The Burger

Gotta love the burger. I have developed a decent consistency in my burgers, with a little variation of the available ingredients.

Ground hamburger (about 0.5 - 0.75 lb per person)
Garlic, chopped
Salt and Pepper, or better yet, Montreal Steak Seasoning
1 egg per every 2-3 burgers

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl, and mix until blended with a spoon or your hands. Don't press the meat too much - the idea is to keep everything fluffy. Add whatever additional ingredients you want to flavor the burger with. Some of the things I toss in include chorizo or andouille sausage, good mushrooms (shitake, porchini, or morel), roasted garlic, or in this case, lots of chunked feta.

Form the burgers into nice big patties, and again don't squeeze the meat too much, just enough to hold everything together. Push the center of the buger in with your finger, this will keep the meat from ballooning when cooking. Toss on a hot grill, and (and this is the secret ingredient) douse liberally with Worcestershire sauce. Cook until nicely crisp on one side, then flip, add more Worcestershire sauce, and cook until done. Add some sliced blue cheese towards the end if you like, but with the feta-burger it's not necessary. Top with carmelized onions or sauteed spinach or watercress, and all the other toppings.

Yogurt & Nut Crusted Lamb Chop

Oh man this was good. Hopefully I can remember what I did. Normally when we cook lamb chops we only have one per person, which is not very much meat. This looked so tasty before it went on the grill I made twice as much, which was a Very Good Thing.

For the lamb
4 smallish lamb chops, with the thicker fat trimmed away
1 6oz container yogurt - we only had Yoplait peach, which worked fine
Diced garlic
Ground cumin
Ground coriander seed
Salt and pepper
Probably other similar spices - if you get it confused with cumin, it's good to go

Add the spices, garlic, salt, and pepper to the yogurt, and mix well. Evenly and generously cover all sides of the lamb chops with the spiced yogurt mixture, and set aside at roomish temperature.

For the crust
1/2 C almonds
1/2 C peanuts

As these were the types of nuts available, they got used. Others would have been just as fun. Using whatever your kitchen comes equipped with, roughly chop up the nuts into smallish chunks. Coat the lamb chops evenly with the nuts, pressing them into the yogurt so they stick. Cook by any fashion until lamb is done to taste. I used a grill, which presented several problems. The nut and yogurt crust was very good, but did not necessarily stick to the chops. I did not turn the meat, and only cooked on one side to avoid missing out on the sweet nut on yogurt on lamb action. Perhaps there's a better way? Probably more heat and a smooth surface. I guess I could heat a skillet over my propane burner next time...

Baked Crusty Ratatouille

Recipe Coming Soon. I'll have to ask Ann on this one. It's been something we've had a lot, as it uses tomatoes and zucchini, which we have baskets full of currently.

Five Spice Swordfish

With Sweet Potato - Orzo Mash

For the Fish
1-2 good quality fish steaks, such as swordfish
1 T Chinese Five Spice Powder
Black and white sesame seeds
Salt and pepper

Lightly dust both sides of the fish with salt and pepper, followed by the 5 spice powder, and finally evenly with sesame seeds. Set aside at room temperature, and prepare grill to high heat. When grill is hot, drip sesame oil on grill grate, and cook on high for only 1-3 minutes per side, or cooked until the mercury in the swordfish boils off (674.11 °F if you're paying attention).

The orzo and sweet potato mash was made up on the spot, and contained, among other things certainly, orzo, orange sweet potatoes (yams), garlic, onions, five spice powder, and lemonaide. It worked well with the fish, but not necessarily alone - more of a reminder that I have not yet made sweet potato gnocci yet.

Marinated Zucchini Appetizer

Olive Oil
2-3 garlic cloves, chopped
2-3 medium zucchini, sliced
1 lemon
Capers
Italian parsley

Cover the bottom of a skillet with a fair amount of olive oil. Heat, and sauté the garlic until soft and brown. Remove skillet from heat, and scoop out garlic and set aside. After oil cools down slightly, add the slices of zucchini to the pan, laying flat and allowing the zucchini slices to soak up as much oil as each slice can hold. Flip slices to use up oil, then remove zucchini from skillet and reserve. Return skillet to heat, and after bottom becomes hot, place saturated zucchini slices in pan and dry fry on each side until evenly brown. Transfer zucchini to bowl, and add 1/2 cup lemon juice, several spoonfuls of capers, and 1/4 cup Italian parsley. Season with ground pepper. Chill for several hours and serve with crackers and cheese.

