour in shallow baking dish. Beat egg and buttermilk together in medium bowl. Whisk remaining 1/4 cup flour, cayenne, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper into buttermilk mixture. Pulse saltines and chips together in food processor until finely ground and place in separate shallow baking dish. 2. Pull apart the rings in each round, discarding any that are less than 2 inches in diameter. Working one at a time, dredge each onion ring in flour, shaking off excess. Dip in buttermilk mixture, allowing excess to drip back into bowl, then drop into crumb coating, turning ring to coat evenly. Transfer to large plate and repeat with remaining onion rings. 3. Pour 3 tablespoons oil onto each of two rimmed baking sheets. Place in oven and heat until just smoking, about 8 minutes. Carefully tilt heated sheets to coat evenly with oil, then arrange onion rings on sheets. Bake, flipping onion rings over and switching and rotating position of baking sheets halfway through baking, until golden brown on both sides, about 15 minutes. Transfer onion rings to plates lined with paper towels to drain briefly. Serve immediately. MAKE AHEAD Oven-Fried Onion Rings can be breaded in advance and refrigerated for up to an hour. Let them sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before baking; if baked straight from the fridge, the onions will not soften properly and will remain crunchy. It looked good when I saw them make them on TV. I've always deep fried them myself, usually in a beer tempura batter. Lars

Teryaki keeps well in the refrigerator. I do something very similar but my method is diefferent. When I prepare the veggies, I keep them separate on a big stainless pizza pan I have. Then drain the chicken, saving the marinade, heat the wok, add the oil and when hot stir fry the chicken and when no longer pink, remove into a clean pie dish, wipe the wok, add a little wine...rice wine or sherry or just plain white wine, to the reserved marinade, add about 1 1/2 T cornstarch and stir. Then heat the wok, add the oil and begin to fry the veggies, I start with the broccoli and carrot buttons( I don't grate) and celery sliced on the diagonal as they take longest, then add the onions and the green peppers and soon after the peas. When all had browned a little, I add the cornstarch marinade stuff.....and toss to coat all and bring to a boil, put the lid on and cook for a minute. I am a little goosey about reusing a chicken marinade without cooking it well, so I often dump the marinade and get some fresh terayaki to mix with the wine and cornstarch. BUT...LOL...with my method you don't have that extra fry pan to wash !! Now I am hungry for a nice chicken ( or shrimp!) stir fry! Linda C

I had to google this to see what you are talking about. One recipe called for beer...one didn't. I make onion rings often, and for years I used a recipe that I got out of Family Circle magazine back around 1972. It called for equal parts beer and flour. It didn't have to be stale beer...just mix together. I always used self rising flour, but I imagine it would work with all purpose, but the self rising has a little bit of baking powder in it, and I use it for frying everything....it makes stuff just a little bit lighter and crunchier. However, now, I make onion rings a different way. Just as easy....and I like them better. I cut them thin, and dip them in buttermilk and then in self rising flour. That's it. Nothing any simpler than that. They look just like the ones in the pictures of Haystack Onion rings. The thing is, cut them thin....about a quarter inch wide. Very, very easy. When you fry them, drop a few at a time into hot oil and then almost immediately turn them. You don't have to let them get really brown....they fry quickly. There isn't much that is any easier than that. Not at all tedious.

If you can use a nice grass fed ground beef, all you need is just the meat with salt and pepper. Or, if you have access to a better quality meat than you normally find at the groceries, buy it. I don't even use garlic with a nice cut of beef. I love garlic and it is fine to add to a good quality meat, but I find it a refreshing change to just have meat that stands on it's own merit. Beware of ground beef that you have to add flavor to in order for it to have any presence. If you add soup mix, and spices, and sauces to the burger, you are just using the meat as a protein platform for those flavors. That is a bit different from dressing your burger with what you like. But, the meat is the central player and it should have it's own domain on the pallette and be the star in that bun. All else should be the supporting cast around it and should not be in the meat just to make the meat taste like something. I would rather have one good burger that actually has a good beef flavor than have any number that have to be flavored up. I have actually gotten rid of some grocery store ground beef that just tasted like nothing at all. Here looking at you Wegmanns grocery!!! Those burger buns look good! As a suggestion, look up a recipe for a white buttermilk bread. Buttermilk adds a nice soft texture to a bun like that. After years of burgers burned to a dry blackened crisp on the gas grill, I have come to the conclusion that the very best burgers are cooked in a cast iron skillet for a griddle, by far. The only burgers that cook well over a flame, in my opinion, are those that are made of good quality meat and are actually big and thick enough to cook as you would a solid piece of steak. If you can't achieve an interior that can be left a bit rare, then your burger is too thin and too small to cook well on a grill. Even if you like it well done, the burger should still be of a size and a quality that would allow for it to be also cooked to a doneness of rare. Even then, I vote for the cast iron skillet burger. More quality and less quantity---that is way I roll now days!!