Tag Archives: what’s cooking

Homemade Foie Gras Burgers

Enough of the Bebe post… although incredibly adorable… Lets talk burgers folks!

Sometimes a burger is MORE than just a burger. Let’s chat specifically about the foie gras burgers you’ve seen featured various times on our Instagram. To us, topping a homemade beef patty with a delicious hunk of perfectly seared foie gras is just sooooo comforting. The two belong together like peanut butter and jelly. Trust us on this one!

Look at that perfect rich buttery perfection. Mmmm!

We had the opportunity to share our homemade burgers with the Mr’s mom while she visited and helped us the first week after the birth of our bumblebee. Unfortunately, she wasn’t as excited to jump on the bee burger creation train (I know she’s laughing if she’s reading this).

If you’ve never had foie gras, we understand that you might hesitate to try, let’s be honest.. it’s intimidating. We also understand that if you do try, its one of those foods that are an acquired taste, you might love or loath. As a workaround we suggest throwing the foie gras on a burger like we do and you might find it less intimidating to try out. Give it a shot!

Have you ever tried foie gras? What did you think if so? We’d love to hear from you!

What’s cooking?

Continuing on with our new year quest for meal prepping and planning, consuming better foods and striving for less food waste, we’re glad you found your way back into our kitchen and home again for our food recap.

There’s just something very meditative about weekly food preparation, perhaps it’s my OCD coming out? Seriously…coming home after a long week of work and preparing/ menu planning for next weeks round of breakfast, lunches and dinners has a calming and relaxing end result when you really let yourself enjoy it. It also helps that the Mr. supports and recognizes the importance of it too. (I have express and give my pure gratitude to this man too! Feeling under the weather this week, he cooked almost all of the deliciousness for us shown below).

^Homemade buttermilk scones served with a nice cuppa vanilla honey rooibos tea.

^ Homemade oven baked chicken kiev, with a side of crispy curried carrots and sun-dried tomato and feta spread served on top of homemade rye bread.

^ No bake 5 minute brownie from Minimalist baker. Slowly trying to curb my crazy sweet tooth, plus I’ve been itching to use up my cacao powder Healthworks Raw Certified Organic Cacao Powder, 1 lb This was very different texture wise, not terrible, but filled the temporary void, left out the espresso the recipe called for.

^ Spicy Japchae, jabchae, chapchae, chop chae, or chap chae (Korean: 잡채) (glass noodles, peppers, sesame seeds, onions and veggie-meat) and Maneul Jangajji (chili paste and pickled garlic scapes). Served with a side of korean purple rice.

Lots of pickling, preserving and burning our mouths this past week! Mr. B Made some garlic scapes Korean style. If you don’t know, garlic scapes are the green parts of the garlic, do NOT throw these away, instead make Maneul Jangajji!

Maneul Jangajji

12 hrs total (11.5 soaking)

Directions:
Pepper mixture:
1 cup dried pepper flakes (ideally Korean peppers)
1 cup Gochujang (Korean red pepper paste)
3 Tbs white vinegar
2 Tbs fish sauce (or to taste)
6 garlic cloves minced
3 Tbs brown sugar
1/2 cup hot water (may have to add slightly more if scapes are very well-drained)

The intent is to have a thick paste with a consistency of cream spreadable peanut butter or very slightly watered down.

Scapes:
cut off whiter tougher parts of scapes and trim to 3″. Boiled salted water. Pour over scapes in an insulated bowl (glass/ceramic etc) and leave sit (make sure to cover with a plate) for 11-12 hours or longer until they start to yellow. Drain and cover with pepper mixture (easiest to do with gloved hands).

These can be eaten immediately or saved if packed in the mixture for several months in fridge.

(Best compliment ever was when Our Korean foodie friend was over eating dinner with us and said that this was better than her moms! Mr. B’s Korea cook level awesomeness was achieved!)

^ Spaghetti and our homemade meatballs! You know.. Plenty of garlic and basil, you know, a nice dose of nerve-steadying herbs.

^ Shared a meal with our dear friend over our ground beef patties seasoned with our own special blend of spices. The burgers had oyster mushrooms, red onions with torched sharp cheddar cheese, fried egg and foie gras flavored with homemade BBQ sauce and horseradish mayo. The buns were coated with foie gras oil and toasted in the pan for finishing. Annie’s White cheddar Mac and cheese and salads on the side (you know, keeping it classy).

^ Homemade almond biscotti from America’s Test Kitchen (Household favorite!)

^ A delicious mediterranean steak salad!

And last but not least…. freezer meal prep for the unknown weeks that are to come. Chuck steaks ground, seasoned and formed into 1/2 lb burgers. Not pictured, because someone fell asleep on the job, vegetable beef stew and slow cooker pork BBQ with homemade BBQ sauce.

Click, Ship & treat yourself

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What’s cooking?

