Jalapeno Cilantro Turkey Burgers with Jalapeno Cilantro Hummus

As the summer continues, I've been grilling all manner of turkey burgers, trying to find the best recipes out there. You see, turkey burgers tend to be...lackluster, flavorless, and dry. When looking for new inspiration, I'll scroll through turkey burger recipes and immediately eliminate about 70% on the grounds that I KNOW the seasonings listed are not sufficient. You have to add a little oomph from your spices if you're going to make a turkey burger that will make everyone say "Beef who?"

So, in the past couple of weeks, I've tried and improvised a few and found several winners. The grill will see no shortage of sizzling turkey patties this season. This is the most recent.

The burger recipe I got from one of my favorite blogs, What's Gaby Cooking. When you follow that link, you'll see that she suggests serving guac and sour cream for this burger, but I had a different tasty spread in mind (also, excuse my not-so-fabulous photography....we try, we really do!). Since I knew I was going to have leftover cilantro from the burgers and jalapenos were already in the mix, why not have a little japaleno cilantro hummus instead of guac?

Ingredients for the hummus:

heaping 1/2 cup cilantro
2 jalapenos, seeded and roughly chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, peeled and halved
Juice of one lemon
1/4 cup water
5 tbsp tahini
2 tbsp olive oil
1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Put the cilantro, jalapenos, and garlic in a food processor. Run until the ingredients are finely minced, scraping down the sides if needed. A few jalapeno chunks tend to escape. :) In a small bowl, combine the lemon juice and water. In another bowl, combine the tahini and olive oil. Add the chickpeas, salt, cumin, and cayenne to the food processor and run until almost a paste, 15-20 seconds or so. Scrape down the bowl, turn the processor back on and pour the lemon juice and water through the feed tube. Scrape down again, if needed, and process for one minute. With the processor still on, pour the tahini and olive oil through the feed tube, running until it reaches the desired consistency. Refrigerating for 30 minutes will make every flavor settle in beautifully, but I won't judge you if you just put it in a bowl, pour a bit of olive oil on top, and dig it.

Adapted to suit my tastes from Annie's Eats

This hummus was an oh so appropriate companion for the flavors in this burger. I recommend toasting the buns and topping with some spinach. It's healthy, it's pretty, and it definitely didn't need beef to make it better.

Grilling Season!

So, it's been a gazillion months since I posted. I resprained my already heavily damaged ankle, had to be on crutches for six weeks, a big boot for about as long, and just generally didn't feel like doing much of anything. Health problems can be really challenging and depressing, and I, as a general rule, suck at finishing projects in my life! I can start a million and one things and even be completing all of them well enough that it looks like maybe I have a talent for _____! Annnnddd then the laziness and boredom strikes. Or, the searing pain and crutches.

Anyway, I'm feeling pretty decent as of late (queue me running around the house with the fervor of the insane knocking on every piece of furniture that is remotely wooden), so I thought I'd give this another go! Plus, it's that time of year when I start grilling pretty much every week and soaking up the beautiful weather in my backyard, which should equal a lot of delicious grub.

This one isn't so much a "recipe" as it is an idea to dress up a rather dull grilling staple: the beef hotdog. Behold the dog I created and rapidly shoved down my gullet last night.

Now, traditionally we eat this puzzlingly tasty piece of processed meat with some variation on the mustard/ketchup/relish combo. Maybe we add onions, maybe we prefer dill relish to sweet relish, but there isn't a whole lot of culinary variety.

However, in recent years, a ton of restaurants have been cropping up that serve unique and oh so gastronomically pleasing dogs. A local favorite of mine is D's Six Pax & Dogz. They offer everything from a classic Chicago style dog to crazy dog-of-the-month concoctions, this month's being the Everything Bagel Dog, topped with cream cheese, everything spice, and bagel chips. It also helps that they have a killer draft list and beer take-out selection for this beer snob to devour. Definitely grab a fancy beer and hot dog if you're in the area.

The first establishment to introduce me to the endless possibilities of the gourmet dog is a place in NYC called Asia Dog. The boyfriend and I went to a music festival called All Tomorrow's Parties in upstate New York (and then in it's new location in Asbury Park, NJ the following year) a few years ago and fell in love with Asia Dog. Part of ATP's whole mission statement is that they do not accept any corporate sponsorships and all food vendors are small businesses like Asia Dog. This makes for a much better festival experience, but I won't go into that now because I could babble about ATP for years on end. As you can probably guess from this restaurant's title, all of the dogs have the flair of ingredients from different factions of Asian cuisine. Our favorite, hands down, was the Wangding: Chinese style BBQ pork belly (way more savory than the sickly sweet American BBQ I generally detest), thinly sliced crunchy cucumber, and scallions. I've also had the Vinh and the Mash, which are both incredible as well. If I ever find myself in NYC, they will definitely be my first food stop.

