Burgers and Greek Salad

I have been trying to avoid gluten for a few weeks. It's a bit of a dietary experiment. I haven't noticed any differences, but I haven't been a purist for too many days in a row. Tonight's dinner was a relapse into the world of gluten, but it was worth it. We had a Greek diner inspired dinner of burgers with fried onions and Greek salad. It tasted really good. Our burgers were made from some grass-fed ground beef we found on sale at Whole Foods, and they were seasoned with sage, garlic and a bit of Old Bay (my husband made them). These flavors combined beautifully with some melted cheese and the sweet, smoky onions. Delicious! The salad helped us eat up some of our CSA bounty. The dressing was a real success. The recipe is below.



City Share Burgers
1 lb ground beef
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 T sage, chopped
1 T Old Bay
1 large onion, sliced
Cheddar cheese, sliced
oil

Combine the meat, garlic, sage and Old Bay, and let sit for 30 minutes. Heat up a cast iron skillet, lightly oil the pan and add the onion. Cook until tender and browned. Remove the onions from the pan. Form the meat mixture into small patties and place them in the hot pan. Cook to your liking. Top with cheese shortly before done cooking and cover. Top with onions to serve.

Greek Salad Dressing
2 T Greek yogurt
1 t apple cider vinegar
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped and smeared
1/8 t dill

Mix the ingredients and let sit for 30 minutes.

We served the dressing over a salad of greens, radishes, golden cherry tomatoes, red onion, corn and feta.

This post is part of Simple Lives Thursday at GNOWFGLINS, Pennywise Platters Thursday at The Noursishing Gourmet, Tasty Traditions at Coupon Cooking, and Things I Love Thursday at The Diaper Diaries.

Fresh ham with Maple Glaze

I have only been blogging for 3.5 months, but I feel like I have learned so much. When I started, I hadn't really read any other blogs and I definitely didn't have ANY technical knowledge. As much as I have learned, I still have a ways to go. In order to keep learning and growing, I am going to begin a couple of challenges this week. The first is Back to School, Back to Blogging at Kludgy Mom. Kludgy Mom will provide weekly "assignments" to teach us how to improve our blogs. I think there are over 200 people participating, and we are all getting linked up through Twitter, Facebook and Blog Frog. The second program is Project Food Blog at Food Buzz. This program has a series of 10 blogging challenges in which almost 2,000 food bloggers will be whittled down to one winner. The point of this program is to find the best food blogger. I have pretty realistic expectations. I would like to make it through the first round, and gain some exposure. I will be sharing my Project Food Blog challenge post later this week.


Ahh, I love it when one night's dinner feeds into the dinner of the next night. Tonight we had rice cooked in the broth from the brisket last night. Plus, we had some corn, kale and fresh ham. I wish I had a photo of the ham fresh from the oven, but we immediately started picking pieces of the delicious crispy skin, and it quickly went from beautiful to ugly. Even after losing it's beautiful skin, the ham was still tasty. Here's the recipe for the ham and glaze:

Fresh Ham with Maple Glaze
1 fresh ham, 7-8 pounds
1 C maple syrup
1 T brown mustard
1 T ground cloves
1 T chili powder
1/4 C apple cider vinegar

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Score the skin and fat of the ham in a diamond shape with lines about 1 inch apart. Mix the rest of the ingredients for the glaze. Place the ham in a large Dutch oven skin side up. Pour half the glaze over the ham. Bake for 30 minutes covered. Pour the rest of the glaze over the ham and return covered to the oven. Baste the ham every 30 minutes. After a total of 1 1/2 hours, remove the lid and cook uncovered for another 1 1/2 hours. Continue basting every 30 minutes.

This post is a part of Hearth and Soul, Top Ten Tuesday, Tempt My Tummy Tuesday, and Tuesday Twister.

Liver and Onions with Collard Greens and Corn

I hope everyone had a nice Labor Day. We used our day off to explore a couple of neighborhoods in Queens. We continue to expand our horizons and consider new places to live. A couple of neighborhoods were really promising, but we haven't found an actual apartment we like yet.


Labor Day is often associated with cook-outs, grilled meat and all those great summer foods. We don't have a grill, so we had something more akin to a Sunday dinner (on Monday). We had liver and onions, collard greens and corn. I read about a technique in Mark Bittman's column a while back that recreates the taste of grilled corn without a grill. What you do is heat up a cast iron skillet, melt some butter, and pan fry the corn. It looked beautiful, but unfortunately tasted mushy and flavorless. I think our CSA farmers gave us cow corn! Oops! We each took a couple of bites, but couldn't finish it.

