Oven Baked Sliders and a Book Review

These sliders are baked in the oven making them perfect when you have a burger hankering in the winter time.

I enjoyed them with a glass of Longevity Wine which tied in perfectly with the novel I was reading.....

Are you a Dean Koontz fan?  I am.  The first novel of his I ever read was Watchers, way back in 1987 when it was first written.  This novel is related to that very first novel that I read so, predictably, I loved this book as well.

This book, like Watchers, is about genetic engineering where dogs have gained human intelligence and humans have become more animalistic.  Eleven year old Woody is high functioning on the spectrum, extremely intelligent but has never spoken aloud.  

His father was reported killed in a terrible accident however Woody knows this isn't true and has gone deep into the web to find evidence that his father was murdered.  He has compiled this evidence to share with his mother when those responsible for his death discover that they have been hacked and set out to stop the information of the genetic engineering testing from getting made public.

Kipp is a Golden Retreiver that is human in mind and brain but dog in body.  Unable to speak he has learned to communicate with humans.  There are others like Kipp and they call themselves the Mysterium, they can communicate with each other telepathically on what they refer to as "the wire".

Kipp can hear Woody on the wire and realizes that it is a human boy who needs help so he sets off to rescue him and brings help in the form of other humans as well as dogs.

There is quite a bit of food mentioned in this book but none so often as Hamburgers.  There is also the mention of meatloaf and Woody's mom relaxes with a glass of Cabernet after an unsettling confrontation with a man from her past whom she had dated briefly in high school and who had worked with her husband after her marriage until his death.

My friend Karen of Karen's Kitchen Stories had recently shared a recipe for sliders that she made in the oven, much like a thin meatloaf.  I was excited when I saw her recipe because I love burgers but very rarely eat them in the winter time because I don't like the cleanup of a fried burger.  I used Karen's technique for these sliders however not her recipe.