Jalapeño Cream Cheese Stuffed Burgers

This was good. It was good for dinner, and it made a great lunch the next day. I found the recipe on allrecipes.com, where I find a LOT of recipes. I signed up for their daily newsletter. I don't always like what I see, but there is usually some good inspiration every few days.

I was also inspired by my brother Brian's amazing recipe for a burger. I don't know what he does to them, but they're delicious. I've invited him to do a guest blog, but he hasn't done it yet. Hint, hint, Brian. The world needs more of your burgers!

Anyways, this was really good. We ate it with a spinach salad featuring strawberries, red peppers and blue cheese. I made a nice simple balsamic vinaigrette seasoned with red chili flakes and rosemary. There would have been toasted pecans, too, but I got distracted organizing my photos on the computer and they were pretty badly burnt. Oh well, next time.

This recipe is really versatile! Try seasoning your beef with taco seasoning and stuffing it with salsa and cheddar or maybe even refried beans... or with cheddar bacon and onion... or blue cheese and bacon! You really can't go wrong. 

Jalapeno Cream Cheese Stuffed Burgers

Ingredients

2 lbs ground beef

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tbsp Italian seasoning

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cayenne

several twists of pepper grinder

1/2 cup of Philly cream cheese

1 jalapeño, diced small

Directions

1. Mix cream cheese and jalapeño together. Set aside.

2. Mix ground beef and seasonings together. Mix really well to get seasonings spread around evenly.

3. Form beef into 8 patties*

4. Spoon about a tbsp (or a quarter of your jalapeño cream cheese mixture) on to 4 of the patties.

5. Top with remaining patties.

6. Using a fork, press the edges of the burgers together and form into a nice hamburger shape.

7. BBQ! Probably 6-7 minutes on each side. Try not to flip until you're sure they're fairly well cooked. This will help form a good sear on the outside and will keep your cream cheese in. 

*I deliberately made the patties thicker so that it would easier to trap the cream cheese mixture inside. You can make them thinner if you like. Maybe try 10 patties. 

Family Breakfast and other culinary endeavors

Ahoy there, food fans!


Sorry I've been neglecting you. I have been SUPER busy lately and I haven't really been doing a lot of cooking. This entry is more of a catch-up, so it's going to consist more of food porn than recipes.


Coconut Banana Custard 

Alright, so this little dish looks kind of gross and doesn't taste super spectacular. HOWEVER, if you're gluten and dairy free, or on the paleo diet, it's a nice little breakfast/dessert. It's pretty much just blended eggs, coconut milk, banana and cinnamon baked in the oven until its a porridge/custard-like consistency. Definitely didn't throw it out, but probably won't make it again.

Pulled Pork (?)

So this one has a question mark beside it because I wasn't intending on making pulled pork, but it just kind of turned out that way. It was a slow-roasted pork shoulder that was so juicy and tender that it just fell apart. It was also an incredibly fatty cut of pork, so slicing it was out of the question. Hence, pulled pork.

Family Breakfast

I just got back from visiting my Mommy! We ended up having a family reunion... all of this side of my family together at once! It has definitely been several years since that last happened. My brothers, John and Brian, are also really into cooking so we whipped up a feast Saturday morning.

Brian and John chopping up ingredients...

Mushrooms...

Bacon...

and potato...

green onion, egg and spices...

make one delicious breakfast!

Grilled Chicken with Spicy Almond Sauce

Tonight's dinner was nice and light in honour of the glorious spring weather! I've been holding on to a spicy peanut sauce recipe for quite some time, unable to make it for one reason or another. I decided tonight was the night and made some modifications so the recipe would fit Paul's paleo diet restrictions.

Paul put the chicken in some marinade early in the afternoon and I made the sauce when I got home from work. 2 grilled chicken breasts and one fantastic salad (made by Paul) later, we were in business. Delicious, spicy business.


Ingredients
Marinade
1/2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp almond butter
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 lime, juiced
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 tsp cayenne
1/4 tsp salt


Spicy Almond Sauce
1/2 cup almond butter
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 lime, juiced
1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp grated ginger
pinch of cayenne
1/4 cup chicken stock
splash of homo milk (or cream or half and half)


Directions
1. Marinate chicken for at least an hour, up to overnight. Grill for 5 minutes on each side, until almost cooked. Remove from grill, tent under tin foil for 10 minutes.

2. Combine everything but the last two ingredients of the sauce in a small pot over medium heat. Stir constantly until thickened. Whisk in chicken stock and milk.