Welcome back to our kitchen! Pull up a chair at our kitchen island and get comfy. Outside of our mini Mardi Gras feast and unbeetable Valentine cake, we’re sharing the recap of what we whipped up in our kitchen over the past week. We’ve got some exciting nostalgic dishes we’ve made a bit more modern to share with you!

Drumroll please..we tested out four more family recipes from Mr. B’s grandparents handwritten cookbook that dates back to 1949! It’s so special thinking about and picturing Howard and Rose cooking these very recipes together back then in their kitchen, perhaps doing the same exact things were doing in the present day.

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This super crunchy coconut granola! It’s been perking up our morning Greek yogurt and fruit routine. Try it! Next time I’m thinking I’ll use coconut extract instead of vanilla.

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Chicken Marsala with homemade garlic bread and garden salads.

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Seared tuna, a fairly regular staple at our table, was served as the main dish alongside of diced oven roasted rutabaga.

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The first family recipe tested was parsley curried corn. Originally we prepared as directed straight from the recipe, but in the end slightly altered it to more of our taste. SPICE! Yeah, we had to kick it up a notch and make it a bit more modern with the addition of hot madras curry powder. This dish was absolutely delicious and is a new favorite for sure.

^
The second B family recipe tested was, pork tenderloin in cream sauce. Again, after preparing as originally directed, we modernized and altered by seasoning to our taste, it just didn’t have the pizazz we were after. We ended up adding green peppercorns and chopped onions.

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We paired the pork tenderloin with garden sweet peas, sautéed mushrooms in a pepper sauce and puréed sweet potatoes seasoned with maple, butter, pepper. D-licious!

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Oven roasted eggplant halves stuffed with zucchini, yellow squash, spicy Italian sausage, onion, and gorgonzola cheese. Like spaghetti, these were even better served as leftover for lunch, the flavors just popped even more!

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The stuffed eggplants were served with a side of roasted garlic butter mushrooms sprinkled liberally with salt and cracked black pepper. These little guys were like a vegetarian alternative to Escargot! The mushrooms gave the texture and the butter, garlic, salt and cracked black pepper brought the taste. Plus who doesn’t like the fact that the caps hold in all that buttery goodness? It’s all about those vehicles for butter 😉

The third family recipe tested was “Boston Baked Beans” and “BBQed Chicken”.

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The Boston baked beans used dried beans and minimal ingredients which consisted of molasses, sugar, salt and a bit of pepper and home cured bacon. The Flavor was fantastic!

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The BBQed chicken was a chicken quartered and the sauce was from scratch. The sauce simmered away for quite a bit of time on the stove, then it covered the chicken and was baked. This recipe was delicious with a delightful blend we were not accustomed to. Oh! the chicken came out super moist too!

^
Then there was a quick last-minute dessert created. Inspired by our recent trip to Manimal in Itaewon, Mr. B halved bananas and drizzled them with homemade caramel and then topped it all off with fresh vanilla whipped cream. Boom! Front runner to the Bananimal!

Alright folks, we will meet you back in our kitchen again soon!

What’s cooking?

We find ourselves together back here again at the end of the week. Can I get a Fri-YAY!?

While I know we observed MLK day and we had a shorten week compared to most, it just seemed to sort of drag on and on…what do you think? Perhaps it was the REALLY cold temperatures we’ve been experiencing as of late? Whatever the case, let’s get throw in another Fri-YAY! 😉

So what’s been cooking in your kitchen? Do share, we’d love to hear! In the meantime we will share just what’s been going on in ours…

Mr. B made a recipe from his grandparents cookbook dating back to 1949! Beef porcupines. Don’t worry there were no porcupines harmed in the making of the recipe haha! These little guys get their name from the way the rice pops out of the beef when they are done cooking.
Oh Lordy were they absolutely delicious! I know Mr. B made his grandpa proud that night!

^Google them!

Pizza night! Combination pizzas made with Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Pizza Crust, 16-Ounce. Have you ever used any of the Bob’s Red Mill mixes? We’ve dabbled in quite a few and always end up pretty pleased.

We topped the pizza with mozzarella, tons of roasted veggies eggplant, yellow peppers, red peppers, red onions, mushrooms, homemade meatballs, cheese filled jalapeños and cracked an egg in the center because we’re crazy like that! Oh and a side of roasted jalapeños filled with melted cheese.

We even ventured into the land of homemade vegetable hummus too! (Hey it’s all about getting those veggies in, right?) Yeah…Green pea hummus to be exact. Pretty outstanding and will make many future appearances in this house. You can thank us for sharing later.

We whipped up vegetarian BBQ. It’s sort of old school family BBQ recipe we have from Ms. B’s grandmother, but with a modern twist of using veggie crumbles.

And of course we mentioned Iowa Girl Eats blog meal on our last post, grilled chicken with a barley-corn salad. Think of the taste of a BIG bread-less BLT (YUM!).

Alright folks, we will meet you back in our kitchen again soon!