Corn & Quinoa Burgers

Scary things are happening this week.

Something that hasn’t happened in over 2 years.

Yep, I’m going back to school.

I promise that I won’t be one of those annoying undergrads.

I’ll just be one of those poor graduate students that look down on undergrads with disdain.

With school coming up that means it’s almost the end of corn season. Delicious, sweet, yellow corn on the cob. This makes me sad. Even though with the end of corn season comes apple season, I will still miss all the corn we have been receiving in our CSA. I don’t think I’ve ever actually ate so much corn in one season. It’s boring to just eat it off the cob, even though it is delicious, so I’ve got to be more creative when it comes to using my ears of corn.

Obviously the next logical step is to turn them into burgers. Delicious burgers. With creamy homemade onion dip to go on top. If you decide to shallow pan fry these babies, uh, just be careful that your corn doesn’t become pop corn.

Just sayin’

I’m going to go back to the library now, where I will be living for the next two years. And glaring angrily at the undergrads. Ah, school days.

Corn & Quinoa Burgers
Adapted from An Edible Mosaic

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup uncooked quinoa
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large yellow onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups corn (about 2 ears)
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 2 tbsp dried parsley
• 4-6 tbsp panko breadcrumbs
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes
• salt and pepper to taste
• canola oil, for frying

Directions

 – Soak the quinoa in cold water for 15 minutes. Strain through a fine mesh sieve then rinse under cold water. Add the quinoa, warm water, salt and pepper to a small sauce pan and bring to a boil. Once it is boiling cover the saucepan and reduce the heat to a simmer for about 14 minutes. Remove from the heat and let sit 5 more minutes before fluffing with a fork. Set aside

– In a medium saute pan, add the olive oil, garlic and onion to the pan. Stir until the onions are opaque, about 5-7 minutes. Scoop out about half of the onion mixture and set aside. Add the corn and stir until the corn is starting to turn brown, about 5 minutes.

 – In a large bowl mix the quinoa, corn mixture, eggs, parsley, and red pepper flakes together. Add 4 tbsp of the breadcrumbs and add the extra 2 tbsp if the mixture is still too wet.

 – Form into patties (I used my biscuit cutter). Heat canola oil in saute pan and cook the patties until they are nicely browned on both sides, about 2-3 minutes per side. Serve with Creamy Onion Dip (recipe below)

Creamy Onion Dip

Ingredients

• Remaining onion mixture
• 1/4 cup greek yogurt
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1/4 tsp paprika
• salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients together and serve with the burgers.

 

 

 

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Quinoa “Meat” Balls

When I saw that Katie over at the Small Boston Kitchen post a recipe for Quinoa “Meat” balls I immediately added it to my MUST MAKE NOW list.

And almost two months later here we are (Ahem, that is quick for me).

Quinoa is very quickly becoming a favorite food of mine. Quinoa is one of the healthiest foods you can have, and it packs a TON of protein plus it tastes so damn good. Quinoa has pretty much replaced a lot of the grain type food that we eat (most commonly being couscous).

Quinoa is versatile, you can pretty much have it for breakfast, lunch, dinner AND dessert. I mean, you can’t really say that for a lot of foods. Except for maybe cookies….

One bite of these delicious quinoa “meat” balls and you might not EVER go back to actual meatballs.

Ok, maybe sometimes….

Just trust me on this one, make these babies AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

Quinoa “Meat” Balls

Adapted from The Small Boston Kitchen

• 1 cup cooked quinoa (I cooked it in my rice cooker, AMAZING I tell you!)
• 6 crimini mushrooms, diced
• 1/2 bag fresh spinach
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 1 red pepper, diced
• 1 yellow pepper, diced
• 1 egg
• 8-10 macadamia nuts, roughly chopped
• 1 tbsp oregano
• 1 tbsp rosemary
• salt and pepper to taste

In a saute pan, coat with olive oil and cook mushrooms, onion, and peppers until softened. Set aside and in the same pan cook the spinach until slightly wilted.

In a big bowl combine all the ingredients until they come together. Form into balls and place in a parchment lined baking sheet. Place into a 400 degree oven and bake for about 15-20 minutes.

Serve with spaghetti, in a sandwich, or just eat them as a snack!

Daring Cook’s: Papas Rellenas

When I found out what the next Daring Cook’s challenge was, I simulataneously went, AWESOME and WTF?!?

I told hubby that it was ceviche and papas rellenas. He was not very excited by the thought of try to do raw fish at home. And, as I thought about it, neither did I. I’d rather just go to a restaurant and have other people worry about freshness and doing raw fish right instead of me worrying about it.

That and I did my Daring Cook’s challenge at about 8PM last night.

Whoops?

Kathlyn of Bake Like a Ninja was our Daring Cooks’ March 2011 hostess. Kathlyn challenges us to make two classic Peruvian dishes: Ceviche de Pescado from “Peruvian Cooking – Basic Recipes” by Annik Franco Barreau. And Papas Rellenas adapted from a home recipe by Kathlyn’s Spanish teacher, Mayra.

Papas Rellenas

Recipe adapted from the recipe supplied to us from Kathlyn

Potato “Dough”

• 1.5lb potatoes, peeled
• 1 egg

Boil the potatoes until a fork pierces the poatatoes easily. Cook completely then mash them with a potato ricer. Add the egg and mix until a dough forms.