So, as you can see, hot dogs DO NOT have to fall victim to the yellow mustard and tomato ketchup trap, which isn't to say that isn't tasty from time to time! I just love experimenting and the blank canvas of a hot dog is the perfect jumping off point for crazy new concoctions.

To get you started, the above dog has the following atop it's bursting, grill marked exterior:

Sliced avocado

Diced white onion

Diced tomato

Shredded pepper jack cheese

Fresh cilantro

Drizzling of ranch dressing

You can take that template and substitute all kinds of toppings. Do a little sriracha in place of ranch if you like it spicy. Add some thinly sliced pickling cucumber or shredded carrot on one side of the bun for a refreshing crunch. Or, if you're feeling more adventurous, try a variation on an Asia Dog. Just don't ever again assume mustard and ketchup are your only options. :)

Pumpkin Spice White Russians

Every fall season, there are a few pumpkin/pumpkin spice liqueurs that crop up in stores, but this year the pumpkin craze seemed to reach a lot further into the liquor business. Several pumpkin vodkas appeared on shelves along with something else that immediately caught my eye: Pumpkin Spice Kahlua!

Being a Big Lebowski fan and just a general lover of classic cocktails, I've been a big fan of White Russians since the moment I started experimenting with mixing drinks. My absolute favorite bar in the city, Blue Dust, makes White Russians with their house infused chai tea vodka and oh. my. God. It is the most glorious incarnation of that divine cocktail that I've ever met. However, this past weekend, I came up with my own recipe for a pumpkin spice version that definitely comes a close second.

First, our cast of characters!

 

From left to right we have vanilla vodka (whatever brand you prefer will do just fine), heavy cream (rich yes, but dammit we don't shy away from flavor on this blog!), my handy dandy cocktail shaker, and the protagonist of this drink: pumpkin spice Kahlua. Note the pumpkins added for a nice fall backdrop. :)

If you're using a cocktail shaker, your first step should be to fill it about halfway full of ice. If you have the time and feel like minimizing the dilution factor, put your shaker in the freezer (lid off) a few hours beforehand. It's not necessary though; your drink will be tasty either way. Also, if you are currently sans cocktail shaker, feel free to combine all of the ingredients below in a tall glass with some ice and mix with a spoon or skewer. While a shaker is better and gives your drinks a nice thorough mixing, believe me, I enjoyed alcoholic beverages long before I had one and so can you. The proportions you want for this drink can of course be adjusted depending on how much of bite you do (or don't) want, but here is what I used:

• 2 oz vanilla vodka
• 1 oz pumpkin spice Kahlua
• 3 oz heavy cream

Now put the lid back on and shake! It doesn't take much. About ten back-and-forths should do it.

Take the top off the lid and strain into your glass. Note how I actually took pictures of several steps of the process this time. I might make a real food blogger out of myself just yet. 

After you have strained into the glass, you can either drop a couple cubes from your freezer into your cocktail or, if you don't plan on using your shaker to immediately make more White Russians for your friends and lovers, go ahead and dump the shaker ice in. Make sure and shield the glass with your shaker lid or some messy splashing will happen.

And now you have a beautiful and very drinkable cocktail! I recommend consuming on the comfort of your couch with Gilmore Girls reruns and dessert. Yes, simultaneously drinking and eating dessert is completely acceptable. It tastes like a White Russian with an extra spicy fall kick, and it's certainly a recipe I will be keeping in my arsenal for next year. Let's hope the folks at Kahlua keep making this new variation.

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting

So this blog hasn't even been up for a month and I'm already failing at regularly updating it. This is partly due to laziness and partly due to the fact that I have a ridiculous saga of continuous ankle sprains, the details of which I'd rather not bore you with. Suffice it to say that I've been mostly couch bound since last Saturday. Anyway, a week later, with the help of a very supportive ankle brace, I'm feeling a bit better. Not enough to jump up and down really hard or go walking aimlessly, but enough to make a dessert that requires minimal effort and results in maximum flavor.

Behold! Pumpkin cupcakes with delicious cocoa powder based chocolate frosting! Rich enough to make the most incorrigibly sweet toothed people such as myself satisfied after eating a mere two, and yet having a close enough resemblance to a wholesome pumpkin muffin (on the bottom half anyway) that you can convince yourself that it wasn't totally 100% dessert.

