The Veggie Burgers (With Yum Veggie Burger)

It's no secret that Yum Veggie Burger and I are best mates. In fact, I came up with the name of that blog in an intense 15 second instant messenger conversation many months ago. It taxed my meager mental capabilities. Having had veggie burgers with Ali, all I could think was "Yum, veggie burgers."

Don't get me wrong. You've seen the mountains of meat sacrificed in the course of making this blog a reality. But as Ali points out over at YVB, this is an omnivore blog. In fact, I enjoy vegetarian and vegan cooking quite a bit.

Naturally there is a synergy somewhere between our two blogs and I'm hoping our experiment this week becomes somewhat regular as we explore veggie burger recipes. Earlier this week we made a Roasted Pepper Veggie Burger.

At any rate, Ali and I have been scheduling this shindig off and on for a couple of months. Between my travel and all of her excellent set design work, it just hasn't happened. Until Monday, when Ali IMed me this. They weren't the only thing what caught my eye, but jalapenos draw my eye every time.

One of the funny parts of the evening was that I was late to my own house. Rushing home from work, I wanted to hit the gymnasium before Ali came over. Which of course ended up delaying things a half hour. Then in my rush I forgot basically half the ingredients. Ali picked up some stuff I forgot on her way over, but I embarrassingly ran out after a quick shower to get two cans of chick peas. 

Above, Ali prepares to try to grind the flax seeds. This did not work out at all. Later I added them to the food processor. This also did not work out at all. You know what? Add the damn things to your veggie burgers whole. The texture and flavour will impress you. 

As Ms. Yum Veggie Burger says, this recipe could have used twice the peppers and somewhat less on the chick peas. After a few days' thought, I'd substitute all of the peppers here for two, maybe three poblanos. 

Zesting the lemons. 

Mixing up all of our mixes. The smell drove me nicely nuts. 

I substituted panko for plain bread crumbs. Not only is panko becoming popular and I wish to remain trendy, it also tends to hold together in a lighter way than regular bread crumbs in egg. Essentially this recipe relies upon bread and egg to bind the veggies. 

That's the handy skillet making its first veggie-onlies. 

And finishing the veggie-onlies. 

We were famished at this point, even having baked and eaten steak fries. Still, Ali took the time to photograph deliciousness and it appears over at Yum Veggie Burger. 

This is my delicious. I felt like Gollum about veggie burgers. 

Okay, got my own shot of Ali's burgers. 

But I seriously love this shot. Doesn't that burger look amazing?

It does!

Your soundtrack for this entry: Bad Salad - Crowded Sky

Jeremy Fails Dinner: The Salmon

I don't intend to record only the best or the good here. However, I'm not going to record every failure. I don't even record every success. That said, this is my first abject failure on the blog.

It started with the best of intentions. My girlfriend bought me a mandolin, which I wanted for a while.

I spread it out this evening and decided I wanted to make my own french fries. And so, I bought salmon, a potato, and artichokes. 

Getting the artichoke to the point where I could cook it took a while. First you need to cut off all the tips of the leaves. 

Then you need to go through three knives before you can cut off the top inch or so. The serrated knife ended up doing the trick. 

Then you get caught up in Stargate Universe. 

Whilst your artichoke is boiling instead of simmering. 

Hey, there's some creepy shit on the ship!

And your artichoke is still boiling, getting close to burning the bottom of the pot. 

So you make some fries with your new mandolin. 

And conveniently hide the ruined pot in the background. 

Meanwhile you cut your salmon filet in half 

And you fry it up in a bit of oil. 

And even though the artichoke was a fail, and the fries didn't cook up that well, and the salmon was rather ordinary, you take a picture and soldier on. 

Your soundtrack for this entry: REM - Everybody Hurts

The Black Pepper Chicken Pasta

This one goes out to my newly-married work sidekick Lauren Soule. Maybe some day I'll get to be her sidekick instead. For now though, she's back from her honeymoon and to continue honouring her request for more things she can eat, here's a chicken pasta. That combines TWO requested things.

You might notice that I don't post absolutely everything I make. It's not all good, sometimes I forget to photograph stuff, or as is often the case I have leftovers. I'm not that keen to cover leftovers recipes here (and I don't count tacos!), but this one was too good.

Here I used a leftover piece of The Black Prince Chicken. Diced into quarter inch pieces, this fit perfectly in my small saucepan.

Heat over medium and add a cup of chicken broth. Simmer for ten minutes. 

Chop up half an onion and add to the simmering mixture. After a few minutes, add the frozen pearl onions. Trust me, this did not make it too oniony.

The damn pasta's always trying to escape. 

When the pasta's al dente (a real al dente, not that American al dente that's all flaccid), drain and put back in the pot with the chicken and onion mixture. Add about a teaspoon of fresh ground pepper, a half cup of grated parmesan, and top with dried parsley.

Yummo. This turns out to be a little on the dry side, which is absolutely fine with me. All the flavours of the chicken that weren't fine on their own in yesterday's recipe came together in this to make a perfect pasta. Somehow it reminded me of a white clam sauce.

Your soundtrack for this entry: MGMT - Pieces of What

The Black Prince Chicken

This week I have two somewhat ad hoc recipes for you. Last night I was tired after a long weekend doing nothing. Seriously. It was the first weekend in a long time upon which I had no plans. First was an ice cream social party with the fine folks of Reddit Astoria. Saturday I had the Thrifty Sifter, my friend GM, and a friend of his over for lamb burgers. Sorry folks, but I didn't photograph this meal. The reviews were great, though.

