Cheddar Burgers with Red Onion Jam

Who doesn't love a good burger?  I have to admit, I don't make burgers very often.  I probably should though.  There are an infinite amount of possibilities when it comes to burgers.  I have yet to try out my own because there are already so many burger recipes out there just waiting to be tried! 

I've had this recipe in my folder for awhile.  I finally got around to making this and am so glad that I did.  The original recipe called for ground round, but I used ground turkey instead and thought it came out great.  Since it's not quite grilling season yet (and we have a charcoal grill that I admit that I don't know how to use!) when I make burgers I usually cook them a little in the microwave and then finish them off in the cast iron pan.  The burger itself was tasty but the red onion jam was the real star.  Even my son was eating the onions!  Cooking Light recommends serving the burgers with baked chips and blue cheese dip (recipe below). I ended up serving with french fries and used the dip as a sauce for the french fries and the burger.

The Red Onion Jam

Cheddar Burgers with Red Onion Jam
Recipe adapted from Cooking Light, July 2009

A quick five-ingredient sauce tops cheesy homemade burgers to make an easy, delicious dinner in no time. Serve with baked chips and blue cheese dip.

Makes 4 burgers

Ingredients:

Jam:
1 teaspoon olive oil
4 cups vertically sliced red onion
4 teaspoons sugar
4 teaspoons red wine vinegar
3/4 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

Burgers:
3/4 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 pound ground turkey
Cooking spray
4 (1/2-ounce) slices cheddar cheese
4 (1 1/2-ounce) hamburger buns, toasted

Preparation:
1. Preheat cast iron pan to medium heat.

2. To prepare jam, heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add oil to pan; swirl to coat. Add onion; sauté 5 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low; stir in sugar, vinegar, and thyme. Cover and cook 10 minutes or until onion is very tender. Remove from heat.

3. To prepare burgers, combine oregano, salt, garlic powder, and ground turkey. Divide mixture into 4 equal portions, shaping each into a 1/2-inch-thick patty. Heat in microwave for 2 minutes. Put patties in cast iron pan. Cook patties approximately 3 minutes on each side, until cooked through.  Place 1 cheese slice on each patty.

4. Place 1 patty on bottom half of each bun; top each with 1/4 cup onion jam and bun top.

Baked chips and blue cheese dip: Combine 1/2 cup (2 ounces) low-fat crumbled blue cheese, 1/3 cup reduced-fat sour cream, 2 tablespoons canola mayonnaise, and 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar in a bowl. Mash with a fork.

Family Rating: 2 thumbs up.

Children's Book Review: The Leprechaun Who Lost His Rainbow

The Leprechaun Who Lost His Rainbow
Written by:  Sean Callahan
Illustrated by:  Nancy Cote
Published by: Albert Whitman & Company, 2009
32 pages

from goodreads.com:
It's raining, and Colleen is sad. How can her grandfather play his bagpipes in the St. Patrick's Day parade? His music is so beautiful it makes people laugh and cry at once. Suddenly, a leprechaun appears before her. He says he can make the sun come out by creating a rainbow - but to build its colors, Colleen must give up the thing she holds most dear. Sean Callahan's sweet, surprising story is complemented by Nancy Cote's bright paintings. A note at the end explains the science of rainbows and the Roy G. Biv naming tradition.

* A leprechaun named Roy G. Biv has lost his rainbow.  My kids didn't catch on to his name, which my husband and I explained to them after reading this St. Patrick's Day Story.  Colleen, the young girl in the story, needs to help him if she wants the rain to go away so the parade can go on.  She reluctantly has to give up some of her possessions to help Roy G. Biv create a new rainbow.  At the end though she helps Roy G. Biv and is able to watch her grandfather play his bagpipes in the parade and she gets a special surprise herself.  At the end of the story there's a little info about rainbows.  Overall the adults thought it was, eh, okay.  But the kids seemed to enjoy this St. Patrick's Day story.

Family Rating:  1 thumb up.

