Greek Chicken Burgers

I was surprised by how good these chicken burgers tasted. Geeze. 

Not only do they have great flavour, but they are juicy and moist and creamy and ahhhhh *mouth waters* (good grief). 

Burgers made out of poultry tend to be dry, unless you use something like onions to help them out, but all these needed were what the recipe gave me.

I used a recipe on CookingChannel.com, which I found after searching "healthy" --> CLICKITY CLUCKITY MOFOS!

I ended up using white pita bread for my burgers because wheat tastes like old nasty cardboard and I hate it, but I used wheat pita bread crumbs in the meat mixture (shut up, I am trying). I doubled the recipe because I had more mouths to feed (not only that, but my dad had seconds) and I wanted leftovers. I have four more burgers in the fridge, yesss.

Sweet holy tomato, help me.

I am not the skinniest bitch on the planet, okay. I really wanted to find something both healthy and delicious. It is so easy to stuff your face with something filled with fat (don't get me wrong, I love a good cheeseburger topped with bacon), but it takes a lot for people to want to eat healthy. I feel like it is out of fear that health food does not taste good. Wrong! These chicken burgers are delicious and they won't make you feel like a fat-ass. ;)

-A

Cheesy Biscuits by the Lady & Sons

Biscuits. Who the hell doesn't like biscuits? Originally, I would call these things scones, but this a Southern recipe (AMURICA!), so these are biscuits dammit!

Everything you will need is on this webpage right here (click it, click it good, y'all).

So, when I was in Savannah in the Spring of 2010, I went to Paula Deen's restaurant The Lady & Sons. The food was delightful (and terribly fattening - TWO STICKS OF BUTTER, Y'ALL, YOU CAN'T GO WRONG WITH THAT!).

Preach!

The Lady & Sons offers Paula's most wonderful dishes. I had a chicken pot pie for the entrée and then a slice of key lime pie for dessert. It was awesome, I highly recommend this place. Plus, it's Paula's restaurant, okay. PAULA. 

But the most incredibly tasty thing I had there was this cheesy garlic biscuit. They give them to you like how most restaurants will give you a loaf of bread, only this is a billion times better, but you only get one! I got away with having two because my sister didn't want hers. Aww yesss.

These cheesy garlicy butter balls of awesome sat upon this miniature savory pancake. Before you dig into this thing, you have to drizzle a generous amount of maple syrup to create that harmony of sweet and salty.

I could eat these things all day, 24/7, for the rest of my life.

The biscuits I baked do not look as pretty as their's, but they were so damn delicious, I ate like five of them after taking them out of the oven. They are that good and best when hot and fresh.

I took one bite and I felt like I was having an affair

that defied all logic and reason, but it felt so right.

Before you place them in the oven, you have to dab them with garlic butter. And then, no lie, you dab them with even more garlic butter after taking them out. THEY ARE SO YUMMY AND I AM BAKING MORE TOMORROW (this is going to be my third batch in the past couple days, SEND HELP).

-A

Spaghetti w/ Italian Sausage Meat Sauce and Garlic Bread

I have to give props to this local place around the corner from my Germantown neighbourhood. Vanelli's. They are incredible, okay. If you want some amazing Italian sausage and you live in this area, please go there, they are so good. They pride themselves on selling delicious Italian style sandwiches, but you can buy their sausage in bulk. It is about four bucks a pound and it is totally worth it. Geeze, you guys, it is the best thing to put in spaghetti sauce. And that's what I bloody well did.

Ingredients:

Spaghetti and Meat Sauce

-2 lbs of Italian sausage

-1 package of spaghetti

-garlic salt

-1 teaspoon of oregano

-1 teaspoon of thyme

-2 bay leaves

-2 large cans of tomato sauce (I used one can of tomato sauce and then another can of puree because puree is a lot thicker than tomato sauce.)

Note: the reason why I did not use many herbs for the sauce is because Vanelli's sausage is perfectly seasoned and I wanted its flavour to stand out in the sauce. If you are using store bought stuff, you may have to continuously taste test and add more herbs, if necessary.

Garlic Bread

-1 giant bread loaf of your choice

-2 sticks of butter (If you have a small bread loaf, you won't need that much. Wrap the rest of it up and stick it in the fridge.)

-Italian parsley (Fresh from our garden!)

-3 big cloves of garlic (Aww yeah!)

So, basically, you start out cooking the spaghetti by boiling water and all that jazz. If you have no idea how to boil water, I will advise you not to read any further until you figure out how to do that.

After the pot of water is boiling, add some pinches of salt. I like using garlic salt in my pasta water because it enhances the flavour of the pasta. I recently saw someone do that on Cooking Channel/Food Network and I was like OMG I DO THAT TOO YES. It made me happy because I thought I was just being a freak. Anyway, chuck in your pasta of choice (if you want, you can try tortellini stuffed with cheese) and stir that noodly goodness until it is al dente. Pour the water and pasta out into a strainer and leave it be.

Helpful hint: to prevent your pasta from getting all sticky and weird, take the pasta out of the strainer and put in back in the pot with some butter. Not too much, depending on how much pasta you have, just enough for the pasta to not stick to each other, making it a big globby mess.

