Happy Meal (sort of)

We had a cookout the other night, and I decided to finally make the mini burgers I've had on my mind for a month. I've been obsessing about the concept of a mini burger and fries - kind of like a happy meal, but better.
We ended up making mini venison burgers on ciabatta with caramelized onions, balsamic mushrooms, and bleu cheese. Then I made a roasted yellow pepper ketchup and mini fries.


For dessert we had sorbet. I've had an ice cream maker for about 3 years now, and have never used it. We have a lot of honeysuckle growing in our yard, so I decided to make a little duet of sorbets - honeysuckle/peach and blackberry/cabernet. They were pretty good - and super easy! I think I may actually use the ice cream maker again. To make the first one, I just steeped honeysuckle flowers in simple syrup, until it was infused with the flavor, and then aded pureed peaches. Then I pushed it through a sieve to make a smooth texture. For the second, I used some honey from my neighbor, who owns Haw Creek honey. We can just walk down the street to his house, and he has a little honey box with shelves of honey. You take what you want and drop money in the slot. The kind we had in our pantry just happened to be blackberry, so I thought that was perfect. I liked that, although I am not a gardener and live in a somewhat suburban environment, I managed to use 2 ingredients (honeysuckle and honey) from my neighborhood - seriously local food.