Not your average burger and fries

For tonights dinner, I made greek burgers, tabouli salad and sweet potato fries.  My husband loves these burgers but it can be a little work to put them together.  Well, not the burgers themselves but the sauces.  The burgers are made of turkey, box of spinach, 1/4lb feta cheese and seasonings (oregano, salt and pepper, to taste).  The burgers come with two sauces.  The first is made up of two roasted red bell peppers, kalamata olives (about 15), and a hand full of fresh parsley leaves - blend it all up in a food processor until smooth, season with salt and pepper and then refrigerate. The other sauce is a cup of yogurt, a clove of garlic, half of a seedless (or English) cucumber, a teaspoon of oregano, salt and pepper blended in a
 food processor.  Ok, the sauces aren't complicated either but it is just annoying having to make one then wash the food processor bowl then make the other and then wash it again.  Whatever.

You can grill the burgers or make them in a sauté pan.  I usually prefer burgers grilled but these don't stay together that well, so I make them on the stove.  Once the burgers are done, slather the delicious sauces on each half of the bun, add the burger and then top a salad made up of arugula, tomato slices, red onion slices, cucumber slices and lemon juice and olive oil.  These burgers are worth the effort - really, really yummy!

I made homemade tabouli to go with the burgers and fries. The most time consuming part of this recipe is mincing the parsley.  Be smart  and use a chopper or something.  I insist on doing it by hand.  I'm crazy like that.  Doing it by hand takes a long, long time. I used quinoa (1 cup) instead of bulgur because I had it on hand.  I chopped up two large tomatoes, 1 1/2 cucumbers, 3 or 4 green onions, a cup of fresh minced parsley, 1/2 cup of fresh minced mint.  I mixed it all together and topped with 6 tablespoons each of lemon juice and oil mixed together.  Last step is to season with salt and pepper then refrigerate until chilled.

I totally cheated with the sweet potato fries.  I bought a bag and baked them in the oven.  Dinner is done!

Isn't that pretty?

Merci St Tropez!

We went out to dinner in Carmel by the Sea last weekend.  We changed plans at the last minute and decided to visit a restaurant  called Le St Tropez.  I was a little worried since I am one of those freaks that researches restaurants and reads thousands of reviews before stepping foot in the door.  All I knew about this place was that it was French and close by.  Oh dear.

Luckily, it was wonderful.  I mean really, really wonderful.  We had our almost four year old daughter with us and we've heard that children are frowned upon at most nice restaurants in Carmel.  Not this place!  They not only had a kids menu but they chatted with my daughter and made us feel very welcome.  The kids menu was not the typical kids menu either.  It did have some of the junk you find on all kids menus across America - pizza, chicken nuggets, hamburgers- but it also had nice, French dishes.  We ordered her crepes with chicken, bacon, and mushrooms.  It came with some wonderful vegetables on the side and it was delicious! (Of course I sampled it, I had to be able to blog about it :) She ate almost the entire thing and it was not a small portion!  They offered to bring it out as soon as it could be prepared, rather than wait to bring it out with our entrees (another kid-friendly thing to do).

But let's talk about the rest of the dinner.  Oh. My. Goodness!  Seriously, almost every dish was out of this world delicious!  Anyone in the local area should definitely put this on your list of places to eat!





First there was the appetizer.  There were lots of good choices and after some deliberation we went with escargot with brioche served with pernod scented garlic butter. Freakin delicious!  I wanted to lick the plate to finish all the garlic butter but I controlled myself (barely).   We also had a delicious basket of bread that I did use to dip into the crack garlic butter.  Actually that may have been what saved me from licking the plate.















Next we each ordered a salad.  My hubby went with the salad that had watermelon and feta.  It was really good.  I had a deconstructed Caesar salad that was good but had waaaaay to much dressing on it.  LOOK at all the dressing on that salad!!!  Does anyone eat that much dressing???  Hubby made the better choice on the salad course.  Hubby 1, me 0.








Entree round totally went to me, but truly there were no losers this round.  I ordered the veal sweetbreads (in case you didn't know sweetbreads are a very nice word used to describe veal thymus gland, because who would order that off the menu??).  I had never had sweetbreads and I've been on the lookout for a nice place to order it to increase my culinary repertoire.  It was served with polenta and a mushroom cream sauce.  I'm telling you, I had no idea that thymus gland could taste so good!  I think I actually get 2 points for that round because it was so delicious and I was able to mark it off my 'to try' list of foods. Hubby 1, me 2!!!

Finally for dessert, we went with the soufflé for two - one traditional Grand Marnier (my hubby) and one chocolate (duh).  Mine was way better because you can almost never go wrong with chocolate.

So, I won, of course.  Not just because I ordered better dishes but because I was able to have a wonderful night out with my two favorite people in the world!

Wonderful dinner, great service, kid friendly.  We will go again before leaving California.  LOVED it!

