hamburger hamburger hamburger--- maybe with chesse?

Hamburgers from restaurants and fast food joints never taste like the hamburgers you make at home. There are a number of factors that contribute to this unfortunate reality, most of them disgusting, but, as a person that grew up eating hamburgers way more than I ever wanted, I have come to find some really great hamburger tips.

1. Super thick patties aren't great. They aren't juicier. They aren't more flavorful. They're just bigger. Keep them thinner than 3/4 of an inch thickness.
2. Unless you're a grill master (which I'm not) implore different cooking methods. Foreman grill, Baking, Steaming, or even frying will be better. A grilled burger is the best...a badly grilled burger is the worst.
3. Don't add french onion soup powder, ranch powder, or any of those nasty recipes you find on the back of a bottle/box/packet into your meat! The meat should stand alone. Buy super lean and season to bring the flavor of the meat out, not mask it. Salt and pepper work just fine on hamburgers. Nothing more, nothing less. 
4. Buy your meat fresh, from behind the counter, if you can. Defrosted meat never quite tastes the same.

A great great great hamburger...

1lb of 93% lean ground beef (Laura's as a great prepackaged one)

salt and pepper for taste

• Make 4 patties about the size of the palm of your hand (again this is totally relative, you're making each patty about 1/4 of a pound)
• Salt and pepper them
• Pan sear them on HIGHEST heat to lock their shape in place if you're using ultra lean meat. Do not cook the burger through and through...go to the next step.

large pot with room for 4 burgers on the bottom and a lid

Flat Steamer

1 cup mushroom broth

1 cup water

1 teaspoon salt

• Add all ingredients into pot and bring to a boil
• Place flat steamer into the pot (this shouldn't be submerged into water)
• Add burgers and cover
• Cook 5-9 minutes depending on how done you'd like your burger
• Remove from steam, keep water going for cheese

Munster or cheddar cheese....or whatever cheese you'd like...if you want cheese

one tuna can washed in the dishwasher with all the labels peeled off

• Cube your cheese. 2-3 cubes is plenty for one burger
• Place into tuna can
• Place tuna can into the pot with the steam
• Monitor the cheese! It will become melty and delicious. Pour over the hamburger. 

Remember that there are a million ways to have a burger. Some of them are better than others but its important to have a lot of options. Keeping sliced tomatoes, lettuce, onions, and different condiments around is a great way to easily add to your burger. 

Enjoy!

Where are the sweet potatoes?

*Heads up everyone. I am going to try and start putting up nutritional information about the foods I'm writing about. If there is a link to the food check it out. Usually, I'm trying to pull an "eat this, not that"  but other times its just nice to know how many calories you're really consuming. 


Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Please forgive me, I know I have been a little relaxed about uploading posts and pictures but I promise I will be better in the coming weeks.

So, when anyone thinks of Thanksgiving they think turkey...and then they think of the sides...mashed potatoes, gravy, gravy, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, ...literally, the combinations are endless. Sweet potatoes mashes, soups, purees, and pies. There are so many sweet potato dishes its drives me insane. So, this year, when when it came to my contribution for Thanksgiving I opted for....

BUTTERNUT SQUASH. 


Butternut squash (or winter squash) is fantastic. I find it hearty, yet light, beautiful when served, and tasty when consumed. It's a great add into any tomato sauce, stir fry, or breakfast routine. It's perfect for adding a little diversity in your diet without adding too many calories.

Now, let's be real, this is a Thanksgiving Recipe. There's not a chance in hell that this will be making the healthier option menu...but...it is better than those sweet potatoes and mini marshmallows!

Two packages of butternut squash (or 2 large butternut squash peeled, seeded, and cubed)
1/4 stick of unsalted sweet cream butter melted
1/2 cup of light brown sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup oatmeal oats (Irish oats or steel cut usually work best)
1 apple peeled and cubed
1/2 lemon juiced

This is super easy, super tasty, and so not something you need worry about messing up. So be confident, its going to taste amazing.

Add all ingredients into a large bowl.  (yup every single one)
Make sure that all of the butternut and apple pieces are covered in mixture

Throw into a 375 oven for 45-55 minutes...until the butternut squash pieces are tender. Serve pipping hot, room temp, or cold. Delicious.

---------------

If you are looking for an even healthier option...

