I recently became a BzzAgent and was invited to my first campaign. As part of the campaign I received a coupon for a free package of MorningStar Farms veggie burgers that I would in turn evaluate. I took my coupon to my local Kroger store and searched high and low for the MorningStar Farms products. I could not find them in the meat alternative section of the store. Fortunately a kind employee showed me to their location hidden next to the waffles in the normal freezer section of the store. I found the spicy black bean burgers that I wanted and was on my way.

Packaging

Last night I decided to give the burgers a try. The box comes with 4 burgers inside with 2 in each of the plastic wrappers. Even though it was much too cold to fire up the grill outside, we are fortunate to have an inside grill to use to prepare the burgers. I also had some wheat buns that I added to the grill as well. And I finished each patty with a slice of cheddar cheese for the last couple minutes of grilling.

Grilling

Once everything was done cooking I assembled the burgers and added a fresh piece of green leaf lettuce as well as some ketchup and mustard.

Complete

Overall I was fairly happy with the results. I don’t think the burgers are as tasty as some I’ve had in area restaurants, or the ones we’ve made before from scratch, but they weren’t bad in any way. I was actually hoping for a little more spiciness than what I tasted. The patties are full of beans and corn, so you know they are healthier than a meat burger. I received a few additional coupons as part of the campaign and I do think I will buy a few more boxes to see if there is something else that we might like better.

For Christmas Kim and I received a slow cooker from her parents so we are now finally able to prepare these simple meals that seem to be all the rage recently. Monday was our first attempt with it following this recipe for chicken and dumplings. Kim put everything in the pot before leaving for work and set it on low to cook for eight hours. We were using mostly frozen chicken and read that this was the preferred heating method.

Before Dumplings

After work I returned home to find the chicken was cooked and the slow cooker had dropped down to the warm setting. Using a spoon I shredded the chicken to make sure it was done and I thought it would make it easier to eat. I then turned the heat back on to high, as the directions indicated and threw in the 2 cans of refrigerated biscuit dough.

With Dumplings

Unfortunately we would soon realize that it was going to take much longer than the advertised half hour to cook the dough into dumplings. I think our problem was that the slow cooker had been on the warm setting for hours and it took a considerable amount of time to get it back to the high setting to adequately cook the dumplings.

Dinner Is Served

Once it was finished I served it in bowls with a little fresh ground pepper. I was really impressed with how much I liked this meal. Unfortunately it doesn’t really meet the set it and forget it requirement that we typically need, so I’m not sure we will be making this particular recipe again. Unless I decide to do it on a day I’m working from home and can add the biscuits in a couple of hours before serving time.

With so many holiday parties over the last month or so, I was struggling to come up with a different appetizer recipe to bring to a party on Christmas Eve. At a prior party I spotted cocktail rye bread slices that were used to make hanky panky and immediately thought the same loaf of bread could be used to make mini Reuben sandwiches. I didn’t really need a recipe but found this one to use as a guideline.

Ready For Baking

Rather than making them all with corned beef, I used a pound of smoked turkey and a half pound of corned beef to make roughly 32 to 40 servings. I also split the two teaspoons of thousand island dressing into two layers, the first teaspoon was placed directly on the bread slices, while the second (smaller than full teaspoon) was put on top of the 1/2 tablespoon of sauerkraut that I used for each. So it goes slice of bread, teaspoon of dressing, 1/2 slice of meat, 1/2 tablespoon of sauerkraut, 1/2 teaspoon of dressing, 1/4 slice of cheese, heat and serve.

Turkey Complete

These were such a hit at the first party that I took them to that I decided to make them again for two more parties this past weekend. They are a little time-consuming to put together, but so far it has been worth it.

In a recent produce delivery from Green B.E.A.N. was a massive two-pound sweet potato. When I placed the order I thought that it said two pounds of sweet potatoes, and not one gigantic one. Realizing that it would take forever to cook this sucker whole, yesterday I searched the internet for a good recipe that would feature chopped sweet potatoes. What I found was a recipe for roasted sweet potatoes and onions.

My Results

I liked that the recipe called for two onions, which I also already had on hand. These were regular old yellow onions and not sweet or Vidalia, but I don’t think it hurt the recipe at all. I also left out the almonds since they are on my list of foods I’m supposedly allergic too. The amaretto liqueur left a sweet glaze with a hint of booziness. I really enjoyed this dish. It is probably my favorite sweet potato dish in a long time. Consider it for your Thanksgiving dinners. I would but I’m in charge of green beans this year.