Tilapia Meuneire, Mushroom Risotto and Green Beans with Carmelized Shallots

Last night we had some good friends over for dinner.  Since it was a weeknight, I wanted to do something kind of simple.  I came up with  the titled menu.  The Tilapia was really easy - just dredge it in seasoned flour and pan fry it until golden brown on each side.  Then melt some butter in the pan until it gets frothy and top each filet with lemon juice, freshly minced parsley and butter.  Delicious and easy!!  Mushroom risotto is easy but you have to stay by the stove while cooking it.  No problem!  I had a nice glass of white wine (which I had to open since it was going in the risotto) while I stirred away.  The green beans and caramelized shallots is one of my favorite side dishes.  It looks so pretty and tastes phenomenal! (Can you believe I forgot to take a picture of the finished dish???!!)  I always feel weird about taking photos of my dishes when we have guests.  LOL!  This dish isn't difficult and I got it started earlier in the day.  I blanched the green beans in salted boiling water for about 6 minutes then shocked them in ice water to stop the cooking.  Drained them and put them in the fridge until needed.



The shallots I started a couple of hours ahead of time.  They take about 15-20 minutes to get a good brown caramelization on them and they fill the entire house with a wonderful smell.  Once everything else was done, I just reheated the green beans and shallots until nice and hot.















It was a wonderful dinner with good friends and conversation.  We finished off the night with some chocolate almond cake (with a raspberry glaze).  I love cooking for friends, especially friends who appreciate a good meal.  I was even asked to give cooking lessons!!

Vegetable Lasagna

 I decided I was in the mood for some veggie lasagna. This recipe is full of yummy vegetables and it is so delicious that not even the most hardcore carnivore will miss the meat.  I used zucchini, a mixture of mushrooms, onion, garlic, tomatoes, salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper.  I sautéed all the veggies then added wine and the tomatoes and let it cook until the sauce reduced and thickened up a little.

For the cheese (because you can't make lasagna without lots and lots of cheese), I used Mozzarella slices and a ricotta/Parmesan mixture.  I used no boil noodles because that's all I could find at the store. I topped it with a little more Parmesan and into the oven it went.  I baked it for about 45 minutes and let it cool for about 15 minutes before serving.  

The servings came out perfectly - no falling apart pieces.  YAY! It turned out beautifully and was so tasty that I couldn't wait to eat it again the next day!  I served it with salad and the sourdough bread that I picked up from my trip to San Francisco.

Roasted Chicken and Butternut Squash Risotto

Since moving in, I've had to buy chicken stock.  I know, terrible!  So, I decided it was time to roast a chicken so I could use the carcass  to make stock.  I seasoned the chicken with salt and pepper and oil on the outside and underneath the breast skin, I put oil, lemon zest, fresh rosemary and chopped garlic.  I then threw the lemon halves inside the chicken for added flavor.  I roasted it at 425 for 10 minutes then reduced to 375 for about 1 hour and 10 minutes.  I let it rest for about 15 minutes and  then carved it up.  It was heavenly! I love roasted chicken!!

To accompany the chicken, I decided to make butternut squash risotto.  I've made plain risotto and mushroom risotto but have been wanting to try it with butternut squash.  It was so, so good!  It went so nicely with the chicken and it looked so pretty on the plate.  I used fresh butternut squash but you could use a bag of frozen if you were in a hurry.  I also baked the squash the day before I made the risotto and then just stored it in the fridge.  I did heat it in the microwave before adding to the risotto so it didn't cool the risotto down and prolong the cooking time.  Other than that, I pretty much followed this recipe.

For veggies, I just reheated the roasted veggies that I made earlier this week.  Dinner was wonderful!  Best of all, I get to make stock now!  WOOHOO!

One sauce=2 entirely different meals

 I made a nice, healthy meal from recipes on SparkPeople for dinner on Monday. It was seared scallops with a mint pea puree, wild rice and roasted vegetables.  It was fantastic and healthy and beautiful!  The vegetables were so a little different because they had a can of pineapple chunks (with juice) and dill weed mixed in it.  I used zucchini instead of potatoes but other than that, followed the recipe as written.  I really liked the veggies and will definitely make them again soon.
I had a ton of the puree left over, so I decided to save it and use it for dinner the following night.  Well, I had very little time to prepare dinner on Tuesday night, so I pulled out the gnocchi that I had frozen from a couple weeks ago, boiled them and tossed them in oil in the morning then left them in the fridge until dinner time.  Then, for dinner, I just had to heat the pea sauce, make and crumble bacon, sauté the gnocchi and dinner was done. I didn't have time to take a picture of the gnocchi but it was delicious with the pea sauce and the bacon garnish!  YUMM!!! For those that don't readily have gnocchi in the freezer, ready to go ;) you could use prepared gnocchi from the grocery store or sub it out for another pasta.

Healthy, pretty popsicles

I got some new popsicle molds and have been trolling the internet looking for a good and healthy recipe to try out.  Well, I found an awesome recipe from Lost Garden for popsicles that even have SPINACH in it!  Don't stop reading yet!  The spinach gives the popsicles a beautiful color and doesn't change the taste at all.  I made mine slightly different than the recipe on Lost Garden but there were minor changes - I used raspberries instead of strawberries and I used plain Greek yogurt and pure vanilla flavoring instead of vanilla yogurt and I added honey for sweetness.  They turned out FANTASTIC!  My daughter loves them (and so do I) and she's getting a bunch of fruit and Greek yogurt and only a little sugar from the honey.  I will be making these often!