How to fail at making burgers

It's the effort that counts right? That fact that I tried? At least they looked pretty normal... even if they tasted like crumbly rocks.

First off let me preface this with the fact I have never made a burger at home in my life.
So I was a little clueless where to start to make a home burger. I knew first I needed meat...which was a small problem.

You see I have a horrible aversion to raw meats of any kind. I hate touching raw meat, beef, chicken, turkey, anything. Its icky. I also can not stomach to eat anything off the bone. My friends tell me I am a freak. Oh well thats not the only freaky thing about me! ;)

So to avoid my raw meat conundrum I normally buy frozen boneless chicken strips to cook and eat a lot of meatless dishes. That wasn't going to work for this, I wanted a burger damnit!

I found these raw burger patties, to avoid having to touch ground beef. That was probably mistake number one. 

Having never made a burger and being without a grill, I proceeded to ask everyone I know how to cook a burger stovetop. This lead me to get a lot of conflicting advice everything from "just throw it in a pan" to "butter the pan, add X seasonings, x ingredients, then add burger"

I decided to take the simplest advice and go with just throw it in the pan. Added a little salt and pepper. I was anxious about the greasing popping and afraid of them being undercooked and burned all at the same time... so I constantly was checking them. Probably, mistake number two.

They started to look hideous and crumbly but were still all bleedy in places... where were my pretty burgers? 

photo from stock.xchng

I also don't like to eat anything with pink. I let them cook a little longer to try to avoid any pinkness in the center. Pulled them from the pan to cut them open and be sure they were not pink. 

Satisfied I was not going to die from having to eat anything still pink. I forgot I needed to melt the cheese on them. Because cheese makes everything better. So I stuck them back on the pan for a minute. Mistake number three. 

..... and well I slathered them in ketchup, put them on a nice whole wheat bun next to some very delicious cajun seasoned sweet potato fries and hoped for the best. 

Well sometimes hope just ain't enough. My poor burgers were very tough, crumbly and tasted like cheesy, ketchuped rocks. 

Oh well, you can't win them all right? I learned a lot from this experience and will be re-attempting the home burger in the near future.