Well, It happens now and again, a burger that I can happily live without. Tonight after work we made the bolo burger. A lightly pressed turkey burger with homemade aioli flavored with roasted red peppers and garlic, manchego and serrano (we could only find prosciutto) ham. I have found I hate manchego when warmed or melted. I love it chilled with olives and wine, or in a salad with apples, sugared pecans and dates, just like any normal girl would. I also tend to like prosciutto but only when it is chilled or actually crisped in a pan. Warmed through next to manchego is not for me. Brian didn’t love it either, so that works out for me.
Napoleon fed his llama Tina ham. Yesterday we went and saw Ponyo, by Hiyao Miyazaki. Ponyo shouted,”I want ham!” before she turned alternately into a little rowdy girl and a fish.
Ham is fine in Idaho and nice at the movies but please don’t put it on my burger.
Category: burgers
arthur avenue burger
Last night we made the Arthur Avenue Burger. It is a burger made in homage of an italian neighborhood of NYC. We made it with our usual turkey and publix bakery bun, this sounds dull but isn’t. The toppings were arugula, a fontina frico and this fra diavolo ketchup. Arugula is nice on the mild turkey and the fra diavolo ketchup was supposed to be spicy and herby but honestly, it wasn’t. I don’t think this was my fault as I doubled the red pepper flakes and all I could taste was oregano. The stand out was the fontina frico. Basically you dry fry grated fontina cheese into a crisp lacy cheese doily. This is something like the best cheez-it you ever ate. Overall the burger was more high rent than usual. It seemed more elegant and refined. I paired it with an icy cold gimlet which is a gloriously citrine colored gem.
buffalo sliders
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This afternoon we went and saw Julie & Julia, a comedy-drama about the blog written by Julie Powell as she cooked through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It is in that great tradition that we are blogging about our adventure cooking through Bobby Flay’s Burgers, Fries & Shakes. I haven’t had a crying on the floor moment yet and my level of cooking is nowhere near the level of MTAOFC but the food, ah the food. We enjoyed the movie too. It didn’t lead us to a butter filled french supper but rather to french cheese…kind of.
Buffalo Sliders. Not made of buffalo, but buffalo sauce on turkey sliders. They came sauced with a really nice house-made bleu cheese sauce and a sprinkling of bleu cheese and finely sliced green onion. We had some nice Alexia onion rings on the side stacked in a nice neat Pisa like pile. Bon Appetit!
hail Caesar (burger!)
Brian said, ‘If I were a Roman emporer, this would be my burger of choice.’ If you listen closely Brian is absolutely hilarious and has a lot to say. He actually looked through the burger book today before we went grocery store and chose tonight’s offering. A turkey burger on a soft bakery bun with house-made Caesar dressing, Parmesan, romaine and cracked pepper. Some Alexia waffle fries on the side rounded it into a meal. The dressing called for a laundry list of umami ingredients and we didn’t hold the anchovy.
santa fe burger
Had a few girls over from Wycliffe last night for dinner. One is a friend who I have worked with almost a year and is leaving soon for a year abroad to serve at the London City Mission. She is a recent UCF grad and has fostered my interest in blogging, egging me on to bigger and better things. One is an intern who is leaving next week to head back to school and I can see a bit of myself in her. One is someone I just wanted to get to know better and did on the fly. From the last one I had a short lesson in photography which should help my food shots to be more interesting and besides the new friendship I am really excited about that. It was small enough to be able to talk and I could still make dinner on my own with just a tiny bit of help from Z who is recovering from surgery. I am going to invite people more often, although I find, it comes with it’s price. For now, it is as much as I can do.
We made the Sante Fe Burger, roasted poblano peppers, blue corn chip crumbles and monterey jack queso top this burger dolloped with chipotle ketchup underneath. Z felt the cheese sauce a little bland and I would agree with that. If I made it again I’d use pepper jack. We ate it with Alexia sweet potato fries on the side. They were a nice contrast to the burger and gave a pop of sweet flavor and color.
My Urban Pantry 