Mediterranean-Inspired Burgers

On an impulse, I purchased a tzatziki sauce and some feta cheese a few days ago.  I’ve always liked the taste of this succulent sauce on gyros, but I didn’t know what to do with it at home.  Finally, inspiration struck. Here are two delicious recipes.

Mediterranean-Inspired Burgers

I cannot claim I know anything about authentic Greek food (I really don’t!), but here is my attempt to capture some of my favorite flavors.

Ingredients:

For the beef patties

1 lb. Ground Beef

1 Swanson Flavor Boost pack (beef)

1 egg

1/4 cup of bread crumbs

A pinch of pepper

Mix these ingredients listed above and make the burger patties.  My mix yielded 5 burgers. Cook according to your preferences.   

For the burgers

Buns (of course!)

Toppings

So delicious!

Lettuce or spinach (I used spinach)

Sliced tomatoes

Sliced cucumbers

Sliced red onions

Sliced roasted red peppers (I buy these in jars at BJ’s - delicious!)

Feta cheese

Le Grand Tzatziki Sauce

I piled the toppings in the order listed above, though I placed the patty on top of the feta cheese before I poured the tzatziki sauce on it.

Additional Meal: Chicken Wraps

Here is the miracle sauce!

Mix rotisserie or cooked chicken with chopped red onions and peppers, and add the tzatziki sauce to taste. 

I poured a generous amount of the chicken mix on top of lettuce and feta cheese on a wheat tortilla. Then, I tightly wrapped this tasteful mix. Delish!

Quick Black Bean Chili

Quick Chili with black beans and corn bread

Despite my failure to post updates for a couple of months, I have been able to continue cooking and eating at home (I swear!). 

In the last few weeks, I have experimented by making up by own recipes or tweaking other people’s recipes. One of my most successful “inventions” is the quick chili I made twice already this year (2013).  Chili usually takes some time, so I found a few shortcuts to help me get results in a fraction of the time without sacrificing flavor. Here is my recipe for a super quick chili. Hope you like it!

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. of ground beef (I used lean beef with very little fat)
• 1 can (15 oz) of black beans
• 1 can (15 oz) of diced tomatoes (I used a “roasted tomatoes with garlic and basil” can)
• 1-2 cups of chopped onions and green/red peppers
• A pinch of cumin
• Chili powder to taste
• Salt and Pepper to taste

For the cornbread:

• A box of Jiffy mix for cornbread and the ingredients listed on the box
• 1/3 can (about 4 or 5 oz.) of creamed corn

Making the Chili:

Sautéed the onions and green/red peppers in a bit of olive oil.  Then, remove these from the frying pan.  Use the same frying pan to brown the ground beef so that it “absorbs” the taste of the onions and peppers.  As the meat is cooking, add the cumin, chili powder, salt, and pepper.  If you want, you can also add minced garlic to taste. 

Let the meat cook well; then, add the cooked onions and peppers.  Taste this mixture to make sure it has enough salt and pepper.  Then, add the diced tomatoes and crush them as they cook.  They will make a nice sauce as they cook with the meat (10-15 minutes).

Taste the sauce to make sure it doesn’t taste like raw tomatoes.  Then, add the can of black beans (I drained some of the water first).  Let this mixture cook for a few minutes.

Making the cornbread:

Follow the directions on the box, but use only half the milk and add the creamed corn instead.  I used a shallow pan to make bread instead of corn muffins, and this worked out just fine. 

Easy Turkey Meal

[pictures of this meal coming soon] 

In more than a decade of marriage, I have never celebrated Thanksgiving at my home. Now, it just doesn’t seem right to change what has become our tradition, and to be honest, I don’t mind visiting my husband’s relatives. The food served at their home is great, and the company is even better.  However, I cannot pretend I never wondered what it would be like to host a Thanksgiving meal.  I even bought The Food Network magazine last year, and I drooled over the pictures of juicy, meaty turkeys and scrumptious side dishes. However, it wasn’t until this year that I decided to go for it.

I could not possibly host Thanksgiving at home, but would it be okay to do a pre-Thansgiving/sort-of-Halloween dinner? “Why not?” I told myself.  After all, there is nothing wrong with planning a family meal.

I invited my husband’s parents, his brother and his family, and my mother to join us and eat my very first turkey meal.  They eagerly accepted, and I began to plan the menu. However, there was a problem I needed to overcome if I was going to make this recipe work for my family: proper brining.

I began with this recipe by The Food Network Magazine, but I immediately knew I wanted to make  a few changes. For instance, the choices for liquid brines were too risky for me (this was my first turkey, so I didn’t want to experiment!).   I’ll save these options for next time. The classic brine was perfect, but it was dry, and I want the juiciness of the other choices. I also wondered where I was going ot keep the turkey while I brined it. I realized early on that I needed

• A fool-proof brine/seasoning
• A place to brine

So… I tackled the first issue by making my own recipe for the brine

Ingredients:

• Salt to taste (I used about half a cup, but traditional brine recipes can require two cups of salt or more)
• Two Swanson flavor boost packages – chicken flavored (next time, I might use one or two more)
• Two rosemary branches
• A couple of onions and peppers, cut in half.
• Garlic to taste (you can use cloves or powder; I prefer cloves)

I mixed all of these ingredients in a pot full of water (enough to cover the whole turkey) and let it boil. Then, I let this broth simmer for a bit to mix the flavors. This became my brine.

Brining the bird for 24 hours was the next challenge. There is no way my larger than normal pot would fit in my two-door refrigerator.  The solution came to me by chance.  As I was looking for a thermometer at the store, I came across a basting bag. Can you believe someone makes this item? The bag looks like a giant Ziplock bag for a giant, 20 lbs. turkey.  Jackpot!  I paid less than $3 for the bag – worth every penny.

So, on the day before my big turkey dinner, I made my brine. Once it cooled down, I put the turkey and the liquid brine in the back, and I place this bag in my refrigerator. I had to remove the bottom vegetable drawer to get the turkey in, but other than that, brining took no effort whatsoever.

I followed the mixed and match recipe from Wegmans (link) for the rest of the process, and I used the rosemary lemon butter (I skipped the fennel).  I don’t want to brag, but the turkey was awesome! My six-year-old nephew had seconds.  That is the best compliment I got that night, but not the only one. 

I served three side dishes with my turkey and spent about $40 or $50 dollars (about $20 for the turkey).  However, I was able to feed 7 adults and one child (my kids don’t eat turkey); I also had leftovers to make other meals for the rest of the week.  Not a bad deal!