I’ll tell y’all a tiny little secret. I was very briefly obsessed with Carl’s Jrs Thirty Dollar Burger. Okay well, I’m so sure we all remember the year 2001 and Carl’s Jr had the oddaisty to charge six dollars for a fast food hamburger. But we were also shocked that Bill Clinton was somehow still in office or maybe we were just obsessed with Harry Potter. Oh the year 2001, I was twenty-one years old, not a hiking guide yet and not the foodie I am now. I think I may have actually sauntered into a few Carl’s Jr’s back in 2001, being a starving college student working multiple jobs. But in 2001, Amber never would have thought to order a burger lettuce-wrapped protein style. Here in 2024, we might live in a bizarre world where Donald Trump may be president again and millennials pay $400 for a Stanley tumbler but Thank the Lord for lettuce-wrapped burgers and this copy-cat El Diablo Protein Burger.
What is more American than paying nearly twenty dollars for a protein burger? Yes, the other day I went to Carl’s Jr for lunch and ordered my last El Diablo Burger before Carl’s Jr took it off the menu for the year and I was shocked that just for a fast food burger, I paid over fifteen dollars.
But back to 2001, everyone was wearing flannel shirts and Tina Fey was on SNL. OMG, can you remember when Saturday Night Live was still funny? The Six Dollar Burger was breaking the bank. Who in their right mind would pay six dollars for a fast-food hamburger? Well that was many years before Joe Biden was president and it’s normal to pay seven dollars for a gallon of gas. So really we should be thrilled to pay an exorbitant fee for a cheap fast-food hamburger beca
use at least they’re still making them with real beef and not manufactured lab cow. (Yet)
The year 2023 Amber the Hiking Guide and foodie hardly ever walked into a fast food restaurant but then I became kind of obsessed with the El Diablo Burger from Carl’s Jr, protein style, of course! In this foodie’s opinion, the best protein burger around can be found at Hook Burger in Pasadena but their locations are extremely limited.
Let the snow shenanigans commence!
After a morning of snowshoeing, I could really go for a delicious protein burger right about now. The pup and I spent all morning trekking trails all over Big Bear Lake. We had a fresh early morning snowstorm and although I was freezing this morning trying to get some great photos which involved taking my gloves off a lot, it was just such a beautiful morning to be out in the snowy wilderness.
As the creator of Big Bear Lake, California’s only Snow Play Experience, of course, I accidentally left the snowman-making kit in my backpack. That actually worked out when I came across Mr. and Mrs Snowman on one of my favorite trails! My fingers were incredibly numb trying to decorate the snow people and then set up the selfie stick while the excitable puppy ran around like a maniac and knocked the selfie stick down multiple times. Puppies. This is why I drink! I mean this is why I shove protein burgers at my face!
Here in our household, we are enjoying a Dry January. Yes, that is correct. Did you know one bottle of delicious Italian Pinot Grigio has around six hundred calories? That means I would have to snowshoe for an extra hour and a half each day to enjoy the wine of my choice in the evening. Okay fine, I’ll snowshoe for hours a day, twist my arm, won’t you!
Copy-Cat El Diablo Protein Burgers
Frozen jalapeno poppers, cooked in the air fryer
Keto Queso (Whole Foods has a great one)
4 slices of bacon, basted with spicy barbeque sauce and cooked.
Green Leaf Lettuce
Sweet and spicy pickles
Hamburger Patties with Grass-fed Beef
1 pound grass-fed beef
1 teaspoon liquid smoke
3 teaspoons Worcestershire
1 teaspoon each of salt and freshly cracked pepper
Combine these four ingredients to make your patties. I like to cook mine at 400 in the air fryer. I feel like the air fryer always gets them perfect. After your burger parties are baked, layer in your green leaf lettuce the patty, the bacon