Last night I made a batch of turkey chili. Most of the time when I make chili I just loosely follow a guideline recipe until it tastes right to me. But last night I found a recipe that I had printed long ago that I had never tried. It has many additional ingredients in comparison to how my chili’s usually are made. I still didn’t follow this one exactly but stuck pretty close. I left out the Habanero pepper hoping to cool it down a little bit so Trey would eat it, however it still turned out pretty spicy, which was fine by me. Trey didn’t care for it. I also used black beans instead of kidney, as that was what I had on hand. And I used some home-brew rather than the cheap beer the recipe called for.

The results were delicious! It was quite possibly the best chili I’ve tasted. Without knowing that there was hot chocolate mix in the chili, my wife picked up on the subtle sweetness. But as I said earlier, there is quite a bit of spice in it even without the Habanero. I’d love to try a batch with Habanero in it, but next time I may even dial down the amount of crushed red pepper to see if Trey will give it a try. Either way, this will not be the last time I make this chili. Everyone should give it a try.

Finding new recipes is really easy with the internet, but I still like sharing some of the really good ones that I find. My latest finds are a spicy roasted broccolini quinoa salad and cowboy mashed potatoes. The broccolini quinoa salad was sent to me by my friend Aaron after he read my last entry on broccolini. After preparing his recipes (full directions at the bottom of the post) I have to admit that his is much better than my last attempt. I especially like that goat cheese addition to the quinoa.

I discovered the recipe for cowboy mashed potatoes after realizing that I had some unused red potatoes along with some Yukon gold too. This recipe combines both potato varieties with some other vegetables to make a rather unique dish. I wouldn’t say that I liked them better than the garlic mashed potatoes that I usually prepare, but they were still good.

Dinner Plate

Spicy Roasted Broccolini Quinoa Salad

Prep Time: 15 mins | Cook Time: 30 mins | Servings: 1 serving | Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch broccolini, stalks trimmed
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup quinoa
• 2 cups vegetable stock
• 1–2 tbsp crumbled goat cheese
• 1 handful cherry tomatoes, halved

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

2. Cut the broccolini into bite-sized pieces, about 1 1/2 inches.

3. Place broccolini on a parchment-lined baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Squeeze the lemon over the raw broccolini and season with salt, pepper and the red pepper flakes. Toss to make sure each piece is coated.

4. Roast for 15 to 18 minutes in the pre-heated oven, until stalks are tender and the heads of the broccolini are just lightly browned. Remove from oven and set aside.

5. In a medium-sized pot, combine the quinoa and vegetable stock. Bring the liquid to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Let the quinoa cook until all the liquid has been absorbed, about 15 minutes.

6. Once the quinoa is fully cooked, fluff with a fork, and toss in the roasted broccolini, crumbled goat cheese and cherry tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

I haven’t always liked mushrooms, so I’m somewhat new to cooking with them. I realized I had some leftover cremini mushrooms last night, and with little else to go with them, I found a fairly basic recipe for them (minus the port).

Start Of Cooking

Since we didn’t have any port lying around, and I didn’t want to open any bottles of dry red wine, I just used a little pinot grigio that was already opened. The results were pretty tasty! Though I would like to try this again with a wine of the red variety.

Finished Product

I got a new grill from my family for Christmas and I’ve just started using it frequently. My brother and his girlfriend got me some grilling accessories for my birthday, including a pizza grilling kit. Friday evening was the perfect night for grilling in the backyard. So I heated up the grill to 400 degrees with my new pizza stone already in place. I then prepared a homemade pizza using this wonderful homemade sauce that I’ve been using for years. I topped the pizza with mushroom, green pepper, and onion. It cooked for about 20 minutes and the results were delicious!

I  have finally found a recipe for roasted asparagus that is on par with the recipes I have for grilled asparagus. This recipe combines the fairly standard garlic and olive oil with the less common Parmesan cheese and lemon. The recipe actually denotes the latter as both optional ingredients, but I would not skip them. I used the juice of half of a lemon and just guessed on the amount of fresh grated Parmesan to use. The results were excellent!

Oven-Roasted Asparagus

You may recall my post about collard greens, well another vegetable that is new to me is broccolini (or broccolette). We’ve had a couple of deliveries of this vegetable that is similar to broccoli, but with longer and thinner stalks. The first time I prepared it I just roasted it in the oven with some potatoes and garlic, but it didn’t cook well enough for my liking. This past week I dug up a recipe where the broccolini is blanched and then sautéed with butter, garlic, and lemon. The results were much better!

Ready To Eat