This is another recipe I saw on Food Network during the past weekend. We made it last night. It was very simple and very delicious.

Turkey and Bean Burrito Burgers

1 cup cold leftover white or brown rice
1 pound ground turkey
1 (15-ounce) can pinto beans, rinsed and drained 3 teaspoons chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons coriander
1 tablespoon grill seasoning, (recommended: Montreal Seasoning by McCormick)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 ripe avocado
1 clove garlic, grated or finely chopped
1 lime, zested and juiced
1 jalapeno or serrano pepper, seeded and finely chopped
1/2 small red onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup sour cream
4 red leaf lettuce leaves
1 ripe tomato, sliced
4 crusty rolls, split

Combine rice, meat and beans with spices and grill seasoning. Form 4 big patties from the meat and bean mixture then heat 1 tablespoon oil, a turn of the pan, in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook patties 7 to 8 minutes on each side.

While burgers cook, combine avocado with garlic, lime zest and juice, jalapeno and red onion. Mash to roughly combine, then stir in the sour cream.

Place burgers on buns with lettuce and tomato and top with sour cream guacamole.

We made quite a few changes. We seasoned it with what we had and what we liked. So we reduced some of the chili powder and went with some cayenne pepper and garlic powder. We didn't have coriander so we used thyme. Those sorts of things. The one significant addition we made was that we added the diced red onion to the turkey mixture rather than the guacamole, figuring it would not overpower the burger the way we figured it could with the guacamole.

For the guacamole we skipped the ripe avocado and just picked up a container of guac from the dairy section. Then we added the sour cream and lime juice. We also left out the serrano/jalapeno pepper, and just used dried cayenne pepper.

The final result came out to be 5 patties rather than 4. Cooking was very simple, 7-8 minutes per side was pretty accurate, even though it doesn't look like it will cook all the way through when you go to flip it.

Lauren left the kaiser buns from the salmon sandwiches at work, so we used some sourdough foccacia rolls instead, which may have been a blessing in disguise.

About twice a year I get a craving for a fish sandwich. This weekend I was watching Food Network and was basically forced to have one of them. I don't know if it was related to Lent or what, but every show I watched seemed to be preparing fish or some type of seafood.

Along the way I saw Paula Deen making blackened tilapia with cilantro lime mayonnaise. So I took that recipe to the grocery store and wound up making Blackened Salmon Sandwiches with Cilantro Lime Mayonnaise. Fresh salmon fillet was on sale for $6.49/lb, and much to my surprise 1 lb of salmon goes about twice as far as the same amount of chicken. So for about $9 we got 1.32 lbs salmon and made four blackened fillets, with a side of Zatarain's Yellow Rice and some steamed asparagus. As I recall from the show, Paula said her main reason for choosing tilapia was that it is relatively inexpensive, so we figured salmon we be an acceptable substitution. We also couldn't find fresh tilapia and were wary of defrosting frozen fish.

On to the recipe:

1/4 cup sweet paprika
2 tablespoons ground thyme
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
4 (10-ounce) tilapia (or salmon) fillets
4 Kaiser buns, split, buttered and toasted

Cilantro Lime Mayonnaise
1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup freshly chopped cilantro leaves
1 tablespoon fresh lime

In a shallow dish, combine first 6 ingredients.

Pour melted butter into another shallow dish. Dip fish fillets in melted butter and coat with seasoning mixture.

Heat a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Cook prepared fish, in batches if necessary, 3 to 4 minutes per side, or until fish flakes easily with a fork.

Spread Cilantro Lime Mayonnaise evenly over toasted buns. Place blackened fish on bottom half of bun, top with mango salsa, and cover with top half of bun.