Steak and Cheese Sandwiches with Mushrooms

Prior to make this, I cannot remember the last I had a steak sandwich.  It's never something I think to order when eating out and I just don't think of making it at home.  I was cleaning out my recipe folder though and saw this recipe.  I figured I'd give it a try.  Steak sounded really good at the time and I love mushrooms and onions.  While the recipe calls for presliced onion and mushrooms, mine weren't so that added to my cooking time.  This is a super quick and easy recipe.  I thought it tasted really good with everything. The picture below was taken before I got to add the cheese, since it wasn't really warm anymore at that point and wouldn't get all melty anyway (this is what happens when I get the kids ready to eat and get their dinner plated....I usually get a not-hot-enough to my liking meal!). Let's see, my son ate just the bread and cheese and my daughter ate just the steak and bread on hers.  We had some filling left over. I had to go to the doctor for my yearly physical this past weekend.  Because I had to do a fasting blood test I warned my husband that I would be starving when I got home and I'd need my coffee.  Well, he ended up making me an egg sandwich using one of the leftover rolls and the steak filling.  Can I say, yum?!!  And very filling!  It was nice walking in the door to that breakfast!

Steak and Cheese Sandwiches with Mushrooms
Cooking Light, March 2008

Yield:  4 sandwiches

Ingredients:
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 cups presliced onion
2 cups green bell pepper strips
2 teaspoons bottled minced garlic
1 cup presliced mushrooms
3/4 pound top round steak, trimmed and cut into thin strips
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
4 (0.6-ounce) slices reduced-fat provolone cheese, cut in half
4 (2 1/2-ounce) hoagie rolls with sesame seeds

Preparation:
1. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion, bell pepper, and garlic to pan; sauté 3 minutes. Add mushrooms to pan; sauté 4 minutes. Sprinkle beef with salt and black pepper. Add beef to pan; sauté 3 minutes or until browned, stirring occasionally. Stir in Worcestershire sauce; cook 1 minute.

2. Place 1 cheese slice half on bottom half of each roll, and top each serving with one-fourth of beef mixture. Top with remaining cheese slice halves and tops of rolls.

Family Rating: 1 thumb up. 

Children's Book Review: Don't Let Auntie Mabel Bless the Table

Don't Let Auntie Mabel Bless the Table
Written and illustrated by: Vanessa Brantley Newton
Published by: Blue Apple Books, 2010
36 pages

from goodreads.com:
Auntie Mabel and her family and friends have gathered for their big Sunday dinner and can't wait to dig into a delicious meal. Before they can begin, Auntie Mabel starts blessing everyone and everything she surveys.

*  Now that our children are older, we recently began saying "Grace" before we eat dinner at night.  So, I saw this book and thought it was very fitting.  Of course, our blessing doesn't last quite as long as Auntie Mabel's!  Her family gets very upset that her blessing is taking so long and the food has gotten cold and has to be reheated. I can relate - I like my food to be really hot! This book brought back memories of my own childhood when we would go visit my grandmother for a big midday Sunday "dinner" with a lot of extended family.  Unfortunately, with family now all over, we do not continue this tradition.  Except for holidays, we really don't partake in regular family dinners with our extended families.  Overall, this was a good read.

Family Rating:  1 thumb up.

Spicy Broccoli Salad

In addition to her monthly Crazy Cooking Challenge Tina  at Moms Crazy Cooking also hosts a weekly This Week's Cravings themed link-up.  In honor of St. Patrick's Day, This Week's Cravings is Green Food.  I have shared the collard green recipe from yesterday and I am also sharing this recipe. 

Unfortunately, I rarely focus on veggie sides.  While I make a new main dish almost every night and experiment with carb sides, it's just so easy to take a bag of frozen veggies out and stick them in the microwave.  When I learned about the theme for This Week's Cravings I looked for main dish recipes and didn't really find anything besides pesto that really stood out as being green.  Broccoli....definitely green.  Broccoli crowns were on sale at the grocery store this week which made it even better.  Plus, I got to try a new veggie side dish recipe.   

My kids like broccoli so I make it a lot, mostly of the frozen, steam in a bag, variety!  I ended up adapting this recipe a lot.  I couldn't see myself buying a red pepper and a red onion for the 3 Tbsp. each the original recipe called for.  I'm really trying to avoid the unused pile up in the produce drawer, which ultimately ends up getting thrown out.   Then I assumed I had rice wine vinegar, which I didn't. I had rice wine and rice vinegar but not rice wine vinegar. The original recipe called for regular distilled vinegar as a substitute but I used half each of what I did have and hoped for the best!  I didn't add the crushed red pepper until after I spooned the sauce over the kids' broccoli.  My daughter thought it was too sweet.  However, my son ate his and both my husband and I enjoyed it.  It was definitely a nice change from regular steamed broccoli. I served this with Steak and Cheese Sandwiches with Mushrooms (see tomorrow's post!).

