Our recent time in Colorado left us with not only memories but cravings of the food we had there. Although the elk with black cherries at JJ’s had an an everlasting impression on me, it was the bison sliders and curried sweet potato fries that we keep longing for. The bison sliders we had while we were at Steamworks Brewery in Durango and the curried sweet potato fries were a delight at Farrago, a little market cafe in Pagosa Springs. A new take on some simple classics and incredibly delicious! Thank you Steamworks Brewery and Kellie at Farrago for telling me their secrets!

I would love to say that I was too consumed with cooking to take step by step pictures for you all but the reality was that Joe the plumber was still in my kitchen hooking up our new sink and faucet. I was doing all of my prep for tonight’s dinner in the den and dining room. Sorry, but at least I made dinner. If I had to have one more take out meal I was going to go on a rampage.

Bison sliders with Pancetta makes about 16 mini burgers

• 2 pounds of ground bison
• 1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil, plus a little for sauteing
• 1 Tbs whole milk or heavy cream
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground pepper
• 1/4 pound thinly sliced pancetta, about 16 slices
• 16 thin slices of fontina cheese
• slider buns (store bought dinner rolls, or if you waited all frick’n day for the plumber and ran out of time to go to the store you can simply make your own in 40 minutes by using this recipe, just make the buns smaller for sliders)

1. In a large bowl, add ground meat, oil, milk, salt and pepper. Mix with your hands or a spoon.
2. Heat a little oil (tsp or so) in a large non-stick pan on medium heat.
3. Using an ice-cream scooper, scoop out small balls of the ground bison and add to the skillet. You will have to do two batches.
4. After the burgers have been cooking for 4 minutes, flip and cook until you reach your desired temperature.
5. Here’s where it gets a little tricky. Pancetta is a cured meat and can be eaten raw. But on average it is only curred for 2 weeks. So, I like to cook my pancetta a little before eating it. You can do this two ways with this recipe. You can either quickly saute the slices of pancetta in another skillet on medium high for a minute per side or you can simply put it in the same pan with the burgers. I just throw the slices in the same pan with the burgers but it is up to you.
6. After the burgers are finished, place a slice of fontina and pancetta on the burger and place it on a bun. Some caramelized onions placed on top couldn’t hurt either!