Now I don't know what sweet paprika is, but I couldn't find it at the store so I used paprika. The rest of the recipe is solid. We didn't bother with the mango salsa, though it would have been awesome. My best suggestion is that if you aren't using cast iron, which we weren't, you may want to consider either pouring the seasoning mixture into an empty spice jar and shaking it on your fillets or taking a pastry/basting brush and lightly brushing away any extra spice mixture that isn't adhering to the butter after you dredge it through the seasoning. Dredging the fish as though the seasoning is flour is a bit of overkill, and I don't think a normal skillet has enough heat to completely blacken it without burning the fish.

Saturday night for dinner Lauren and I made an attempt to recreate her favorite sandwich from a local restaurant, Marie Catrib's. The chicken cranberry sandwich on challah bread. Traditional challah bread is a three piece braid eaten mostly as a breakfast bread. Marie Catrib takes that same challah dough and makes it into a loaf.

We basically cheated by using a bread machine. So I won't pretend like I know what I am talking about and tell you exactly how to make it. Here are the basic ingredients. I am drawing a blank on the actual recipe we used because I had to adjust for what I thought the bread machine could handle. Almost everything I found on the internet was for making it by hand:

1/2 cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees F)
1 package active dry yeast
3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 cups bread flour
1 1/4 cups wheat flour
1/4 cup olive oil
2 eggs + 2 egg yolks
1 1/4 teaspoons salt

Here is a complete recipe that I have not tried. I am not sure what would make this challah bread since we weren't braiding it, because the ingredients are pretty common to wheat bread. But thats what they call it at Marie Catrib. Oh well.

Two and a half hours later we had bread with no mess which I later determined to be dumb luck. I don't know if it was the eggs or the olive oil, but Sunday I tried making a loaf of wheat bread with the same amount of flour, 3 less eggs, honey instead of olive oil and butter instead of sugar, and the loaf blew up on me. It totally overflowed the bread machine and there was a faint smell of smoke because the dough was touching very hot metal. Back to the sandwich.

Next we took a thin cut chicken breast, marinated it in balsamic vinaigrette and sauteed it for 4 minutes per side over medium-high heat in a non-stick skillet. For the cranberry part of the sandwich we took a can of whole berry cranberry sauce, heated in a sauce pan and added a splash of white wine, two tablespoons of brown sugar and the juice of one orange. Once everything was warm and mixed well we poured it into a bowl and stuck it in the freezer so it would thicken.

We then sliced our challah bread, grilled both sides of both pieces in a buttered skillet, added provolone cheese to the top slice and cream cheese to the bottom half. On top of the cream cheese we spread our cranberry sauce, and then laid down our chicken. On top of the provolone we added some baby spinach, then pressed the two sides together and we were done.

The sandwich was easy to make and turned out great. Again, I don't know that what we were calling challah bread made a great deal of difference in how it compares to the real sandwich, because I've never had it. I think the simple fact that we made fresh bread probably made as much a difference as it being this kind of bread instead of that kind.

So if you wanted to make this sandwich with some of your favorite wheat bread I think it would probably turn out fine.

I finally got around to it. This morning I woke up at 10am, went the store to buy some milk because I didn't have enough and then got on with the recipe.

3 cups warm milk (105 to 115 degrees)
1 envelope active dry yeast
1 1/2 sticks of butter, melted then cooled to lukewarm
1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs, yolks and whites separated
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
4 cups all-purpose flour

Add the yeast to the warm milk and let stand for 5 minutes. I am pretty sure if the milk is too warm it will hamper the yeast's activity. So I used a small thermometer to make sure I was at least near the right range. Unlike a yeast dough recipe you're not going to see the yeast foam after 5 minutes but that is ok. Whisk the milk until smooth. When your melted butter is lukewarm, add that to your milk and whisk.

Add the sugar. When you add the sugar you should be able to hear the yeast crackle in celebration. The sugar is food for them. If that doesn't happen, you might be in big trouble. Add the egg yolks, whisk, then add the salt and vanilla and whisk until smooth.

Then you need to add your 4 cups of flour in three installments. Beat until smooth between each addition. Your final batter should be thicker than waffle batter but still pourable. You'll be able to scrape it away clean from the sides, as it will stick to your beating spoon like a runny dough.