The rest of the meal was a huge success. We always like liver and onions. This time around it was bison liver. Here is my recipe. For the collard greens, I basically followed ChezSuzanne's recipe off of Food 52. My husband exclaimed, "These are the best collard greens that I have ever tasted!" and a few bites later "These are amazing." They are definitely worth a try. It includes garlic chips, bacon, and a butter and apple cider vinegar sauce- need I say more?


Here is a close up of the garlic chips and bacon bits awaiting their fate (That's a small plate).

This post is part of Two for Tuesdays at A Moderate Life, Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam, and Tempt my Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace.

Chicken with CSA Succotash

My husband made dinner last night while I worked away on the computer. I worked at the table while he was cooking about 9 feet away (I know because I counted floor tiles.) We chatted about our days as we cooked and worked. He asked a couple of times if I was ready to type up the recipe, and taunted me that I was going to find the succotash recipe shocking. Mmm, what could make succotash shocking?


As he was plating up dinner, he revealed his recipes. The "shocking" ingredient was Sazon. It is really tasty, but I worry that it's full of chemicals.

This was a great meal for using leftover bits of veggies. We were getting down to the end of our CSA veggies, so my husband supplemented the succotash with the "emergency" can of black eyed peas from the cabinet. You can substitute whatever you need to eat up, and if you want to forgo the Sazon choose some spices of your own. A little chili powder would be a good choice for a similar flavor.

Chicken with Herbs
4 cloves of garlic
2 T fresh basil, chopped
2 T fresh oregano, chopped
1/2 t red chili peppers flakes
1 t paprika
1/2 t Dijon mustard
1 T apple cider vinegar
1 T melted butter
1 T olive oil
2 large chicken breasts, thinly sliced
salt and pepper to taste

Combine the garlic, spices, mustard, vinegar, butter and oil in a mixing bowl. Add the chicken and mix together with your hands. Let marinate for an hour or more. Heat a wok or pan with deep sides, and add the chicken mixture. Cook until cooked through (about 5-8 minutes).

CSA Succotash
4 cloves of garlic, sliced
1/2 onion, chopped
2 ears of corn
6 oven roasted tomatoes
2 frying peppers, julienned
1/2 lb of green beans, chopped
16 oz black eyed peas
1/4 c pepitas
1 package Sazon

Saute corn for 2 minutes. Add garlic, onion and peppers and cook for 1 more minute. Add the rest of the ingredients and cook for 5 minutes or until they are tender.

This post is part of Fight Back Fridays from Food Renegade, Finer Things Friday, Frugal Fridays, and Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap.

Chicken Bulgogi Salad

We always enjoy Bulgogi when we eat at Korean restaurants. Bulgogi is made from thin slices of steak (or sometimes chicken or pork). The meat is marinated with a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, garlic and other ingredients such as scallions, or mushrooms. We have had it served by itself or with cellophane noodles.

We decided to recreate bulgogi at home, but with chicken that we had on hand. Because it was a scorcher again today, we decided to serve it over a salad. My husband already had the chicken thinly sliced and marinating by the time I got home from work. I rummaged through the fridge to see just how many salad fixings we had. We were going to be three for dinner tonight, so I had to stretch a bit. We ended up having spinach and finely shredded cabbage tossed in oil and vinegar. Topped with blanched green beans, chopped heirloom tomato, chicken and corn. It was very tasty, a little chewy because of the cabbage, but overall really good.


Chicken Bulgogi
2 large chicken breasts
1 T sesame oil
2 T tamari or soy sauce
5 green onions, chopped
1/2 small red onion, chopped
1 T maple syrup
1 t sesame seeds
2 T oil

Thinly slice the chicken (if it is slightly frozen this is much easier). Mix with the sesame oil, tamari, onions, maple syrup and sesame seeds. Cover and let marinate for at least an hour. Heat a wok or a deep frying pan, and add oil and the chicken and the marinade. Cook until the chicken is cooked through (about 5 minutes).

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday at Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

This post is part of Works-For-Me Wednesday at We are THAT Family.

A Local Foods Feast with Friends

Yesterday, we had a bunch of veggies to eat up, a clean apartment and no plans for the evening, so we decided to invite a couple of friends over for dinner. We have done almost no entertaining this summer. I blame it on the fact that it has been so hot. We have felt like eating simple meals that required limited cooking and lazing about in minimal clothing. Finally it is cooling off a bit, so we can start being more hospitable again.

We quickly decided on our menu. We prepared thin slices of raw beets and cucumbers with a smear of goat cheese for starters, plus our friends brought two types of feta, olives, hummus and pita. We almost didn't need dinner.