Filling

• 1lb ground turkey
• 1 yellow pepper, finely diced
• 1 onion, finely diced
• 2 cloves of garlic, diced
• 1/4 cup chopped olives
• 1 jalepeno pepper, chopped
• 1.5 tsp cumin
• 2 tsp paprika
• 1/4 cup white wine
• salt and white pepper to taste

In a saute pan heat 2 tbsp of olive oil. Add onions and garlic and stir for 4-5 minutes or until slightly translucent. Add jalepeno and pepper and stir additional 4 minutes. Add meat and cook until brown. Add olives ad spices and stire to combine. Deglaze the pan with the white wine. Add salt and pepper. Remove from heat and let cool completely.

Coating

• 1 egg, beaten with a little water in one bowl
• 1/2 cup flour with a sprinkle of cayenne pepper and salt in another plate
• 1 cup panko bread crumbs in another plate

To assemble:

Scoop up some of the potato and flatten into a disc and scoop some of the filling into the middle. Wrap the potato around the filling, using extra potato to fill in the gaps if needed. Roll the finished ball first in the flour, then the egg mixture, and finally the panko bread crumbs.

In another deep pan, heat about 1.5-2″ of canola oil until it reaches about 350-375 degrees. Fry the papas for about 2-3 minutes on each side, until it reaches desired color. Serve immediately!

French Onion Soup

A few weeks ago I took a knife skills class at the Boston Center for Adult Education. I picked up some great tricks to add to my culinary arsenal. I learned when to pull and push my knife depending on what I’m cutting. I learned how to de-bone a chicken (and it was awesome!).  Not to mention we ate some delicious food. One of them being this French Onion Soup.

So when I needed to come up with a soup to make for a Soup Potluck that I was having with Ashley from Cooking for 1, Megan from Cooking Whims and Liz from Eating Places I immediately thought of this soup. I made this the week before and I’m glad I did because I was able to tweak it to really bring out the flavor of the soup. I highly recommend pairing this with some crusty Italian bread and melted cheese. It’s pretty amazing. I’ll be recapping our soup swap next time!

 

French Onion Soup

Adapted from my BCAE knife skills class

• 6 large yellow onions, half chopped and half sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp beef base
• 8 cups water
• 1 cup white wine
• half package bacon, chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tbsp chopped thyme
• salt and pepper to taste

In a large saute pan, heat the pan and add the bacon. Cook bacon over medium high heat until crispy and then using a strainer, remove the bacon and put aside.

Keep the reserved bacon fat in the pan and add about 2 tbsp olive oil. Add the onions. In order to make a good caramelized onion without using sugar it’s important to stir the onions only when you need to. In fact, add the onions to the pan and walk away from it for at least 10 minutes. Do not turn the onions until the bottom is browned. Once they are browned, stir and turn the onions and let sit for another 10 minutes or so. Continue to stir, turn and wait until all the onions are browned. Then add the minced garlic and stir for about 2 minutes. Turn off the heat.

In a medium sized soup pot add the water and beef base and stir to break up the base. Add the onions and garlic to the pot along with the wine, bay leaf and chopped thyme. Cover partially and simmer for 30 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. I had some smoked salt and used that.

When you are ready to serve, add the crispy bacon to the soup. Feel free to add some cheese to your soup to make it extra creamy. Serve with some crusty bread.

Vanilla Bean Spiced Pork Chops

So one day I was perusing Twitter when I saw that Katie over at Good Life Eats and Jamie at My Baking Addiction were hosting a Holiday Recipe Exchange with a different ingredient every week and a chance to win some fabulous prizes. I thought, Hey, I can do that! Sounds like fun!

Come join the fun at the My Baking Addiction and GoodLife Eats Holiday Recipe Swap sponsored by Beanilla.

 

When I was thinking about what I wanted my submission to be for this week I wanted to think outside the box. There was a good chance almost everyone would be submitting baking recipes, and there was no rule stating that it HAD to be something sweet, even though the first thing you think of with an ingredient like vanilla is something sweet, cookies, cupcakes, ice cream, you get the drill. So I started thinking about what I could do with a vanilla bean.

Then I did a Google search (Where would we be without Google? Lost, that’s what) on vanilla dry rub and came up with A LOT of good ideas. I decided to make a dry rub for some pork chops that I was planning on buying.

 

Vanilla Bean Dry Rub

• 1 vanilla bean, scraped, with the actual bean chopped into small pieces
• 1 tbsp light brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• salt and white pepper, sprinkle or two

I took two thick cut pork chops (it equaled just under a pound) and cut then in half. Combine the dry rub ingredients together, I find using my hands to mix everything together works best. You can really smell the vanilla as everything comes together.

Apply liberally to the pork chops, making sure to get all sides. The chopped pods will probably fall off, so just put them back on after. Either make immediately or store in your refrigerator for up to 24 hours.

Once your ready to cook with them preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Then grab your cask iron skillet and put it in medium high heat on the stove top. Cover with olive oil and once the oil is hot add your pork chops. Cook on each side for about 3-5 minutes, remove from pan and then set aside.

At this point I made an apple/onion mixture which involved 2 apples, cut into chunks, and half a medium onion, sliced along with 1/4 cup of apple cider, and a dash of the following: garlic powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. Mix together thoroughly and add to the skillet and cook for an additional 5 minutes, until slightly soft. Add the pork chops to the top and put it in the oven for about 15 minutes.

I also made some roasted red potatoes to go along with this lovely concoction.

It came out really delicious and very different from what I normally do with pork chops. You can clearly see the vanilla bean and there is an essence of vanilla that compliments the pork in a great way. And the juices from the apple/onion mixture also taste great on the pork.

So hopefully in my attempt to be original you’ll ALL vote for me (voting opens on November 21st!), so I’ll win the fabulous swag gift from Beanilla.