By the way, please ignore my total lack of frosting ability. I've never gotten into the actual real-pastry-bag-and-tips gig. I tend to just snip the end of a plastic freezer bag, load up, and cover until total frosting domination has occurred to my satisfaction. It still tastes just as good right? I found this recipe here. The only changes I made were omitting the mini chocolate chips in the cupcake batter and replacing the cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground cloves with a teaspoon and a half of pumpkin pie spice. Below is a shot of the cupcakes pre-frosting attack.

I had a bite of one before the frosting and, as the blogger who came up with this recipe stated, they are completely delicious by themselves. The actual cupcake batter portion of this recipe has only 1/2 cup sugar, so you could definitely eat them as a breakfast muffin rather than a cupcake if you prefer. But really, why would you do that when you can put fudgy chocolate frosting on top? :)

My favorite part of this frosting is the fact that the chocolate flavor comes from cocoa powder. If you're a chocoholic like me, deep, dark, rich chocolate flavor is always preferable to excessively sweetened icing with a side of chocolate. Basically, chocolate being the dominant aspect is always better. Cocoa powder will always help you achieve this much better than an icing made with melted milk chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate will.

Of course, ganache is a whole different story. If you're curious about that subject, this cake exemplifies the use of perfect, shiny chocolate ganache as icing and also employs another trick to give your chocolate desserts that rich taste: strong coffee. Not too much mind you, but a little goes a long way toward adding another level to your chocolate cake. Annnnddd now I'm officially going off on a chocolate related side tangent. See what chocolate does to me? Forget "this is your brain on drugs" PSAs. "This is your brain on chocolate" is more accurate for this lady over here.

Anyway, moral of the recipe story is that these cupcakes were equal parts moist pumpkin goodness and rich chocolate sinfulness and I will definitely, absolutely, positively be making them again sometime. Hopefully, since Halloween is approaching, I will get myself into gear and make some more posts on the many DIY Halloween projects I've tackled over the years. Until then, adieu, au revoir, and do yourself a favor this week and bake with some pumpkin.

Tips and tricks for a spooky Halloween on the cheap! Part 1

So my boyfriend and I are wayyyy into Halloween. For the past three years, we had a party with a whole new theme each year. While it was a blast to see our themes come together, it was also an exhausting process. If you're hardcore about it, you're making a lot of your decor, and that ends up costing both a lot of time and money. I don't regret how gung-ho we've been in the past with our Halloween parties because they were a blast that succeeded in spooking and delighting our friends, but this year we're taking a break.

Don't get me wrong! Our place will still be decorated to the hilt, but as for coming up with an entirely new set of decor for a new theme...it's not happening this year. It's a good thing that three years worth of purchased and handcrafted decorations is currently sitting in our basement. Lots to choose from. :) The new area we moved to actually has trick-or-treaters too, so I'm still psyched for Halloween!

Anyway, since this is my first Halloween season as a blogger, the internet (other than Facebook) hasn't seen any of my past efforts and, like, I have to brag! J/k, I just want to share because it's amazing what you can do with some simple, cheap tricks.

Below is a photo of my favorite part of our haunt: the dungeon! It's not taken in the creepy lighting we had, but this will give you a better idea of what we used for the setup.

Now this is our back porch. If you have porch with a railing like ours, a great way to enclose it and give it that eerie, cut-off from the outside feeling is to simply buy some heavy black plastic from Home Depot or any other hardware store and use a staple gun to affix it to the porch. I say heavy plastic because the first attempt at this effect was done with a cheaper, more lightweight version and every remotely heavy gust of wind blew the dang thing clean off! You definitely don't want that happening the night of your big bash.

See that grungy looking trash can? Inside there is the best motion activated scare you can get for the price. It's called a Haunted Hedge and I've seen them at pretty much any place that sells Halloween props, from Halloween Spirit stores to Target to Big Lots. They usually run about $10-$15 and really give people a good jump scare. You can accomplish a good fright without the use of expensive props. They're so versatile too since you can put them inside pretty much anything. Here is a video illustrating how the Haunted Hedge works.

Most of the other decor on the porch is a mishmash of flea market and garage sale finds. We were lucky enough to find a garage sale that was selling a rusty bucket packed to the brim with rusty tools (those hedge trimmers hanging from the chicken wire on the left are from that lot). The lady selling them gave us the whole thing for $5! If you're doing a dungeon, I really believe flea markets and garage sales are the best route to take. If you buy fake weapons and tools from a Halloween store, you will end up wayyyy overpaying and ending up with a product that looks, well...fake. Now, when using real tools you do want to make sure that the most dangerous ones are secured very tightly. Those hedge trimmers are quadrupled tied to the chicken wire with twine.

