National Cheeseburger Month

May is National Cheeseburger Month. In honor of that occasion, I thought I would share my favorite way to enjoy this American icon.

 

The first step to a great cheeseburger is preparing a nice thick patty out of high-quality ground beef. I like it cooked over a charcoal grill until it's just a little pink on the inside. In my opinion, the next most important ingredient is a great bread. I like Hawaiian sweet rolls or onion rolls toasted over the grill. In place of sliced cheese, I really like a melting dollop of pimento cheese. My favorite recipe for pimento cheese is Paula Deen's version called "Bobby's Pimento Cheese." (Just a little hint: you can leave out the cream cheese and add a little extra mayo. It's still good and saves a couple of calories. I also add a little hot sauce.) After these key ingredients, I typically add avocado, lettuce, spinach, or bacon as the mood strikes. You won't need mayo if you let the cheese spread melt.

Whether you make your burgers at home or have a favorite place to buy one, be sure you celebrate the cheeseburger this month!

Photo by Jenn Ballard

A Snack for Spring

Spring is almost here! That means it's time to do some of my favorites thing like fishing, turkey hunting, putting in my garden, picking strawberries, and going camping. It's such a beautiful time of year here in Georgia. Things are just starting to green up, and the frogs have been calling since late last month. In honor of all of this, I think it's a great time to share a new recipe I've worked out for granola, the perfect snack for outdoor activities. This recipe is derived from Alton Brown's version available at foodnetwork.com. While Mr. Brown (a fellow Georgian) is a brilliant culinary expert, he and I have different taste in granola. I kept his perfectly balanced ratios, but tweaked the ingredients. Here's my version:

Blueberry muffin breakfast granola
3 cups rolled oats
2 cups chopped pecans
3/4 sweetened, shredded coconut
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup (the REAL stuff!)
1/4 cup oil (I've used canola or light olive oils and both worked great)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup dried blueberries

Combine the oats, pecans, coconut, brown sugar, and cinnamon in a mixing bowl. In a separate container, combine syrup, oil, vanilla, and salt. Pour the liquid over the dry ingredients and mix until everything is well coated. Spread the granola over a cookie sheet. Bake at 250 F for 1h 15 min, stirring every 15 minutes. Remove from oven. Allow to cool. Move granola to a bowl or zip top bag and mix in dried fruit. Freeze or refrigerate in an airtight container until use.

My favorite way to eat this is over vanilla yogurt, but it's great on its own. I'm planning to try some different combination trading honey or molasses for maple syrup and different nut/fruit combinations. If you've got kids, I think it would be easy to add M&M's or chocolate chips to keep the kiddos entertained. I'll let you know how my new combinations turn out!

Photo Credit: Jenn Ballard

In Honor of Dr. Martin Luther King

Motel in Memphis
By: Old Crow Medicine Show

Were you there when the man from Atlanta was murdered in Memphis?
Did you see him layin' at the Lorraine Motel?
Did you hear them say that the CIA is witness -
To the murder of a man at a motel in Memphis?

Motel in Memphis
Motel in Memphis
Run and tell somebody there's blood on the riverside
Oh muddy water, rollin' to Memphis
If you were there, you'd swear it was more than a man who died

Did you see Coretta? She was sobbin' on the corner in a black veil.
Did you see Mr. Crump in a white coat grin?
Did you walk downriver where the cottonwoods are swingin' -
With ghostly bodies of men?

Motel in Memphis
Motel in Memphis
Run and tell somebody there's blood on the riverside
Oh muddy water, rollin' to Memphis
If you were there, you'd swear it was more than a man who died.

(Instrumental)

Were you there with Mahalia wailing at the funeral?
Did you watch them lower his casket in?
Did you tremble when you thought about the future?
And cry out for a martyred man?

Motel in Memphis
Motel in Memphis
Run and tell somebody there's blood on the riverside
Oh muddy water, rollin' to Memphis
If you were there, you'd swear it was more than a man who died.

Christmas Cranberries

Christmas has come once again! It’s a time for joy, faith, peace, and love.  Most importantly, it’s the time to celebrate Christ’s arrival and the beginning of His amazing journey toward the salvation of the world.  It’s a beautiful time of year, and one I love to share with friends and family. Of course my favorite thing to do for loved ones is to cook. What can I say? Food is my love language.

This year I played with several new recipes and focused on one very special ingredient: cranberries. Of course I’ve served cranberry sauce with Christmas dinner every year. It’s a delicious holiday staple, native to North America, and the clean, tart taste breaks up the heaviness of the other holiday foods. But I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve always used canned cranberry preparations. Maybe it was habit. Maybe I was intimated by the texture, but this year, I broke out of the yoke of processed food bondage.