I am not an expert, but you should not need to oil up your pan before putting the sausage meat in. It generally has enough fat to keep it from sticking. I had to use a little bit, like a tablespoon, but you should not need much at all. If you are using chicken, then yes, you should oil your pan because chicken is a lean meat.

After dumping Vanelli's juicy sweet sausage in the pan, I basically went all barbaric cave lady on it and stabbed it with my wooden spatula, turning it into random sized chunks. When that was all cooked and browned (do not overcook it!), I poured my tomato sauce and puree into the pan along with my herbs (oregano, thyme, and bay leaves), put the lid on it, and let it simmer for about twenty minutes. Twenty minutes is honestly not enough time to let all those flavours mix together harmoniously, but I was hungry and so was everyone else! My mother cooks her spaghetti sauce for two and a half hours. Yep. If you want to try that out, be my guest. I am impatient and it was still delicious, so whatever.

Now, on to the garlic bread. So, basically, I am Scott Pilgrim. Besides the fact I am Canadian-born, garlic bread is my favourite food. My doctor told me once that if I wanted to lose weight, I would need to stay away from bread. I laughed at her.

First, make the garlic butter. Smash a few garlic cloves with the side of a knife, cutting the nasty bits at the ends off, and grating them into the butter. Chop up some Italian parsley, throw that in, and mix it up with a butter knife. DONE.

Place the bread loaf onto a sheet of foil (I forgot because I'm an idiot) and then slice the bread loaf diagonally. Do not cut all the way through because (besides the fact you will ruin the foil) all that butter will escape from the bread (and that is just sad). Once that's done, butter both sides of each bread slice. Why? Just do it, you are going to die someday anyway. It makes the bread super tasty once it has finished baking. My trick is, once all the slices have been buttered to fatty hell, I use whatever leftover garlic butter I have and smother the loaf with it, spreading it all over the top. Wrap it up in foil, put it in the oven at about 300 degrees, and let it bake for twenty minutes.

Once everything is hot and ready to be devoured, put it on a plate and chow.

This is what sex looks like in spaghetti form.

I swear, you guys, it's friggin' delicious.
If you have any questions or you want to tell me how amazingly yummy this looks, I expect you will leave a comment (or not, whatever, I hate you).

-A

Where did I go?

Just to clarify, I am not dead. No, I am just borderline losing my shit because I have been so busy with school, I do not have the time to cook and blog about it.

No fear, for summer is.. well.. almost here! Yeah! I've got a really great spaghetti and sausage meat sauce recipe I want to share here and I have some sweet variations of that oh so gooey butter cookie! Also, I will be trying more vegetarian recipes over the summer, so be on the look out for that. There is a great vegetarian sandwich I have tried recently and I need to learn how to make it.

Anyway, it is a quarter to midnight and I need some sleep.

I'M ALIVE.

-Ali

Alfredo/Tomato Pasta with Garlic Bread

Sorry, I know it's been a while! I've been pretty busy and haven't gotten the chance to post anything new. Such is life.

For lunch today, I had wanted to make a sandwich. But alas, no sandwichy ingredients! So, I made pasta with both tomato and garlic alfredo sauce mixed in together. I also added some poppy seeds - I really love poppy seeds in pasta, as it gives it a bit of a bite.
It's just a simple pasta dish, nothing fancy. I wanted to see what it would taste like, mixing in both sauces. I decided to add less alfredo and more tomato sauce, so it wouldn't be as fattening as it could be. I'd have to say, it tastes pretty nice.
I made my own garlic butter for the garlic bread - mince two cloves garlic and use a fork to mix with a stick of butter. You can use whatever bread you like. The only bread I had today was artisan rye - it has a sour smell to it, but it's quite delicious.
Anyway, I was totally naughty and ate in my room. I'm lucky I didn't get crumbs everywhere.

The Sandwich Chronicles: Chicken Tandoori

As I said in my previous entry, I broiled one of the leftover marinated chicken breasts I did not use and made myself a sandwich. It was a super delicious sandwich!!
After slightly toasting two slices of Tuscan bread, I spread a little bit of butter all over the slices. I also took some of the leftover sauce, from the broiling pan, and used it as a spread. I shredded the chicken breast and placed it onto one slice of bread. I also added provolone cheese - which melted a bit because of the hot chicken - two strips of bacon and lettuce. Was it yummy? Why, yes! Yes, it was. My tummy was very happy, indeed.

Chicken Tandoori

Well, I made dinner again last night. First off, I'd like to say that this recipe wins. And I totally owned it.
Check it! - http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/chicken-tandoori-recipe/index.html
My results were delish. Juicy, tangy, pop-in-your-mouth chicken.
I changed it up a bit, though. I didn't put any remaining yogurt sauce on top of the chicken. It tasted so yummy, it didn't need anything extra. It's a very flavourful chicken dish. I'll try it out next time I cook this, though. Oh yes, there will be a next time!

Anyway, moving on. Rather than using chicken thighs, I used chicken breasts. Instead of cooking rice to serve on the side, I served linguine with alfredo sauce and poppy seeds mixed in. My mother made a salad, which is a recipe she got from a restaurant called Jarrett's. Speaking of salad, I'll have to write an entry about different salads some time soon. And that one about sides is coming up, I swear!

Anyway, I had some leftover chicken to broil for lunch today. Yes! Another entry for the Sandwich Chronicles! But not now, I'll save it for the next entry.