Try bodacious burgers during National Burger Month

The Oakland Press printed an article about National Burger Month.

Any one burger sounds lovely, but expensive; check out the list.

But even if you can't afford a $15-$20 pound burger, all is not lost.

You can meet or exceed these burgers at home, with some expert help.

Permit me to point you in the direction of two of my favorite Food Network stars: Rachael Ray and Bobby Flay.

Both have serious burger "street cred." Bobby has hosted a grilling show on Food Network for a number of years. Featured on the Food Network site is a slideshow of Bobby's best burgers with links to the recipes ... and each one is a bit different.

Rachael's cookbooks and her magazine "Every Day with Rachael Ray" are full of great burger options, including healthier choices such as white chicken or turkey meat burgers.

One of the things she does well is to change up the size of her burgers; I love her appetizer-like takes on burgers. Check out this video for an example:
Mini Chipotle Burgers

Yes, I call Rachael and Bobby by their first names. That's because they've spent a lot of time in my living room and inspire me. I know good food, well-cooked, better than most restaurant food is obtainable in part due to watching their shows.

And Bobby, I don't squish my burgers down anymore to keep them from being too high in the center. I use your little trick of putting an indentation in the burger's center so when it puffs up, it's at the same level as the rest of the burger. Thanks for the tip!

In Pursuit of the Perfect Turkey Burger

One of the complaints I've previously had about turkey burgers was that they were bland. It was as though it were a given characteristic in my head: turkey burger = bland. I've used turkey in everything else (chili, cutlets, breast, sloppy joes, spaghetti, Spanish rice and lasagna), but not in burgers. Well, not until today, that is.



My low opinion of turkey as a burger base probably stems from my first-ever exposure to turkey burgers. Kathy, one of my roommates my senior year of college, was helping her boyfriend, Craig, adapt to a bland diet. I was present for the debut of her turkey burger, which featured dill almost exclusively as a seasoning. (If I'm recalling correctly, he had to avoid anything spicy, even pepper, and couldn't eat beef. It wasn't awful, but I did have to resort to decorating the burger with huge amounts of ketchup, which is what I do to regular hamburgers.

Since that time, I've tried turkey burgers in restaurants and have found extensive ketchup to be a necessary evil, although it's garnered me some weird looks. (Apparently, turkey burgers are usually served in restaurants with a honey mustard or other mustard-based sauce, not ketchup.)

Then I started to watch Rachael Ray and had hopes that perhaps turkey burgers didn't have to be bland. Oddly enough, my first foray into an all white meat turkey burger was not one of her recipes. It was one clipped from the newspaper, which readers liked enough to ask the columnist to reconfigure it so it could be served as a meatloaf. So it sounded promising.

Again, it was a little bland, despite my having thrown in more pepper and oregano than the recipe called for and using egg as a binder rather than applesauce (it would not have held together otherwise).

The result? It didn't require ketchup, so it was better than average; however, I felt driven to invent a mustard/horseradish/yogurt "cream" sauce for it. And I'm not sure I can replicate as I didn't follow my usual rule of writing down — or even measuring — its ingredients.  Oops.

But it did give me some lovely ideas for experimentation. (Mom and I discussed the possibilities of cilantro in addition to the spinach in it and yogurt sauce with dill, onions and cucumber, somewhat similar to the sauce used in Olga's Kitchen.) 

As I can be rather stubborn once an idea takes hold of me, you probably haven't heard the last of my search for the perfect turkey burger.

A New Rachael Ray Show starts Saturday

Wow; twice today, I've found timely food news. This is much better news than my last post about the Granola Thins recall.

Rachael Ray has a new show debuting on The Cooking Channel (which, by the way, is Channel 232 on my Direct TV satellite system).  I saw the ad the other day, but happened to be looking for the day and time of the show, which I couldn't recall. It's Saturday (tomorrow!) at 3 p.m. I'll be watching it.

I found an article on a blog called Everything Rachael Ray, which I think may become my new favorite blog to follow (thanks for the tip, Madeline!). The new show, called Week in a Day, uses the concept of cooking ahead for the week and simply reheating your meals when you want them. It's not a new idea by any means (I have a couple of 1990s cookbooks based on the same principles).