Sunday was spent lazily with Ms. Thrifty Sifter in the park. The bad Sifter hasn't updated in a while, but I'm probably distracting her with fun swinging in hammocks in the park. She left for her abode and it was time for me to make dinner. I still had pearl onions (frozen) from The Chicken Pot Pie and I still had waffle fries left over from the lamb burgers.

Of course I wanted to use my trusty iron skillet, so I settled on some inexpensive, bone-in chicken breasts at the grocery. That's the fine folks at Key Food. When you get a chance, take a look at their Recipe of the Day page.

You know what else I have laying around? The Black Prince peppers from my dried chilies entry. Enter my cheapo mortar and pestle from Key Food rival C-Town. They also have a recipe page, but I digress.

To prepare, add two dried chilies to the mortar.

You'll also want (from left to right on my recipe shelf) standard adobo (about a tablespoon), Coleman's dry mustard (about a teaspoon), and cumin (about a tablespoon). 

Meanwhile, pre-heat your oven to 450. I didn't use a baking sheet, just placed the waffle fries and a dozen and a half pearl onions (still frozen) in a stainless steel pan. I'll admit it: this was totally lazy and didn't work out all that well. The onions are great roasted and the waffle fries are, of course, just fine out of the over, but...they really didn't work all that well together.

Next time stuff a baked potato with roasted pearl onions. I bet that will do the trick.

 Back to our pestling already in progress. I think you can guess what to do with this...

I did not separate the skin from the chicken here like I normally do for roasting chicken. The mixture was simply rubbed over every available surface. 

Heat up about three tablespoons of oil in the skillet and then place the chicken in. I did about 20 minutes per side as these were fat breasts. To distract you from what I just said, make sure to watch this episode on cooking oils from Alton Brown's "Good Eats."

Even after a weekend of carousing I was famished. So before the main course I made a simple salad with leftover toppings from the lamb burger enterprise. Part of a beefsteak tomato, half a small onion, and some iceberg lettuce. Topped with olive oil, salt, fresh ground pepper, and cider vinegar, I was pleased. 

And here's the finished product. I'm going to have to try a Black Prince pepper fresh at some point as what I made here made it difficult to distinguish its flavour. The heat wasn't overpowering and I feel the spices mixed well. However, this isn't one of my best impromptu recipes (though it did lead to tomorrow's entry which was). 

Your soundtrack for this entry: Rotting Christ - Aealo (This whole album is quality, but the opener is a classic.)

The Cup o' Noodles

According to the ubiquitous Wikipedia, there are an assortment of 20 or more different types of Cup Noodles. Most Americans would call these "Cup o' Noodles" (as I have) because Cup Noodles doesn't sound right. Normally I get the Maruchan packaged ramen noodles, but Nissin's Cup Noodles has a deeper history and was on sale in a family pack. If you want to try something fun, go to Maruchan's web site and try to visit the sales representatives section.

This recipe is relatively easy to follow. You'll want to start by opening the package. I tend to rip off the outer cardboard wrapper first, then peel off the cellophane.

Heat up your water on high in a standard tea pot. You can also use a pot or sauce pan to heat the water, but I find the pouring later on in the process to be slightly more difficult with those implements. 

I like to open the top of the cup as little as possible. It helps keep the heat of the water in more and, I believe, speeds up the noodlefication process which goes on inside. 

Keep the lid closed using a fork or chop sticks. After two minutes, open and eat. 

Your soundtrack for this entry: William Shatner - Common People

The Chicken Pot Pie

Saturday I attended an eels concert, heard my new favourite tune (see the soundtrack at the end of the entry), and caught a cold.

Sunday I hosted the last kickball game of the season and cracked two ribs when the other outfielder and I collided going for a pop fly.

Monday rolled around and I felt like ASS. So I played the gimpy dude and had the Thrifty Sifter come over to take care of me after work. During the day I said I wanted pot pie, and after some searching we came up with this chicken pot pie recipe from Jersey Bites. Dating a Jersey girl and working with two more and a Jersey guy, I think this site will come in handy in the future.

By the time I made it home all the ingredients were assembled and the Thrifty Sifter was cooking up a double chocolate stout cake. First I needed to cook up some chicken cutlets. I seasoned them with cumin and salt.

Then I got out the big pot, chopped up the carrots, celery, and onions, and gave 'em a good sautee for 10 minutes or so.

Next the we stemmed and cut in half some fresh green beans. Then it was time to boil them up and shock them. I told them that string theory is bullshit, which seemed to take care of the job. (Actually I ran them under cold water in a colander.)

Those are the string beans, frozen pearl onions, and the frozen peas. Of course I dropped some of the peas. It's always the damn peas.

Here's the funny part. The Thrifty Sifter was helping out and we were reading off ingredients and instructions to each other. She took over for the bechamel. Jersey Bites includes sherry in the ingredients, but never actually says explicitly when to use it. So...we didn't, only realizing this later. It didn't seem to matter.

It's going to take a while for that bechamel to thicken up, but it will. I'd give it about 10 minute to Jersey Bites' 4-6. Then you add the thickened sauce to the big pot. (Yes, it's blurry.)

Get your pans ready.

Fill them up.

And put them in the oven One thing to note is that the large square pan is seven inches by seven inches and half of it was enough for two people.

At this point we've been cooking the pot pies for 20 minutes. If you intend to keep the pot pies for later and freeze them, I had trouble reheating since I chose to freeze the the little pies after cooking. In the future I will try freezing them at this point for later reheating so the tops don't burn.

Brush with egg and put back in the oven.

Finished pies! It's time to eat.

Your soundtrack for this entry: eels - Baby Loves Me