Kitchen

Grilled Cabbage and Chicken Burger

I L-O-V-E these chicken burgers, but there is one small little problem. I HATE to make them, the ground chicken burger is so mooshy and gooey and sticks to my fingers.  Luckily, for me, I have a husband who loves to make me happy and if making chicken burgers is what it takes, he obliges. We also happen to live within 5 minutes of Bell and Evans, which means we have access to quality, fresh chicken. Can you tell I love Bell and Evans?!  So I go to Bell and Evans and buy their ground chicken burger and bring it home. Mike throws in some garlic, seasonings, bread crumbs, chopped onoin, mustard and then he mixes it all together. He then makes the patties, lays them out on cookie sheets and puts them in the freezer. Once frozen I bag them in Ziploc bags and I can cook just one whenever I wish. These are so quick and easy to make. I eat them at least once a week, usually twice.

I made one of my chicken burgers the other night and my husband used one of his beef burgers, which he makes using the same method as my chicken burgers. We made grilled cabbage as our side. I was seraching for new ways to prepare vegetables and I happened upon this on Leslie Sarna's blog. I figured I love saurkraut so how could I not like this? We pretty much just drizzled olive oil, sprinkled salt and pepper added some garlic and grilled the cabbage.  I think our chunks of cabbage were too big because the outer layers were fantastic, but the inner layers where crunchy. My husband said he felt like he was eating hamster food once he got to the inner layers.  We will defintely try this again but will do the smaller chunks of cabbage.

Raspberry Muffins

We bought a large box of respaberries at Costco and I didn't want any to go to waste since we are leaving for a camping trip. My husband suggested making muffins so I googled for a recipe and found this on recipezaar.  These were exceptional, they stayed so moist and were good even a few days later. My son loved them and he would say, "mmm", after every bite. 

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Italian Drip Beef

This is the craziness in my life that has been caused by Pioneer Woman’s Italian Drip Beef sandwiches. I made them Sunday for dinner. My husband loved them! He ate three that night for dinner. (Before you jump to conclusions, my husband isn’t a fatty.  He just has a really good metabolism.)  We had leftovers of the meat so I put it in the fridge and told him he could eat it for lunch this week since he is working from home. He was happy since he loved them so much and I felt like a good wife.  If only things really were this easy. 

Slight problem, we ran out of rolls since he ate three of them in one sitting. So he calls me yesterday to stop at the grocery store on my way home and pick him up some rolls. I gladly oblige, get to the store, and remember that I had forgotten my purse at home that day. I even had to borrow a dollar from a coworker to get a drink at work. I know the sane thing would have been to just drive home the 5 minutes, get my purse and come back. But I have this really adorable one year old boy that greets me screaming at the door because he is so excited to see me and there is no way I could turn around and leave again. It would break my heart too much, plus I have a crazy schedule and I just wanted to get home and make dinner. 

I figured if I search my car and my work bag I can come up with the money in coins. I find 2 quarters in my work bag and then enough pennies and nickels in my car ash tray that I have $1.38. I run into the store find that they have an 8 pack of fresh bakery rolls on sale for $1.88. I search for a bag of just four or even just two rolls that are priced lower, no such luck. I figure it can’t hurt to ask - I take the 8 pack over to the counter and ask them to split it out for me that I only want four of them. (I was too embarrassed to tell them that I didn’t have enough money.) They definitely gave me the crazy look and said, “uhh, no we don’t do that here”.  I realized I was being unreasonable and came to my senses and just replied, “right, that was probably a strange request, but thanks for your help”. I go back to strategizing on how I can get these rolls for my husband, at this point I really needed to get these rolls. 

I decide to see if there is anyone else in the store that I know and could borrow 50 cents from them. Any other time I go to this little local store I see 6 people I know and talk to them each for 10 minutes.  Seriously, my husband always questions what I possible did that took so long in the store. Of course, this one time there is not a soul in the store that I recognize. Finally, I realize I am defeated. The rolls will not be going home with me. I grab a small fresh made French loaf of wheat bread for $1.29, pay the cashier with my handful of coins, and leave the store. 

When I get home my husband looks at the loaf of bread and asks, “what is this?” I remind him that I forgot my purse and I only had enough spare change for this loaf of bread. I tell him the entire story of how I asked to only buy 4 rolls and he can’t do anything but laugh at me. Yup, just what I needed was to be laughed at, okay, I was laughing too.  Then we decided to find my purse and put it with my work bag so I don’t forget it tomorrow when I leave. 

We look in the laundry room, the foyer closet, the foyer bench, the kitchen island, my office, in all the typical spots where I leave my purse and we can’t find it.  Finally, I retrace my steps until the last time I remember having my purse. Oh that’s right, on Sunday when I took Bryce swimming I threw my purse under my car seat so that I didn’t have to take it into the pool area.  We go out to the garage, and sure enough, I had my purse with me the entire day. 

Anyway, these sandwiches are awesome. The pepperoncini add the perfect punch and the meat stays so tender. I didn’t have a packet of Italian season so I added French onion mix and also threw in some fresh garlic and onions. Just be careful, they may cause you or your family to do extreme things you wouldn’t normally do.

Baseball Cupcakes

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Bryce had his first birthday over a month ago in May. I am just now finally getting around to adding the recipe and pictures of his cupcakes to my blog. I made the cupcakes with a pound cake recipe. These turned out so delicous and we topped with a strawberry buttercream icing. They were a huge hit! 

I usually take this recipe and make it in a 13x9 inch pan. We then cut into small cubes and throw in a bowl with fresh berries and vanilla ice cream or vanilla pudding. For Bryce's cake which sat on the top of the cupcake stand, I used this recipe and poured into two 9 inch round pans. I cut each cake in half and filled with the red strawberry buttercream icing for Bryce.   With so much butter and sugar it doesn't matter how you serve this cake, it will be amazing.

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