It's a hard slog being a parent sometimes and on occasions it can get you down but there's nothing greater than spending time with your children making things and simply enjoying the experience.

Being at work during the week can make weekends a bit of a rush and I'm as guilty as the next man for trying to do too much, pack it all in at 100 miles an hour and not actually savor the moment. I envy guys who can sit and talk with their children, patiently play with them because I find it difficult to slow down, yet when I discipline myself to do it, more often than not I find that I actually enjoy it and find it relaxing too.

Imagine my surprise this last weekend when I heard myself saying we were going to all make burgers together. I had two contrasting emotions immediately:

1. What am I saying?
2. This could be fun!

I went quickly down to the store and bought some ground beef, gave everyone a dish and a hunk of beef and then said, "what do you want to put in it?"

I was amazed and the ingenuity of my kids and the fun we had.

My daughters raided the refrigerator for whatever they could find, we even managed to include some leftover mango chutney from the lamb rogan josh that I'd cooked the night before! I was also amazed at their knowledge of what might go well together, particularly the herbs and spices.

How about this for a list of ingredients:

1. Grated cheese
2. Chopped mushrooms
3. Chopped bacon
4. Mango chutney
5. Bird's Eye chili
6. Chopped capers
7. Crushed garlic
8. English mustard powder
9. Worcestershire sauce
10. Salt and pepper

That's just one example. There were others with chopped onions and paprika and some very simple ones with just ground beef, chopped bacon and seasoning. It was amazing to see the imagination and the education that you can actually make you're own burgers, they don't have to come from the supermarket and home-made burgers taste just great!

To cap it all off, we all had to get our hands in there and mix our ingredients up, shape our patties and finally cook them. If you could think of anything kids like better than to make something then you're a better man than I but in this case not only did we do all that but then we actually sat down together as a family. After all, we had to taste our own and each other's creations and then discuss and decide who had made the best.
For safety's sake I did the grilling although the kids did get a chance to flip their own burgers.

How often in today's day and age do we find ourselves living in disjointed families? Well thanks to the burgers and the BBQ grill, we had fun all afternoon and a meal together all seated around the table and you don't see that often these days?

Paul Yates has written many grilled hamburger recipes and he also writes gas grill recipes in abundance. Recently Paul produced his own set of homemade smoker plans.