My inspiration for elevating this ingredient started with my travels this year. As you may recall from previous installments, I had the pleasure of spending time in both Nova Scotia and Wisconsin. These lovely, northern locations are both cranberry producing areas, and I brought home some choice flavors to save for the Christmas season. From Nova Scotia, I brought Lake Rossignol Cranberry wine from the Lunenburg County Winery at Hackmatack Farm. From Wisconsin, I brought Fireside Jam, a delicious blend of cherries and cranberries, purchased from The Summer Kitchen’s booth at the Dane County Farmer’s Market.

To build the rest of our holiday meal, my family and I made an expedition to the Dekalb World Market in Atlanta. My regular readers might be getting the idea that this is one of my favorite finds in Georgia, and they would be right. I’m generally a huge advocate of local food, but the atmosphere, incredible variety, and great prices at this international market have become something of a moral splurge for me.

After stocking up on Sunday afternoon, we spent most of Monday (Christmas Eve) preparing a big family meal. It included mascarpone chive mashed potatoes, green bean and artichoke casserole, double cranberry apple sauce, and a grilled beef tenderloin all served with whole wheat rolls and cranberry wine. The mashed potato recipe came from a fellow food blogger at http://www.goodlifeeats.com, although I did add extra mascarpone cheese. The green bean casserole preparation was the same as described in my November 2012 Thanksgiving post. And although I modified it a bit, I have to give props to http://www.myrecipes.com for the original cranberry apple sauce idea.

Double Cranberry Apple Sauce

6 small to medium Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and diced to 1” cubes

1 (12 oz) package of fresh cranberries

3 tsp lemon juice

1 cup granulated white sugar

3/4 cup water

¼ tsp ground ginger

1 cup sweetened, dried cranberries

Combine the apples, fresh cranberries, lemon juice, granulated sugar, ginger, and water in a large sauce pan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, stirring often.  Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until the cranberries pop and the mixture starts to thicken (still stirring often). Remove from heat. Mix in the dried cranberries for texture. Pour the mixture into your serving dish and chill in the refrigerator. Serve cold.

My husband was the grill master for our tenderloin. He and I agree that the most important trick for any meat course is to start with a high quality cut. Don’t be afraid to ask your butcher what they have in the back. In our case, we had a perfectly sized section cut from the middle of the loin by the helpful people at the Dekalb Market, and we still spent less than at a traditional grocery store. We seasoned it simply with salt, freshly cracked black pepper, and garlic powder and cooked it to a medium rare over hot charcoal.

The cranberry wine was a nice touch with dinner, and the cranberry jam was perfect over toast for Christmas Day brunch. Speaking of Christmas Day, I have to take a second to brag on my foodie loot for the year. Instead of stocking up on candy that I shouldn’t eat, my family has gotten into the habit of exchanging nuts, dried fruits, and fun snacks (like the green bean and plantain chips pictured below). I’m excited to say that I also received a set of sustainably produced bamboo kitchen utensils, two new pans, two small spatulas, an herb chopper, a fun set of monster bag clips, a pie crust design cutter, and an adorable set of glass jars for herb storage. For some great culinary ideas, I received the Cooking Behind the Fence cookbook from Oak Ridge, Tennessee and the two-book set of Julia Child’s historic Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The piéce de résistance of the morning, however, was my new food processor. I’m sure these goodies will inspire a host of fun blog topics for 2013. I hope you’re looking forward to it as much as I am.

From my family to yours….Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Photos by Jenn Ballard

Happy, Happy Birthday

It’s almost Christmas, and it’s already been an exciting December.  I started the month by hosting my very first five-course meal to celebrate my 29^th birthday.  The meal started with a variety of cheeses, wine, and beer while everyone arrived and mingled. It continued with a wilted green salad and bacon vinaigrette dressing; a rustic mushroom soup; an entree of fig and goat cheese stuffed pork tenderloin and roasted vegetables; and a whiskey-cherry upside down cake.  I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone that made this celebration possible. It was by far the best “grown-up” birthday I’ve ever had.

The mushroom soup was delicious and super easy! The recipe came straight from my fellow bloggers at http://blog.seasonwithspice.com.  The tenderloin was also incredibly straight forward. I made it with figs from my own yard (frozen back earlier in the year) and seasoned goat cheese instead of the blue cheese recommended in the original recipe (http://www.whatwereeating.com).  The whiskey-cherry upside down cake is one of the more complicated cake recipes I’ve made, but it is totally worth the effort. For great directions on this culinary treasure, see www.endlessimmer.com.

After the birthday excitement, my husband and I celebrated another first. We bought a live Christmas tree for the very first time.  We visited Jack’s Tree Farm in Talking Rock, Georgia and picked out a fresh white pine.  Unfortunately, when we arrived home, we discovered that our tree stand was not quite large enough for our selected tree.  It spent the night in a stock pot of water before being set upright and decorated.   Aside from the natural beauty and lovely smell of a live Christmas tree, there’s a lot of peace of mind for this nature-loving hippy in knowing that this tree is produced sustainably and can be composted after the holidays.

 

Photos by Jenn Ballard, Jamie Brantley, and Maria Evola