Cover with plastic wrap and set aside at room temperature for 1- 1 1/2 hours, until the batter has doubled in size. Beat your 3 egg whites with an electric mixer until soft peaks form (aka really foamy). Remove the plastic wrap from your batter and fold in the egg whites with a large spoon.

Fire up the waffle iron and enjoy. This makes 12 delicious, but pretty heavy waffles. I think you can store the batter, provided you let it come to room temperature before you use it again. The waffles taste similar to a waffle cone. At least that is what Lauren says. I topped mine with strawberry syrup and whipped cream.

Twice this week and once about three weeks ago I saw an episode of Good Eats about how to make chicken wings. Tonight Lauren and I decided to make it happen. The picture you see here is the finished product. The rest are a photo blog of how the chicken wings came to be. At the bottom of this entry is the chicken wings episode of Good Eats, which we followed pretty much step for step.

With some scissors, we made holes in the outer edges of the screens to give them some height and make them stackable.This allowed us to place two trays of wings inside the 5 gallon stock pot I normally use to brew beer. If you aren't in to building anything, you could also use a stainless steel colander provided that the bottom half, where you'd lay the chicken, fits inside of your pot and you're able to cover the top sufficiently. Though as you'll see later the entire process is kind of lengthy, and doing it in small stages will only make you wait longer.
As for the wings, we bought a 5 lb family pack of chicken wings at Meijer. On Good Eats Alton Brown mentions that due to high demand for breast meat in the US, the chicken wing has remained relatively cheap. This is true. Our package of wings cost $8.95 for approximately 15 whole wings, which I "butchered" (a normal person might say cut) into the 30 "wings" you'd be charged for in any bar or restaurant. Here is a quick how-to on that:
Cut off the tip and throw it in the trash. Then squeeze the remaining wing like a pair of pliers. This will reveal the softest point (the joint) between the flat and drummette. Cut through it. There, you're done.5 lbs of chicken wings cut up and ready to go.
Arrange the wings on your steamer tray, bring a couple inches of water to a boil and set the tray inside your steaming pot for 10 minutes. If you're wondering why you have to steam them, the episode explains that it helps remove some of the fats and oil that would otherwise cause major smoke issues in the oven.When 10 minutes is up, remove your steamed chicken wings (the skin will be slightly tacky) from your tray and set them (uncovered) on cooking/drying racks atop a paper towel lined baking sheet. Preferably one with a lip.Place your baking sheets on the bottom shelf of a cold refrigerator (30-35 degrees). Both of these details will help prevent any salmonella issues both with your chicken and anything else in the fridge. As it turned out, our nifty steaming rack also served as a shelf so we could stack our chicken wings in the fridge. Leave the chicken in the refrigerator for 1 hour.The rest is easy. After your hour is up, remove the paper towel from beneath the racks, replace it with parchment paper and bake your chicken wings for 40 minutes at 425 degrees in the center of the oven. At the 20 minute mark flip your wings. If you are cooking two trays at once make sure to rotate the trays at this time.

Once 40 minutes is up grab the biggest bowl you can find and toss your wings (while they're hot!) in your favorite sauce. 1/2 cup of sauce per dozen is a pretty good ratio to use. We used Sweet Baby Ray's Buffalo Wing Sauce on one half and Sweet Baby Ray's Honey BBQ Sauce (+1 tbsp Honey, +1 tbsp brown sugar) on the other.

They were so awesome. A little time consuming, but well worth the effort. Its pretty easy to see that they're quite a bit meatier than what you'd normally get at restaurant, but for what its worth we had 30 wings between us and only finished about 18.

Until tonight, I've always been mildly annoyed that I can't fully enjoy bone-in wings at a restaurant because I'm afraid of making a mess of myself. This took care of that. And I didn't have to mess around with the hazards of in-home frying.