Spicy Broccoli Salad
recipe adapted from The EatingWell Rush Hour Cookbook, 1994.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 pounds broccoli
1 1/2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoons rice wine
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 teaspoons light brown sugar
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
Salt, to taste

Preparation:
1.Cut off broccoli florets. Trim and peel stems; cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Place broccoli florets and stems in a steamer basket over boiling water; cover and steam until cooked but still crisp, 2 to 3 minutes. Refresh under cold water. Drain well.

2.Stir together vinegar, oil, brown sugar and crushed red pepper in a serving bowl. Just before serving, add the broccoli and toss to combine. Season with salt.

Family Rating: 1 1/2 thumbs up.

Children's Book Review: Here Come The Girl Scouts

Here Come the Girl Scouts!
Written by: Shana Corey
Illustrated by: Hadley Hooper
Published by: Scholastic Press, 2012
40 pages

from goodreads.com:
The amazing, all-true story of the first Girl Scouts and their visionary founder.

Juliette Gordon Low--Daisy to her friends and family--was not like most girls of the Victorian era.

Prim and proper?

BOSH!

Dainty and delicate?

HOW BORING!

She loved the outdoors, and she yearned for adventure! Born into a family of pathfinders and pioneers, she too wanted to make a difference in the world--and nothing would stop her.

Combining her ancestors’ passion for service with her own adventurous spirit and her belief that girls could do anything, she founded the Girl Scouts. One hundred years later, they continue to have adventures, do good deeds, and make a difference!

* To go along with Woman's History Month, today is also the 100th Birthday of the Girl Scouts!  I became a Brownie Girl Scout when I was in 1st grade.  My mom was my sister's Girl Scout troop leader so my dad became my Girl Scout troop leader!  We were a family of Girl Scouts.  I continued in Girl Scouting until high school and earned my Silver Award.  I was happy that my daughter showed interest in wanting to be a Girl Scout when we saw registeration signs.  Although we registered back in October, her troop wasn't formed until just last month. Luckily, just in time for cookies!  So, my daughter is a Daisy Girl Scout! 

When I found this book in the library catologue I had to request it!  It gives a great biography of Juliette Gordon Low, a.k.a. Daisy and the beginning of Girl Scouts.  It's in a pretty easy to read picture book format with lots of colorful pictures.  I really enjoyed the motivating quotes printed throughout the book, most of which came from old Girl Scout handbooks and newsletters.  I thought it was a great book for my daughter, who both helped read and listened to the story, to give her some background to the Girl Scouts.

Family Rating: 1 1/2 thumbs up.

Children's Book Review: Tub Toys

Tub Toys
Written by:  Terry Miller Shannon & Timothy Warner
Illustrated by: Lee Calderon
Published by: Tricycle Press, 2002
32 pages

from goodreads.com:
The water's running, bubbles bubbling, time to grab some toys. One duck, two trucks, three bottles...how much can a tub hold? Even the bath-shy will relish the rambunctious rhymes in this ballad of a bubble-loving bather and his over-the-top attempts to assemble his army of toys. Good to the last -- surprise -- drop.

-- Perfect for luring hesitant bathers to the bath

-- Promising first-time illustrator
 
* Who doesn't love tub time?!  Ummm, me??!!  The kids love when daddy oversees bath time because, well, he actually lets them take a bath!  Me, I'm all about business.  Get 'em in, get 'em clean, and get 'em out!  Of course, this is weeknights after getting my daughter to finish her homework and before I attempt to get dinner on the table in a timely manner.  So, my kids probably found this book a little hard to relate to.  This was a cute story, told in rhyme, about a little boy getting ready to take a bath.  Somehow, more and more toys keep getting added to the tub.  For a first time illustrator, Lee Calderon has done a great job of creating bright, engaging pictures.  The kids were laughing at the picture of the boy's nude behind, because of course, aren't butts funny?!! Overall, a cute story about a part of the day that (most!) kids can relate to!
 
Family Rating: 1 thumb up.