3. Slice chicken breast and serve over salad. Spoon sauce on top. Dive in!

Grilled Thai Green Curry Chicken

Or.. maybe I should call it "THE BEST CHICKEN I HAVE EVER MADE"!! I don't know if it's the marinade I made or how I grilled it, but this was GOOD. I tried to save some for lunch tomorrow, but I couldn't resist eating all of it. It was practically flame-broiled.. my BBQ is in desperate need of cleaning so there were a lot of large flames shooting around the chicken. Lucky for me, my house is still intact AND I am well-fed.

I dare you to try it.

Grilled Thai Green Curry Chicken

Ingredients
6 chicken thighs
1 tbsp Thai green curry paste
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Directions
1. Mix olive oil and curry paste together

2. Toss chicken in marinade and let it sit for 15-20 minutes

3. Grill quickly on high heat to sear in flavour. Grill for 3 minutes on each side.

4. Let chicken rest for 10 minutes under tent of tin foil.

5. DIVE IN.   

Coconut-Ginger Yam Soup

Honourable mention goes out to Jen for providing me with this recipe! She showed me a cookbook from the Salt Spring Centre of Yoga. This place hosts yoga retreats, complete with a totally delicious totally vegetarian food program and have their own recipe book to boot. EVERYTHING in that book looks delicious, so keep your eyes peeled for more of their recipes. I made a couple of modifications (based on what I found in my fridge) and this is what I came up with.

The soup is nice and creamy with a hint of curry. I bet mine would have tasted less like cinnamon if I hadn't accidentally used twice the required amount. It tasted good anyways, but next time I'll be sure to read the recipe more closely. 

Coconut-Ginger Yam Soup
Ingredients
3 cups cubed yams
1 cup chopped carrot
1/2 cup chopped leek
3.5 cups water
1/2 tbsp grated ginger
1 tsp Thai green curry paste
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
pinch of chili powder
1 can coconut milk
Cilantro for garnish

Directions

1. Boil the water and place the yams, carrots and leeks in the pot. Bring to a boil again and simmer for 20 minutes or until all the vegetables are cooked.

2. Stir in curry paste, ginger, spices and coconut milk. Blend with immersion blender.

3. Simmer for 30 minutes.

4. To serve, spoon into bowls and garnish with cilantro. Enjoy!

Chipotle Chicken Salad

I'm going to have this for lunch tomorrow. I was hoping to have it in a sandwich, but I think it might be a bit too spicy. I'm going to toss it around with a big green salad instead. 


Simply Recipes is an awesome blog and I stumbled across this recipe while browsing it one day. I actually don't remember looking at it, but I found the address in the memory of the url bar of Internet Explorer... so I must have looked at it one time or another.


Anyways - tonight we had bbq chicken for dinner. I made a bbq sauce with ketchup, soy sauce, sweet chili sauce, honey, garlic and ginger, but I can't share the recipe because I didn't measure anything. Oops. I bbq'd a few extra pieces of chicken without sauce (but with olive oil and salt and pepper) and then used it for the salad. If you don't have any freshly grilled chicken (or any other kind of leftover chicken) then grab a grocery store roasted 1/2 chicken and shred that up.


Chipotle Chicken Salad
Ingredients
1/2 c mayo or miracle whip
1 tsp chipotle seasoning
1/4 jalapeno, seeded and diced small
2 celery stalks, diced small
1 green onion, diced small
1 cup chopped grilled chicken


Directions
1. Mix mayo and chipotle seasoning.
2. Mix everything else together.
3. Eat.


Simple, right? If you don't like a lot of spice, go easy on the chipotle or maybe leave out the jalapeno. Another twist on this recipe is using curry powder instead of chipotle. If you want to do that, use 1 tsp curry powder AND 1 tsp chili powder and maybe add some diced apple and raisins to your salad.

Chorizo

Chorizo. Chorizo chorizo chorizo. Fun to eat, fun to say. It's delicious and I love it - and I am so disappointed with the chorizo in the grocery stores. I HATE the chorizo in the grocery stores. It's oily and bland and is never quite satisfying enough. I went on a mission to discover a recipe for it, and this is what I found. I read a million recipes, and then made my own.

I put it all together last night and left it to refrigerate overnight and then tonight Paul cooked it into little hamburgers. The recipe needs some tweaking, but it's pretty dang close. It's also pretty spicy, so consider yourself warned. I am DELIGHTED with the flavour, even though it's not quite right... it is absolutely full of flavour and zest and will warm your tummy. I plan on making a larger batch and then freezing portions. There are so many possibilities... chorizo and bean chili, chorizo tacos, chorizo and eggs for breakfast. Chorizo meat sauce, chorizo meat balls! Trust me, whip some of this up and freeze it in portions. You will not regret it!