1 large butternut squash
1 packed tablespoon brown sugar
1/4 pine nuts
1/4 of lemon (about the size of a large wedge) juiced

Preheat oven to 450

Wash butternut squash and prick holes all over
Place on baking sheet into oven for about an hour and 15 minutes

Remove from the oven, let cool for about 20-30 minutes

Sliced in half. Not directly down the middle but from the top to the bottom.

Remove the guts! Get the seeds and little strands out butternut squash GUTS out of there!

Now remove the flesh of the butternut squash and put into a food processor with brown sugar, lemon juice, and pine nuts.

Zipzip...smooth.

Serve hot.

Stir Fry!

I think the idea of various different stir fries can come off as daunting. Whenever you see a recipe for one there are generally a lot of steps involved, a complicated sauce, or ingredients you don't like or are incredibly hard to find.

I have a few suggestions for stir fry:

• Eat stir fry at the end of the week. Assuming you've had veggies through out the week you can set aside prepped items into storage containers and keep them in the fridge. I like my stir fry to have a huge variety of flavors so having little bags of peppers, onions, squash, asparagus, and carrots are great ideas.
• If you're going to have a meat or seafood in the stir fry buy it fresh.  Thawing can be a pain. It also brings a lot of excess water into the meal and taints the flavor.
• Salt, pepper, or dry rub your meat/seafood prior to cooking. (10-15 mins) Do not marinate meat in sauce you plan on using for the veggies. Having too many of your ingredients in the same marinade gets boring.
• Consider your eaters! If someone does not like onion, do not add onion. The flavors in stir fries are more noticeable because you're not cooking them down all the way. You want some what of a crunch in the veggies. You want the actual flavor of the veggie to come out. Thus, if you have a picky eater that hates the taste of onions (or whatever veggie it may be) it's flavor is going to be in the meal. So watch out!

A coconut curry sauce-
-2 stalks of green onion chopped up
-2 1/2 tablespoons yellow curry
-1/2 small can coconut milk
-2 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
-Coarse black pepper to taste
-Red pepper flakes to taste

*Combine all ingredients together. Boom sauce. Make it first, it's super easy.

Veggies- (Again use the ones you like...these just happen to be the ones I used.)
**Use equal parts of vegetables. Be conscious of how much everyone you're feeding will eat. You may need two onions, two peppers...etc.
-yellow and orange peppers into chunks a little smaller than a silver dollar
-bok choy
-snow peas
-carrots
-red onion into slivers
-asparagus each stalk quartered
-portobello sliced into long strips

In a large pan or wok (let's be real not everyone's going to have a wok or know what a wok is):

Put that pan on HIGH heat. Use olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Once the pan is hot slowly add your ingredients. I think we can all say that harder vegetables go in first. They take a little longer to cook up. Onions, peppers, carrots, asparagus. You do NOT want soggy vegetables in this meal.

Once everything is looking like it wants to be ALMOST done (4-5 mins in a hot hot hot pan)...Slowly add the sauce and the softer vegetables (snow peas, mushrooms). Do not add all the sauce. One it might be too much for the amount of veggies you're using and two you might need it for your meat/seafood.

**tip of the sauce- if it's looking too thick or you think the concentration of curry may be too much for you add chicken broth to your desired consistancy.

Turn off heat. Put into serving dish. Wipe pan out. Get pan hot again.

Now its time to add your meat/seafood

In an olive oiled hot hot hot pan throw in your dry rubbed indregients and cook through. (Simple)

-If you're using red meat- medium rare is great and will continue cooking once combined with the veggies.
-Seafood, shrimp, get it nice and pinked up. Add a little of the curry coconut sauce.

Once meat/seafood is done combine with the vegetables.  YUM.

Serve hot and right away.

Oatmeal is good.

Oatmeal is one of my favorite treats. Yes, I said treat. I love oatmeal in the morning, when I'm sick, for dinner, or dessert. There are so many things you can do with this simple ingredient.

I know a ton of people that cringe at the thought of oatmeal. I don't understand!!! Even McDonalds has oatmeal. This means that people like it but the ones that do aren't talking about it enough. It's perfect for people trying to lose a pound (plain)....filling/hearty, gets that digestion moving, great for your heart.