I should also note that I've only had adult Halloween parties. This dungeon, even with all of my precautions, is not something I would recommend doing if children are going to be stopping by.

Another relatively cheap item that becomes scary in the dark under a strobe light is chicken wire.

Our porch had a little recessed area maybe a couple feet wide. Again, using the staple gun, we attached some chicken wire (also found at Home Depot for less than $5) over this area and hung "torture tools" and a severed head behind it! This was done with just some small metal hooks and fishing line. It also served as a barrier between these dangerous objects and our guests. That's right folks, that's a real meat cleaver on the left and that evil pincer looking device on the right is what icemen back in the day used to pick up those 50 lb blocks of ice they delivered to families. And of course, your enclosed torture chamber isn't complete without the skeleton of a victim who died there. Muhahahahaha!!!

Now, let's discuss the single most important aspect of your Halloween atmosphere: lighting! It's amazing how much the mood of your apartment or house can change with the right lighting. For the dungeon we had a single red light bulb in the middle of the ceiling and a strobe light on the ground of the recessed torture chamber shining upward.

Around Halloween, places like Rite-Aid and CVS have a ton of colored bulbs. Purple and red work best for the rooms that you want to have a creepier feel. These should be rooms where people don't need to see as much. For rooms with heavy interaction like the living room and of course the kitchen, where they'll need to see to pour drinks and dish out snacks, I recommend orange light bulbs and a string or two of orange lights. Obviously a party is guaranteed to result in somewhat of a mess, but you want to avoid it as much as possible by keeping these areas a bit brighter than the rest of the house. As for string lights, they range from the simple to the more festive and, as I said, one or two plus orange light bulbs in your lamps will usually do it.

Another great atmospheric tip is web, web, web! You can NEVER have too much spider web! It's one of the cheapest things you can buy and if your house doesn't have a sufficient amount of good corners for draping the web, white duct tape is completely invisible to guests once your Halloween lighting is set up.

Well, this post is getting a bit long, so I'm going to end it for now and craft another one showing you some more ways to amp up your Halloween decor!

Strawberry Rhubarb Cocktails with Art in the Age's Rhubarb Tea

Now while I'm currently in full-fledged suck-down-every-pumpkin-beer-within-a-ten-mile-radius-mode, there were a whole slew of fun cocktail experiments that occurred within the confines of my cocktail shaker this summer. Fortunately, I have a semi-decent(BIG emphasis on the semi, I know) photo of my favorite one!

The base spirit for this particular cocktail is from my absolute favorite small spirit producer, Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. However, Art in the Age is far from being just about booze. They are a gallery space located in Philadelphia that sells exquisite handmade goods and plays host to enviable events that seem to always feature one or two of my favorite indie bands and, of course, excellent cocktails made from one or more of their four spirit products. Every time they post photos from an event, I end up briefly flirting with the idea of packing my bags and moving to Philadelphia. Emphasis on the briefly though, because my last experience in Philly ended up leading me to a rich person party in Jersey where I was babbled to about relationships by a guy named Bobby Big Balls...ok, I'm getting off track here. Back to the booze!

All four of the liquors they produce are incredibly unique and delicious, made from a variety of organically sourced herbs and spices that make the perfect canvas for trying out new drink combinations. Each bottle comes with a little booklet of recipes designed to get you started, but the company encourages you to branch out on your own in mixology and share the recipes on their Facebook page.

This recipe contains Rhuby, whose name I believe they have since changed to Rhubarb Tea. The recipe is inspired by the story of Benjamin Franklin introducing rhubarb to a botanist friend named John Bartram, who then concocted a tasty tea with the plant. Rhubarb Tea is sweet and strong, but also a little tart and citrusy.

Before I made this recipe, I had tried various other combinations: grapefruit juice with sparkling water, muddled berries and rosemary with tonic, but none of them quite clicked with me. So, for the time being, I shelved Rhubarb Tea because, at about $35 a bottle, that's an experimentation I can only occasionally afford.

