Mini Burgers

I have to tell you that I was sick as a dog when I made these, so my recollection of the process and the pictures are not the best this week. Hopefully, I will be back on my game next week.

I changed just a few things in this week's recipes. With the cucumber salad, I used sour cream in place of the mayonnaise and dried mint, since I forgot to get some fresh from my co-worker (I was distracted by the sore throat).

For the burgers I used ground turkey, since I don't eat beef. I made the mix into eight burgers about two inches in diameter and that was the perfect size to get two into the pita. I don't think I could have made 16 burgers, they would have been the size of a quarter. The mini-burgers were very flavorful. I didn't eat mine in a pita (again, I blame being sick), but here is a picture of J's sandwich before he demolished it.

Catching up!

Though I couldn't post about the lamb recipe or the stuffed trout while I was up at the cottage, I did make both recipes!

We did the lamb recipe (using flank steak) for our anniversary dinner and it was delicious!

Asparagus, potatoes, red onions, peppers and flank steak.

You'll see that we deconstructed the skewers and served the elements separately.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Check it out, we even got a bottle of the wine we served at the wedding!

The trout (for which we sandwiched together two trout fillets) was AMAZING. My husband and I were in seventh heaven. I think the stuffing alone will go into my recipe box!

All tied up, bondage style.

The plate was pretty brown - roasted sweet potato fries and sautéed mushrooms, so I feel a bit guilty about the lack of colour.

Check out that flaky goodness!

Mmm. And it was perfectly flaky.

Mmm. Mushrooms.

I can't wait to get back on schedule for this week's recipe!

It's all Greek to me

Kalispera!

Well, other than having a bit of a tough time finding boneless lamb, this meal came together splendidly.

I was going to wax poetic about one of my other favourite kitchen tools, but blenderdance beat me to it!  I made quick work of mincing the ginger using my microplane.  I really love this thing.  It's absolutely perfect for grating Parmesan.

My means of dealing with leftover fresh ginger (and a way to have "fresh" ginger on hand nearly all the time) is to dump the leftovers into a plastic baggie in the freezer.

It keeps really well in the freezer and grates even easier when it's frozen.  I'd like to thank chef Michael Smith for the "keep ginger in the freezer" tip!  Also, I think it's time to make up a loaf of banana bread (or 3).

After visiting my regular grocery store, a local specialty grocery store and the organic grocery store near my work, I thought I might have to break down and go with lamb chops for this meal.  Then, I called over to the meat department at Whole Foods (I'm lucky in that one of the few that are in Canada is about a 5 minute drive from my work) and discovered that they had not 1, but 2 cuts of boneless lamb.  And really, I should have thought of them earlier.  If it's good enough for Top Chef, it's good enough for me.

After marinating over night, I set up the lamb with the onion and pepper on my reusable metal skewers and got them on the grill.

Keeping with a Greek themed meal I served the skewers with a Greek salad, grilled pita, tzatziki, and some grilled halloumi cheese.  Opa!

I was very lucky to be able to share this meal with both Derek and my good friend Shannon that was down visiting from Ottawa.  She only just moved there about 4 weeks ago (after living 2 km from my house) so it was really great to sit down and enjoy this awesome meal with them.  All in all I really liked this meal.  I think that next time, however, I'd skip basting the skewers with the marinade, because while it did impart a bit of extra flavour to the veggies, it left a bit too much, um, residue (?) on the meat.  The flavours were fantastic though, and I will definitely make this again!

Lemon Cumin Chicken

For this week's recipe I was excited to use lamb since I rarely cook with it since my husband is not a big fan. My parents were coming for dinner, so I figured it would be a perfect time to do a couple of different kinds of kebabs and let people eat what they wanted. Unfortunately, the grocery store did not have any lamb that could be used for kebabs...bummer.

Oh well, I made do. Instead I picked up some chicken tenders (which are my favorites for kebabs--super easy!) and some steak tips (to make the picky husband happy). I got up early on Wednesday morning and mixed up the marinade and put the chicken in. I marinated the steak is some spicy BBQ type sauce.

The marinade was easy to make...especially with this handy tool:

For those of you who do not have a microplane, it is one of my favorite gadgets! It is great for grating hard cheeses, nutmeg, and in this case, ginger and garlic!

The chicken sat in the marinade all day and then I skewered everything up. I kept the veggies separate (picky husband strikes again) and did two skewers of chicken and two of steak.

And while I may complain a bit about the fact that my husband is picky, he did do all the actual cooking while I visited with my parents, so I have to give him some credit!

We served everything with a simple salad with balsamic and olive oil and some grilled corn on the cob. The chicken was full of flavor and very tender. The lemon and the cumin really stood out. I LOVE cumin, so I thought it was great. My parents aren't huge cumin fans, but they thought it was pretty good--and even my dear husband had a second helping of the chicken! I think I would definitely use the marinade again--this time with lamb or maybe even the pork tenderloin I have in the fridge right now!