Greek Burgers and Tzatziki

While I don’t want to sound trite, I must say the first of May caught me off guard. I can’t believe it’s May, the school year is almost over and the kids will be out for almost three months, it’s time to register Top Gun for kindergarten, and summer is almost here. But that also means it’s grilling time around our house, actually more grilling time since we like to grill year round, we just happen to do it more often in the warm months. Really, I like grilled food in January but I don’t like freezing my fingers while making it!

Burgers are one of Builder Guy’s favorite foods, so we grill up a batch every once in a while. Some times I just want a slice of sharp cheddar and good barbecue sauce on top, but other times I like to play with the toppings: guacamole with caramelized onions, chimichurri, chipotle salsa, roasted red peppers with some kind of gooey cheese. The sloppier the better. And I happen to like tzatziki on my burgers, especially with arugula or an arugula pesto. Read more

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Slow Roasted Tomato Hummus

In the summertime we grow tomatoes in our garden, and sometimes we get a bumper crop like we did this past year. We ended up with so many tomatoes we couldn’t eat them fast enough and I slow roasted a few batches to put away for the winter. If you look up “slow roasted tomatoes” on Food Blog Search you’ll find several blogs have written about it, and I chose to follow the instructions at A Veggie Venture. After roasting I packed the tomatoes into jars with the olive oil and spices leftover from roasting and topped off with more olive oil. The jars keep well in the freezer.

We’ve used them in several ways, and last week we opened another jar and added some to a batch of hummus. It only took a few bites for Michael to proclaim this the best-tasting hummus we had ever made and we quickly went through it and made more. This makes a great healthy dip that I like to nibble on for lunches, but we also like to spread it on sandwiches. Read more

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Cranberries with Orange Zest and Port

Every year we look forward to Thanksgiving day and start planning well in advance. The boys are still only slightly interested in the holiday, though they seem to enjoy turkey more than they used to. One of my favorite parts of the holiday meal, even more than the turkey, is the cranberries, but you would never know if you came to our home for Thanksgiving dinner. Every year I make cranberry chutney or some kind of cranberry side dish, and about half the time I forget to serve it along with dinner. It remains in the refrigerator, forgotten and forlorn while everyone dives into the turkey, potatoes, gravy, beans, salad, and rolls. Read more

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Passion Fruit Curd

We’re breaking away from our regularly scheduled autumn foods programming to bring you something tropical and fragrant and oh so delicious.

I have a bit of location envy when it comes to certain food bloggers, specifically those who live in climates that support subtropical fruits and vegetables and extended season gardening, and two of my very favorite food bloggers, Todd and Diane of White on Rice Couple, live in that kind of happy situation. They have a fantastic blog with gorgeous photos and a bountiful garden. Have you seen their garden video? Well in addition to all that talent in the kitchen, in the garden, and behind both still and video cameras, they have generous hearts.

Diane remembered an off-the-cuff comment I left one time about their access to local passion fruit and dropped me an email a few weeks ago saying she wanted to send me some of their passion fruit. My jaw dropped and my heart skipped a beat and I couldn’t type YES THANK YOU fast enough. The very next week a small box arrived in the mail with five passion fruits and a note.

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Spinach Arugula Pesto

This is our first year growing arugula, and I have to say I’m impressed with how easy it is to grow. We planted it a box in early September, and within three days we had sprouts. It required little maintenance, just watering. One thing we’ve learned in the process is that arugula gets more peppery as it matures. The leaves had a mild peppery flavor early on, but now some of the larger leaves are downright bitter, so balancing the feisty flavor with spinach seemed the way to go for this pesto. The original recipe at Epicurious.com calls for serving on top of grilled hamburgers, which we did, and the combination of the peppery arugula, garlic, and crushed red pepper makes a great topping for hamburgers or vegan burgers paired with grilled onions and Swiss cheese.

The original recipe calls for quickly wilting the spinach in the microwave, though you could do it in a steamer basket, too. For a time saver, I think the recipe still tastes good when using raw baby spinach.

This is my contribution to Grow Your Own, a blogging event that celebrates the dishes we create from foods we’ve grown, raised, foraged, or hunted ourselves. If you are new to the event, you can read more about the rules for participating at the Grow Your Own page. Submissions for this round are due on October 30, and you can send your information and photo to me at andreasrecipesgyo AT gmail DOT com. Read more

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Chimichurri

My fondness for chimichurri started back in the early 90s when I was teaching in Colombia. There’s this great restaurant called Andres Carne de Res north of Bogota, and I remember having chimichurri with a steak there. First of all, the steak was one of the best I’d ever tasted (still), the stuffed grilled tomato on the side was fabulous, and the chimichurri just seemed to bring it all together. I seem to remember plenty of cilantro in their chimichurri, which is probably what drew me to it.

Chimichurri has it’s origins in Argentina but is popular throughout South America. The basic ingredients are herbs, garlic, olive oil, paprika, and vinegar, but there many variations and it seems that no two families make it the same way. Some people like to use just parsley, or combine parsley with cilantro or oregano, and the amounts of garlic and liquid ingredients vary. Some recipes have a little heat in the form of pepper flakes, and I’ll toss in a few every now and then. Roasting the garlic is another delightful variation that lends a subtle buttery flavor.

It’s a great all-purpose sauce that goes well with beef, chicken, and fish. Chimichurri is quick and easy and quite healthy with all the vitamins and minerals from the herbs and garlic. The parsley provides loads of vitamin C, which helps our bodies to absorb the iron in meat. We enjoy the freshness of the parsley and oregano from our garden. I usually add cilantro, but my plants are very slow in producing right now, so no cilantro this time.

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