Rebel Cookout

Yesterday we were rebels, but rebels with a cause…the cause…to ensure that we had the best Fourth of July celebration we could while being so far away from home!  So at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon, my husband and I jumped in the car and drove around town looking for a grill; we were going to have a cookout!  Never mind that our balcony is only 3 feet wide and our apartment complex may not really allow BBQs…as my husband said, “We are going to be rebels…this is going to be the best Fourth of July we have ever had!”  This may have been the lack of US meat that had been talking, but my husband was fired up and ready to go.  We both love our hamburgers and here in Malaysia, good juicy burgers are very hard to come by…well, pretty much non-existent.  But yesterday on the Fourth, they were here and in our house ready to devour!

Now our adventure began with hunting down a baby grill…off to the only ACE Hardware in the area (about a 20 minute drive away) and we found one.  Grill – CHECK!  Now, off to find the food…where were we going to find USDA meat?  So another 20 minute drive to a butcher with the hopes that USDA meat was on their menu.  With wide eyes and ear to ear grins we were so excited to find a huge hunk of USDA meat just sitting there waiting for us.  Now these were really steaks, but darn it, we were having hamburgers.  So when we asked the butcher to mince these beautiful steaks into ground round, you would have thought we were asking him to start skipping around the store singing zippidy-doo-da, but as they do in Malaysia, he just smiled and said, “No problem, Lah!”  US Meat – CHECK!  Now, off to get the condiments and hunt down some hamburger rolls.  You would think this would be the easy part, but we came to find out…hamburger rolls may not be what they seem…

So here is our evening in pictures as we try to create an American Fourth of July in our Malaysian apartment.

Putting together the grill.  Of course, we had to have American beer.

Wow, good job putting together the grill hubby!  It’s just the right size.

My fun snacks as I waited for the grill to warm up.

Yummy, here’s our hamburgers all ready to go.  It’s almost time!

Burn, baby, burn!  (I hope we don’t get in trouble for having our little cookout…shh, don’t tell.)

Let’s get the rolls ready.  So cute and individually packed…this was all we could find.

Oh no…I guess I should have learned what the words, Ikan Bilis Bun meant because when my husband walked over to prepare the hamburger rolls for our dinner he gasped, “Oh no honey!  You bought Anchovie Buns!”  WHAT!?  Gross!!!  Literally, these looked just like hamburger rolls, but they were buns filled with anchovies!  Oh my gosh!  So I guess we will have to improvise.

So we pressed on…I prepared the Mac ‘n’ Cheese and made some fresh green beans.  We clinked our Budweisers together (mine a bottle, my husband a can) and after everything was hot and ready, we quickly devoured our hamburgers!  What a yummy meal!  Boy, do I miss American hamburgers!

For dessert, I made some patriotic cupcakes and I couldn’t resist whipping up some good ole Root Beer floats!

After the sun set and we sat down to let the food settle in our full bellies, my husband said, “I hope you always remember this Fourth of July and the most EXPENSIVE hamburger you ever ate in your life!” ha!  When we added up everything we bought today to make sure our Rebel Cookout was a success, it was a little pricey, but having the memory of us celebrating our Fourth of July together the good ole American way was priceless!  And the best part was just before we went to sleep last night, we looked out the window to glimpse a couple small fireworks in the distance, probably for a wedding, but still, it felt just like Fourth of July to us.

Thanks to one of my best girlfriends from home that sent us a “Fourth of July” care package which included all our our cute paper plates, napkins and the patriotic cupcake mix!  You made the day extra special. xo