I've finally gotten back into the swing of making new meals. This week I picked up two packs of boneless pork chops. For one I had a plan and for the other I decided to improvise. And by improvise I mean "grab boxes of side dishes and 'just add___' meals from my parents' kitchen so that I don't have to go to the grocery store". The first meal I made was Tuesday night. It was ridiculously simple:


Pork & Beans

One 9x9 casserole dish
1 can (28oz) Bush's baked beans
Bacon (how much is up to you)
1 lb boneless pork chops
1 medium onion

Fry the bacon, cut it into pieces. Cut your onion into chunks. Add the baked beans, bacon and onion to the casserole dish. In a skillet, pan fry the pork chops with a couple tablespoons of olive oil for 3 minutes per side over medium-high heat. If you have thick pork chops, you're going to want to reduce heat to medium and increase the cook time to maybe 4-5 minutes per side. Set the pork chops on top of the baked beans and bake at 350 for 16-20 minutes. If the heat isn't conducting well enough to heat the beans *and* finish the pork chops you may need to turn the broiler on for the last 5 minutes or so. Plate and serve.

Red Curry, Rice & Pork Chops

This one is technically cheating, but it really wouldn't be that hard to replicate if you were planning a trip to the grocery store. We used an Archer Farms Indian Inspired Red Curry meal kit and added to it ourselves. However I am going to post the ingredients as if we made it ourselves, because we threw away half the sauces and soups it came with.

1 lb boneless pork chops
3 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
Salt & Pepper
1/4 cup Panko bread crumbs (seasoned to taste)
1 egg + 1 tablespoon water (beaten)
1 cup uncooked white rice

Curry Sauce
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons Thai red curry paste
1 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1 lime, juiced

Rub the pork chops with salt and pepper to taste. Add 3tbsp Worcestershire sauce and let stand for 10 minutes. Dip the pork chops in your egg wash, followed by bread crumbs. We mixed in some Penzey's Bavarian Seasoning with our bread crumbs, though I am not sure if it made much of a difference. Pan fry the breaded pork chops with 3 tbsp olive oil over medium high heat for 3-4 minutes per side, then finish in the oven at 350 for 15-20 minutes. Cook the rice per the instructions on the package. For the curry sauce, place a small pot over medium heat and coat with the oil. Stir the red curry paste into the pan and fry that up until aromatic. Slowly pour in the coconut milk and continue to stir to incorporate. Add the lime juice (and 1 of the squeezed out halves for added flavor) and cook for 5 to 10 minutes to thicken. Plate the rice, top with curry and serve with pork chops on top or on the side.

We also made a box of couscous because the rice portion included in our meal box was very small. The couscous was ok, but it didn't really fit.

An alternate approach to making this meal would be to cut the uncooked pork chops into strips, saute them for approximately 5 minutes total and then finish them off in a 5-10 minute high simmer of curry.

Well, I had hoped to be posting about Belgian Waffles right now but my weekend didn't really work out like that. Lauren had to go into work Saturday morning and I had soccer at 12:30 so there was no opportunity for an elaborate breakfast.

Sunday brunch was the next plan, so I made sure to pick up eggs, flour, syrup and toppings from Meijer. But when I opened my cook book I realized I had already made a terrible error. Belgian waffles, true Belgian waffles, use yeast. Which means the batter needs time to proof. The recipe is something like this:

1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm milk (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
3 egg yolks
2 3/4 cups warm milk (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
3/4 cup butter, melted and cooled to lukewarm
1/2 cup white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 cups all-purpose flour
3 egg whites
Activate the yeast in the warm milk, set aside for 5 minutes. Then combine only the wet ingredients, followed by only the dry ingredients, then add the ingredients together and let sit for an 60-90 minutes until doubled in size.

But we were hungry now, so we scrapped the Belgian waffle idea and just made regular waffles from scratch:

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon fine salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 1/2 cups milk, at room temperature
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature, separated
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted, plus more for brushing the iron
• 1 large egg white, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup sugar