I made a corn and tomato salad with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and apple cider vinegar, one clove of garlic finely minced, and a pinch of salt and pepper. The last few time I cut corn off a cob, I made a huge mess. I recently picked up a tip from the blog How to Cook Like Your Grandmother that made a big difference. He suggested placing the corn cob in the middle of a bundt pan or an inverted bowl inside a bigger bowl. I don't have a bundt pan, so I used the latter method. It worked like a charm. I don't know why I never thought of it myself.


The other side was green beans with lots of garlic and some sesame seeds, but the real star was the pork chops with mustard sauce and onions. I made the corn and tomato salad and my husband made everything else. Everything was fabulous. All of the vegetables came for our CSA share, and the pork chops came from the Winkler Family Farm (we bought them at Whole Foods). We also served some lacto-fermented sauerkraut from Hawthorne Valley Farm. Here is a photo of the spread:


Pork Chops with Mustard Sauce and Onions
2 pork chops
Old Bay
oil
1 onion with its greens*, sliced

Set the pork chops on the counter and let them reach room temperature. Dust both sides with Old Bay. Heat a cast iron skillet. Coat the bottom with oil. When it begins to smoke add the pork chops. Cook about 5 minutes per side (more if they are really thick). Remove from the heat. Let rest and then slice. In a separate pan, cook the onions stirring frequently. Cook until caramelized.

Our onions from our CSA share come with the greens still attached. If you don't have onion with greens, you may use an additional onion, or some scallions.

Mustard Sauce
6 oz beer (we used Brooklyn Brown)
1 T mustard
2 T butter

After the pork chops have been removed from the skillet, drain off the excess fat. Scrape the bottom of the pan, and add the beer to help deglaze it. Turn on the burner to medium heat. Add the mustard and butter. Whisk continually, and let cook down and thicken.

The heat was too hot for our sauce, and it "broke". The butter separated from the other flavorings. Don't worry if that happens - it's still delicious. We served our on the side (we use our creamer as a gravy boat).

This post is part of Two for Tuesdays at A Moderate Life blog.

Sage Polenta with Fresh Corn

We got four ears of corn with our farm share this week, and we also got a bunch of sage from the farmers' market. We were racking our brains for a creative way to use them both. Suddenly, my husband had the idea to combine them in a polenta. He always told me that he didn't like polenta, but he found a recipe that sparked his curiosity.

I have never made polenta. I always thought it was fussy like risotto, and since my husband swore that he didn't like it, I never gave it a try. It's actually pretty easy. For basic polenta, just combine some water and cornmeal and cook for about 30 minutes stirring frequently. We jazzed it up with some sage and fresh corn. The results were delicious. It had a really creamy texture with hints of Parmesan cheese and sage with a crunch and sweetness from the fresh corn. We are totally sold and are ready to make polenta all the time. Here is the recipe:

Sage Polenta with Fresh Corn
small onion, finely chopped
clove of garlic, finely chopped
4 ears of corn, kernels cut off the cob
oil
5 c water
1 c corn meal
3 T sage, finely chopped
4 T butter
1/2 c Parmesan cheese
pinch of salt and pepper

Heat a heavy sauce pan and coat with oil. Add onions and cook until translucent. Add garlic and corn and cook for 2 more minutes. Remove from the pan and set aside. Bring water to a boil and gradually add the corn meal stirring with a whisk. Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring frequently. Stir in the sage, butter, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. Mix until smooth. Serve with extra Parmesan cheese.

We ate our polenta topped with sauteed chicken breast, oven roasted tomatoes and garlic. The combination was awesome. More on the oven roasted tomatoes in the next post.

Cucumber, Corn and Tomato Salad

Sunday we headed over to Tompkins Square Green Market to supplement our farm share. We got some peaches and tomatoes from Madura Farms, milk from Ronnybrook Farm, and corn from Stannard Farms. When I saw a tomato and corn salad on Dinner: A Love Story, I had a plan. It's a great way to combine the best of summer's bounty. Here's our take:

Cucumber, Corn and Tomato Salad
3 ears of corn, kernels cut off the cob
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tomato, chopped
1 cucumber, chopped
several leaves of basil, finely chopped
1 T apple cider vinegar
oil
salt and pepper

Heat a frying pan and coat with oil. Add corn and saute for 1 minute. Add half the garlic and saute for 1 more minute. Combine the corn and garlic with the tomato, cucumber, basil and vinegar. Season with a pinch of salt and pepper to taste.

Cucumber