Jungle Fish (Cooked in Banana Leaves)

Although any freshwater fish can stand in for jungle fish, I used tilapia.

3 tilapia fillets, cut into tidy triangle shapes
Banana leaves (If you don't have any, cut them fresh off you nearest neighborhood banana tree)

2 shallots
2 T ground tumeric
4 green onions, 2 finely chopped, and 2 in 1 inch sections
3 garlic cloves, smashed and chopped
2 seeded Thai chillies, finely chopped
1-2 T fish sauce
1ish T sugar
Salt and pepper

Grate the shallots into a bowl, and mix in the remaining ingredients except the green onion sections. Season with salt, pepper, sugar, and fish sauce to taste. Stir fish into marinade, and refregerate until needed. I had my fish marinate for about 2 hours, which worked nicely.

Start grill or oven. Lay out one notebook sized banana leaf, and brush with sesame oil. Mound half the fish in the center of the leaf, and cover with half the green onion sections. Wrap banana leaf up like a package, and wrap in a similar process (brushing with oil) until everything is nicely covered. Secure with toothpicks. Repeat on remaining fish, and place on grill. Cook until done, about 10 - 15 minutes, turning occasionally if your package will not fall apart. Serve over jasmine rice.

Pork Chops with Tomatillo Sauce

Pork chops
Nice thick pork chops
2 T gound coriander
2 T ground cumin
2 T kosher salt
2 T black pepper
2 T olive oil

Mix together dry ingredients. Add olive oil to dry ingredients and mix well. Rub mixture over pork chops, and let sit at room temperature while making sauce.

Tomatillo and Apple Sauce
Basically you combine the most sour-green fruits, and try and balance it out with spice and sweetness.

4-5 fresh tomatillos, husks removed, cleaned, and chopped
2-3 green apples, depending on size, diced
1 garlic clove
1 t ground cumin
1 T lime juice
2 T honey
1 jalapeno

In a saucepan, add enough water to tomatillos to cover completely, and simmer for 10 minutes or until soft. Cool, and in blender purée tomatillos with garlic, cumin, lime juice, honey, and jalapeno. You may want to add half the jalapeno and taste before adding the rest. Taste sauce and balance sour, spicy-hot, and sweet flavors.

Transfer the sauce and stir in the diced apples.

Meanwhile prepare grill and when hot, turn heat down substantialy and cook pork chops on coolest part of grill until done. The Man used to say to cook your pork until 160° but now says 144° will kill trichinosis. The change in recommendation is similar to how engineers use to over-build buildings (more material than necessary, thicker walls, etc.) but now they have a theoretically better idea of material strenght. I usually take pork chops (boneless) off the grill at around 130°, which is fine for everyone except those with comprimised immune systems. Also, the pork chops were frozen at one point, which is just as effective for all but the thicker pork cuts.

Serve with sauce, and veggies. I rubbed some fresh zucchini with olive oil, salt and pepper, and sun-dried tomato flakes.

Quick Garden Sausage Medley

Olive Oil
2 Italian Sausages
Garlic, smashed and finely chopped
1/2 Onion, julienned
1 Yellow Sweet Pepper, julienned
Can o’ Tomatoes, diced ideally
1 cube chicken bullion, crushed
2 smallish zucchinis
4 T Pesto
Fennel Seed
S&P
Red Pepper flakes

Pasta of your choice, cooking simultaneously

Cook the Italian sausages using the method of your choice, as long as you choice is pan frying with a little olive oil. Remove, and keep warm. In the same skillet, sauté several cloves of garlic and the onion. Add the sweet pepper and cook until slightly soft over medium high heat. Stir in a can of tomatoes and the chicken bullion. When well mixed add the zucchini and pesto, and season with fennel seed to make everything more sausage-y, salt and pepper to make it taste like food, and red pepper flakes for a kick. Serve over pasta – we used homemade spinach linguini, dried from a separate pasta-making excursion. The spinach and zucchini were from the garden, the sweet pepper from Costco. . Let’s hear it for Costco produce. Three weeks in the fridge and not a single blemish. How do you like them [overpackaged and unorganic] apples?