When I modify the recipe, I will drop the chipotle and probably use more chili flakes. Probably more oregano, too. I'm not exactly sure, but I will keep you posted. Maybe a bit more red wine vinegar, or add actual red wine instead. Hard to say, but I will keep you updated. I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions!

Chorizo
Ingredients
2 lbs ground pork
1 tbsp chili powder
1/2 tbsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tbsp chipotle powder
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tbsp paprika
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp cloves
several turns of pepper grinder
1/4 cup red wine vinegar


Directions
1. Put pork into bowl and pour vinegar over it

2. Grind up all the spices together. I used a mortar and pestle,but you could use a spice grinder or just mix them all together in a bowl

3. Mix and knead spices into pork until evenly distributed

4. Refrigerate for 24 hours

5. Cook however you want (in eggs, as a burger, in a taco etc)

Beef Stroganoff

How does a warm and creamy beef dish sound to you? Good? That's what I said, so I decided to make Beef Stroganoff for dinner. I absolutely love this dish. It is so good after nearly being blown into traffic by the howling wind this morning. The only thing that kept me upright was the torrential downpour coming from the other direction, flying at me at a 90 degree angle. Oh Victoria, how I love thee.


Anyways - as I was saying...Beef Stroganoff is satisfying and delicious. I like mine with lots of mushrooms, Paul does not - so I compromised and used less mushrooms. He's pretty good at picking them out at this stage in our relationship. Normally I would serve this over rice, but as Paul is on the paleo diet, we just ate it as-is. I did make some roasted yams on the side, but I completely forgot to make any vegetables. Oh well.


Beef Stroganoff

Ingredients
1 medium large steak
1 onion (I used half red, half white because that was what I found in the fridge)
6-8 mushrooms (I only used three)
2 tbsp butter
1 cup sour cream
2 tsp dried rosemary

Directions
1. Slice your beef up nice and thin.

2. Slice your mushrooms and onions nice and thin. I sliced the onion in rounds, and then cut the rounds in half. No smaller than that is necessary.

3. Melt the butter over medium-high heat in a sautee pan. Sautee the beef until it's almost cooked (like 2 minutes on one side and maybe 1 minute on the other). Sprinkle salt and pepper over beef as it's cooking. Remove, leaving drippings in pan, set aside.

4. Toss onions and mushrooms into liquid, sautee over medium heat and sprinkle with more salt and pepper and the rosemary. Sautee until nice and carmelized. Turn off heat.

5. With pan over hot (but turned off) element, mixed in sour cream and toss gently until combined. Stir beef back into onion/mushroom/sour cream mixture.

6. Serve over rice, egg noodles or just eat it as-is. You will not be disappointed!

(yummy onions and mushrooms)

(I forgot to take a picture of the finished product, but I managed to wrestle Paul's half-eaten plate away from him long enough to snap a photo)

Dark Chocolate Chip Banana Walnut Muffins

I just pulled these muffins out of the oven and they are delicious! Warm, moist banana bread muffins with walnut chunks and melted dark chocolate with a crumbly cinnamon muffin top... so good in my mouth! It is going down extremely well with my fresh cup of French roast. 

I find inspiration for a lot of recipes on allrecipes.com and this is no exception. I found this recipe last week and decided to put it on the to-do list for this weekend. I modified it by adding chocolate chips (because banana bread is just not the same without it) and walnuts (because they go so well with banana and chocolate) and adjusting the amount of cinnamon in the crumble.

Here is a tip - keep some slightly too-ripe bananas in the freezer. Paul won't eat a banana once it starts to get a bit soft and spotty, but they're still good for baking. I don't make banana bread at the drop of a hat so I just toss them in the freezer and wait for inspiration like this. They'll keep for a long time.. I'd say 6 months at the longest. If they turn completely black in your freezer, they've gone off and you should throw them out. When you defrost them, they'll be a bit gooey but it's not anything to worry about.

Dark Chocolate Chip Banana Walnut Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 bananas, mashed
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup walnut bits
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/3 cup butter, melted
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon cold butter

Directions

1. Heat oven to 375F and lightly grease a muffin tin, or line with paper cups.

2. Mix first four ingredients in a large bowl.

3. Mix next 6 ingredients in small bowl.

4. Mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Stir until just combined.

5. Spoon into muffin cups. Fill until about a quarter inch from the top. You should be able to get 12 regular-size muffins out of the batter.

6. Mix 2 tbsp flour and 1/2 tsp cinnamon in small bowl. Cut in butter until the mixture looks like a coarse meal.

7. Sprinkle about a tsp on top of each muffin.

8. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

(YUM!)