Posts Tagged ‘cheese’
Burgerlicious
Posted on: January 11, 2011
While there’s a lot of taste satisfaction with roasted or slow BBQed meats – who has the time for these, even on weekends these days?
By using ground turkey, chicken, pork – individually or blended combos – along with the classic ground beef; you can vary your dinner options with a minimum of on-hand components.
Serve with salad, veggies and your fave starch – potatoes or rice or pasta.
Simple Burgers
Into your ground meat, mix chopped onion, salt and pepper. Fry into patties and stack them on a platter in the oven so they stay hot.
In the same frying pan, add to the grease one half cup of cream and three tablespoons of bottled sauce. Stir and simmer.
Pull out the platter of patties and pour the sauce over the patties.
In addition to varying the meat used, there’s a huge selection of sauces available from a wide range of cuisines.
The tried and true English Classic Worcestershire, American classic BBQ or ketchup are excellent choices. But to really perk up the taste buds, be creative and try sauces from a variety of cuisines:
- Indian or Thai curries,
- Butter chicken,
- Korean BBQ,
- Sour Cherry,
- Teriyaki and other soy sauces;
- Chipotle and other chillis
- Fancy or spicy mustards
Speed Balls
Mix together:
1 lb ground beef
2 tbsp breadcrumbs (or try Japanese panko crumbs)
1/2 cup milk
Shape into balls and pan fry in butter until browned.
Sprinkle a package of dry onion soup and 1 cup of water.
Mix the balls around to stir in the powder, but don’t break the balls.
While it simmers, you can microwave yams or potatoes or prepare fast cooking rice.
Cheesey Burgers
Prepare your ground meat as you’d do for your fave burger seasonings.
Make the patties very thin and line them up in pairs.
Down one line of patties, put a thin slice of onion and a slice of your favorite cheese. Make sure you’ve got about a 1/2 in around the edge for sealing. You don’t want the cheese to leak out.
Transfer the other line of patties on top of the onion/cheese patty and crimp the edges together.
Fry, boil or BBQ.
Fast Skillet Dinner
I know, it’s a lot to ask for 2 things at once, but you can do the rice first, then as it boils – it’s cooking itself while you cook the meat.
Cook a half cup of rice while you fry one pound of crumbled ground beef with 2 chopped onions in 2 tbsp butter.
Once the beef is browned and the rice is puffed, toss the rice on top of the meat mixture.
Add:
1.5 cups of tinned tomatoes
0.5 tsp mustard
0.5 tsp chili power
0.5 tsp salt
0.25 tsp pepper
1 package of frozen veg – peas, beans, corn, carrot or a mix!
Cover and simmer for about 15 minutes
Enjoy – burgers are absolutely a good enough thing for dinner.
NancyWh
Easy Canapes
Posted on: October 16, 2010
Sometimes it’s easier to serve a variety of appetizers and drinks instead of a dinner to your guests; unless you can’t get invited over to someone else’s party first.
But it doesn’t take too long for your friends to notice that you’ve been to their house three time and they’ve not been to yours once.
I find it best to invite people over between the usual mealtimes – it keeps their expectations low. And that’s more than a good enough thing.
Mornings are out for obvious reasons – who wants to get up and face food before 11 am? Worse, any time from 9 am to 1 pm is prime brunch.
So, afternoon gatherings between 2 pm and 4 pm or later evening get together from 8pm onwards – a movie and some munchies!
There certainly are a lot of lovely already made appies and canapes in the frozen food aisle – and as easy as it is to just toss them in the oven, more often than not, they taste only marginally better than the box you bought them in.
Before the recipes, there’s one fabulous trick to know: Parchment Paper is your best friend. Just lay a parchment paper on the cookie sheet and you never need to grease again! Also, those silpats work really well to ensure even heating.
So here’s some easy canapes and happy appies:
Cocktail Cookies
1/2 cup flour
2 tbsp butter
1 pound of a flavoured cheese spread. (not the kind that comes in a spray can)
Mix everything together and then form into a log about 2 inches in diameter. Wrap in waxed or parchment paper (or cling wrap) and put it in the fridge until it’s firm.
Remove it, slice just like those tubes of cookie mix – 1/4 inch thick – and bake at 400F for 10 mins.
As a bonus, you don’t have to grease the cookie sheet for this one!
Cheese Sticks
Filo Puff or Pastry Dough
Parmesan cheese
Roll the dough out as far as it will go. Sprinkle a lot pf Parmesan cheese all over it – and if you want to be fancy, herbs, garlic, onion, crumbled bacon – whatever you like with cheese.
Fold the dough in half and roll it out again then sprinkle with more Parmesan (or alternate between the cheese and other ingredients).
Repeat the fold, roll and sprinkle 6 times.
Roll the dough out one last time and then cut it into strips. If you’re really adventurous you can use cookie cutters or cut into strips and then give them twists!
You can optionally sprinkle with Parmesan or chipotle powder,then back at 400F for 10 mins or until golden.
Classic Onion Dip
Give the classic a modern twist.
Mix a 500 ml sour cream with a package of dry onion soup mix.
By added a teaspoon of Chinese 5 spice, you give it a fusion update that everyone will love and few will be able to guess!
Gold Nuggets
1 pound cheddar cheese (old and sharp is best for this)
1/2 cup butter
1 and 1/4 cups of flour
Toss everything into the blender, mix master or food processor.
note: you should ensure the cheese is at room temperature – I once made a 5 cheese dip with cold hard cheeses and burnt out 2 sunbeam mix masters. Yes, I mean smoke, flame and literally burned out.
Use a tablespoon to drop half-dollar size bits (or loonie if you’re Canadian) on cookie sheet.
You can be fancy here and put a half walnut or pecan or other favorite nut on each cheesey drop of goodness.
Bake at 400F for 6 mins – well before it bubbles.
Enjoy these good enough things!
Nancy S.
Living Well 