When I think of my fond oatmeal memories they come from the back of a pick-up truck in Washington State in the wee-hours of the morning heading to swim practice. Peaches and cream, my favorite at the time, extra watery. (This indeed is disgusting now...but we all have our things in our youth that make no sense.) These days my mornings are a little less hectic and I can put 5-10 minutes into some delicious oatmeal prep.

Here are some oatmeal ideas (even for picky eaters)...

First of all Quaker oats were my favorite for years until I randomly found a stick in one of their tins. Since then I've kind of moved on into the Irish Oat variety. McCann's Irish Oats are where its at. (All of these recipes are made with them.)

All of these recipes start with:
1/2 cup oats in an oversized mug
3/4 cup water, with a pinch (tiniest pinch ever) salt
1/4 cup lactose free fat free milk (I'm trying to watch my figure, but if you want to use whole milk, omg, I'm sure it would be banging.)

Breakfast Oatmeal-
1/2 apple chopped into generously sized cubes
1/2 tablespoon maple syrup

1. You can do this in the microwave (and when I'm in a perceived "rush" this is my goto)
2. You can do this on the stove top (smells super good, the apples get a little softer)
3. Combine everything all at the same time. Microwave 3mins or cook until it all comes together.

Breakfast Oatmeal for picky eater-

1 teaspoon of yogurt butter
2 teaspoons honey
Sprinkled with cheddar cheese

1. Everything combined, except the cheese. Do that at the very end. I recommend extra sharp Vermont white.

Nutty and Bacony and omg so freaking good Oatmeal
5-6 smallish pecans
5-6 smallish macadamia nuts
2-3 walnuts
(crush them ALL together)
2 teaspoons brown sugar(dark)
1 teaspoon vanilla

2 crispy cooked slices of bacon chopped up

1. Add all nuts into oats. Cook.
2. Slowly add brown sugar and vanilla while stirring
3. Add bacon cook together for about a min or two

**Gluttonous extra ... A Dollop of Daisy. Hit that oatmeal with a lil sour cream.

Coconut, Banana and White Chocolate Chip Oatmeal
1/2 banana smashed
1 generous tablespoon of coconut
White Chocolate chips to taste
Cinnamon to taste
2 teaspoons honey

1. Do this one of the stove, oats, water, milk....get them soft. Have some extra milk or water handy (depends on how creamy you like it) Add the banana, cinnamon, honey...combined well, slowly adding extra wetness. At the very end top with coconut and white chocolate chips. (SO good...sometimes I even throw in some dried cranberries.)


These oatmeal ideas are just that. Something to get you started. I never look at the box, can, or package oatmeal comes in for directions. Oatmeal is never going to be the same. Oats are always going to be a little bit different in thickness or how well they're going to absorb your ingredients. What you need to do is just go with it. Make sure you find a consistency  and flavors you enjoy.

My Favorite Fall Meal

This being my first post I'm not really sure where I am heading with a blog. I think of that Julie and Julia movie and I feel embarrassed.  Do I want recognition for my writing? Hell no. I have never been exceptional in that department but where I have excelled is in the kitchen. We're not talking overly complicated meals. I'm not traditionally trained. My skills come from trial and error, a passion for entertaining my friends, and eating foods with names I'll remember.

I don't strive to impress you with my "mad skills" but I think it would be cool to have a voice in a field where I'm trying to make a living. Street cred isn't enough anymore baby...it's all online. I'd love to acquaint myself with professionals in the Baltimore area to see how they got their foot in the door or to help a mom trying to get her 5 year old to eat like a normal person. Chicken nuggets and Mac-N-Cheese are SO out.

So, in an attempt to do something with my life...here it is. Food I cook. Real food. Nothing anyone couldn't do. Nothing that involves hours of prep work. Nothing that involves you having to care more than wanting a good meal that's easy to put on the table for you and a couple people.

I'll try and post pictures when I can!

Please feel free to comment. I'd love suggestions for ways to improve my recipes or to answer any questions about making meal time fun and easy.

Also---if you're in the Baltimore area and you want some menu planning, food prep, grocery shopping list...basically, anything involving getting that meal on the table I'm your girl!

Let's start here- Double Concentrated Tomato Paste in a tube that you can keep in your fridge! No longer do you have to buy those little cans and waste nearly the entire thing because you only ever need a lil bit! I love this and garlic paste too. BUY!