Then, this summer I came across this recipe for strawberry rhubarb simple syrup. Of course! How could I have been so blind! It was such a simple idea, pairing a rhubarb based spirit with a little sweetened strawberry rhubarb flavor, but I had somehow started off all fancy pants with funky ingredients before attempting the tried and true pairing. I mean, strawberries and rhubarb BELONG together. In a pie, in compote, in jam, you name it. So I took a trip to the grocery store to pick up the fruit, planning on topping off my cocktail with seltzer or soda water, but as I left the store and passed my favorite bakery, I had an inspiration. I popped into Allegro Hearth to buy some cold cans of Limonata. Tart, sweet, citrusy, effervescent, it seemed like the perfect complement to some of the notes in Rhubarb Tea. Oh boy, I tell ya, when I’m right, I’m right. The recipe is below.

1.5 oz strawberry rhubarb simple syrup

3 oz Rhubarb Tea

Top off with Limonata

I must stress “top off” as being the operative phrase here. A little goes a long way and you still want that bite of the spirit to come through and be in harmony with your ingredients rather than be hidden by them. However, I won’t judge you if you like your drinks a bit sweeter. There is a lot of flexibility here with the amount of Limonata. 

Also, I HIGHLY recommend saving the delicious stewed fruit from your syrup to put on pancakes or waffles the next day. :)

Well, I know I’m totally late here, sharing a refreshing, sweet, summer drink, but who knows with this weather? We’re never out of the heat wave woods until snow is falling. Plus, are you gonna let the seasons dictate which cocktails you can have? I sure as hell don’t!

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

Fall is upon us! And while this particular fall seems to be full of internet snarking about white girls and how cliche and annoying their obsession with the season and all things pumpkin related is, color me unfazed.

I can be a pretty tense person. Like, Woody Allen walking on a tightrope above a pool filled with snapping alligators kind of tense. My mind tends to trudge forward at warp speed into stress zones of all kinds. But fall...a time of horror flicks, cold craft beers, Halloween decor, beautiful scenery, haunted houses, and pumpkin treats...it tends to make me feel like a kid again. Every August I get a giddy, butterfly filled stomach just in anticipation of what's to come. I start obsessively reloading the websites of my favorite beer distributors, anxiously awaiting the arrival of my favorite pumpkin beers. I do a weekly check at BloodyDisgusting.com to see what horror films are coming to theaters soon, and I start daydreaming about what my apartment is going to look like this Halloween. Basically, everything in my mind finally slows down a bit to banish worries and make way for some fervent fall planning. So snark away internet, but this season shall be mine! Muhahahaha!

Um, yeah, so after that awkward, no-so-evil evil laugh, let's get back on track. Pumpkin! Oh how I love thee, with your subtle flavor and vibrant orange color. I have vowed to attempt a gazillion more pumpkin recipes this year than I have in the past. So far, I'm two for two on delicious desserts. The photo above is the end result of a sinfully delicious batch of pumpkin cinnamon rolls. The recipe can be found at the lovely and beautifully photographed cooking blog Smitten Kitchen.

It was only my second time making cinnamon rolls (the last time being nearly ten years ago), so I was a bit nervous about the actual formation of the rolls. You see, I tend to be reallllyyy clumsy, so all manner of delicate kitchen operations can end in pain, blood, and a string of curses unfit for virgin ears. "But it's not my fault, I swear! I didn't drop the knife, it JUMPED out of my hands and attacked me," I shout at the inanimate objects in my kitchen.

In all seriousness though, the formation step of the rolls went perfectly, and the end product was phenomenal. So gooey, cinnamony, and sweet with just a subtle undertone of pumpkiny deliciousness (you can just add -y on the end of things and it doesn't sound like I'm 4 right? right? Joss Whedon does it, so it's good enough for me). The only thing I changed was the icing. I know people go nuts for cream cheese icing, but, as a person that's not that much of a fan of cream cheese to begin with, I really don't understand why it should make its way into my sweets.

I ended up making a sort of vanilla buttercream that was more sugar and less butter. The proportions I used are as follows:

2 cups powdered sugar
1 tbsp melted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 tbsp cream

It was nice and thick and struck a perfect balance between forming a semi-hard coating and melting down the sides. Of course, the rolls were practically begging to be paired with a dark, strong pumpkin ale. I chose Weyerbacher's Imperial Pumpkin Ale, which is definitely one of my favorites. So many breweries focus on the spice aspect and get it all wrong, ending up with an artificial tasting and usually clove heavy beer. The Weyerbacher is much more focused on the pumpkin flavor with balanced hints of spice. Also, my enjoyment of it has nothing whatsoever to do with the high alcohol content (8% abv). No sirree.

I'll try to do a post soon about the second pumpkin dessert I made, provided my boyfriend and I don't eat it all before I can take photos. :)