Staples: Tomato and Garlic paste, cookie dough of choice (duh), fresh garlic, mushroom stock, chicken stock, a bar of dark chocolate, sweet cream butter, lemons and limes, coconut milk, unsalted butter, olive oil, grape seed oil, and a kitchen radio (preset to NPR, duh).

Invest in some herbs. Whole Foods has a great and maybe a little more diverse selection of things BUT going to the local grocery you'd be surprised what you could find.  For the fall I like curries, pink salt, lemon pepper, red pepper, lavender, thyme, mustard seed, cinnamon, nutmeg, and bay leaves.

Having these things handy are super wonderful when you're trying to make an easy meal. I pinky promise.

Tonight Meal (Family of 5, 1 vegetarian. Roland Park)

While a gingerbread latte at Starbucks may be douche-tasticly seasonal... Spaghetti Squash with a deliciously fresh tomato, basil, and peppers sauce AND turkey meatballs just feels like fall to me. The combination of the end of summer vegetables in a heartier sauce with hints of cinnamon, nutmeg, and lavender makes for a complex and exciting treat for the taste buds.

Need something to put the sauce on:
* Spaghetti Squash (2 large) --- Prick those things, put them on a baking sheet, slide them into a 375 oven, and bake until tender to the touch. (It takes about an hour and 15.) PS- Don't be lazy, they taste horrible in the microwave.
* After they're all done baking pull them out of the oven. Let them stand for about twenty minutes. (Go fold your laundry, work on your sauce...but really let them stand or you will get squash mush not little strands.)
*Cut long ways (hot dog way) scoop the seeds and stringy stuff out. Throw away. I promise you aren't going to get motivated to make spaghetti squash seeds to eat up at a later time.
*Use a fork and scrape around the squash. Little strands that look like spaghetti will come up. It's awesome. All of it should come out.
* Put in a bowl. 1 teaspoon of lavender...crush up really nicely...sprinkle, toss, set aside.

Sauce! Yummy yummy sauce:

Need:
Yellow and Orange Pepper (Chopped into chunks, a little bigger than a stamp I'd say)
1/2 Sweet Onion (slices into little slivers)
1/2 White Onion (diced)

5-7 Cups of various tomatoes...get some yellow and orange ones, romas, heirlooms...all sorts.

About a cup and 1/4 of fresh basil 
5-7 chunks of garlic all chopped up (If you love garlic go for 8 or 9)

Salt and Pepper to taste
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg


Okay get this started...

Get that stove on med-low, but make sure the pan is hot hot hot before you throw stuff in. Start with a lil olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Just a lil. Throw in the sweet onion, half your garlic, 1/2 tablespoon of tomato paste.

Slowly add the peppers. While I have the above mixture going I'm chopping up the peppers and adding them as I go.

When the peppers start to get a lil softer throw in the rest of the garlic, white onion, 1/2 table spoon of the paste, a lil chicken stock to thin down the sauce (or water, whatever you like better). Get it to bubble. It will smell AWESOME.

Throw those tomatoes in. Stir.

Cook down those tomatoes. Don't smush them though. The texture is important.

Let all this kind of work its magic. Add basil, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt and pepper to taste at the end.

Looks like this. Taste like heaven in your mouth.

Turkey Meatballs-

Okay, let's be real here. Not everyone is going to make their own meatballs. There's no way that every time I make this I even make my own. So I suggest that you get plain turkey meatballs (not Italian seasoned). Shadybrook Farms has good ones...Trader Joes has the BEST ones.

If you're going to do them homemade:
Ground Turkey
1 egg
Pepper
Panko
Ricotta (skim)
Oregano
---Combine all. Be realistic, spoon full of the ricotta, slowly adding the panko...you don't want your meatballs to fall apart. Just work with them until they're perfect little balls. Pan sear...then start recipe from here...

If using frozen or store bought start here-

Get pan hot hot hot...
2 teaspoons sweet cream butter
1/2 tablespoon tomato paste and garlic paste

Throw your meatballs in....

Add a little mushroom stock (maybe 1/4 cups...maybe?? OR water)

Dice up some button mushrooms ( a whole package), soak them in some mushroom stock.Throw them in.

Cook everything through.

YES. I usually throw some parm flakes in there at the end. This is when it get good. Generous serving of the spaghetti squash, sauce on top, and a few meatballs. The flavors are OUT of this world.

I hope you enjoy....