I like the idea that Rachael will be test-driving the recipes first; although I often make substitutions and (less frequently) errors in making her recipes, it's usually turned out well. (We won't, however, discuss the results of putting in too much minced garlic as a substitution for chopped garlic cloves!) Another "mistake" I made I'd do again on purpose. I turned a vegetable side dish into stoup by putting in an entire can, rather than just a cup, of chicken stock.

A Collection of Recipes to Try

I haven't been doing nearly as much cooking as I want to be and thus have been collecting an incredible number of healthy recipes that I'm holding in reserve to review (and probably change out a bit here and there).



Two such recipes are from Alyssa Yeager at Kitchen La Bohème I love reading her blog; she's a very creative person on a mission to eat healthy and primarily vegetarian and vegan. I totally respect that, but I'm not sure I could give up eating my mom's pot roast and meatloaf (or bacon with my eggs). The links to Alyssa's blog entries are below:

EASY DELICIOUS VEGAN Pumpkin Spice Loaf with Maple Glaze
VEGANIZE IT Turkey Cutlet Sandwiches with Smoked Paprika Mayo and Roasted Bell Peppers


Last night, I also saw a re-run of Rachael Ray's 30-Minute Meals, which featured an intriguing "pizza." Why is "pizza" in quotes? Simply because its base isn't dough, but a portobello mushroom cap. I love mushrooms on my pizza. I think I also could learn to like pizza on my mushrooms by making her Portobello Pizzas recipe. I also liked the looks of Proscuitto with Pears and Arugula, another recipe in the same episode.

If anyone makes these recipes before I do, let me know how they turned out.

By the way, it appears The Rachael Ray Show is moving to ABC as of tomorrow, which I didn't realize until I didn't see her in her usual 11 a.m. NBC slot and did some research on the Web. I don't watch TV all that much, so I guess I missed the memo.

Review: Recipe Rehab

I always like it when an unhealthy favorite is made healthier, whether it's in Every Day with Rachael Ray or Taste of Home Magazine.

I found a new blog recently on the Web that does the same thing.

Tanya Zuckerbrot fixes recipes ... one at a time on Recipe Rehab, a That's Fit website feature. In her Chocolate Chip Cookies  rehab, she goes a little into the history of chocolate chip cookies (which is very cool) and replaces some of the flour with whole wheat flour and replaces butter with a mixture of uses a Smart Balance 50 percent butter blend and fat-free sour cream. I plan to try it sometime. Other wonderful sounding rehabs she's featured recently include Homemade Hamburger Helper (with whole wheat pasta and ground turkey breast) and Raisin Rice Pudding. Fill out a form to have her make over your favorite here.

Cookbook Review: Rachel Ray Express Lane Meals

As always, Rachael gives twists on staples such as hamburger, cheese and bacon in Rachael Ray Express Lane Meals.

Open Face Blue Moon Burgers sound wonderful, as does Cowboy Spaghetti, which is also rated five out of five stars on Food Network's website. I'll have to tweak it to include non-dairy cheese, but that shouldn't be too difficult. The Balsamic Chicken with White Beans and Wilted Spinach is one recipe I made. I highly recommend the chicken part. The wilted spinach is good, except that I added too much liquid and it turned into spinach soup (which was still good, but in a whole different way than I expected). If you use bottled minced garlic, make sure you use a bit less than the equivalent of four minced garlic cloves. It gets stronger as it sits in your frig!

I plan to make the Smoky Sweet Potato Chicken Stoup someday when it cools off a bit. I love the concept, although I'll have to buy chipotle peppers in adobo sauce just for this recipe.

Probably the absolute best part of this cookbook is at the beginning, where Rachel has a three to four-page section discussing her 70 "go-to" staples (and the quantities in which she keeps them). It's a very useful tool for new cooks unaccustomed to stocking a pantry/frig so it's not necessary to buy ingredients for every recipe you cook.

Knowing me, I probably won't need as much hot sauce as she does, but it's a guideline. 
If there's something you won't eat, don't buy it! (Personally for me, that would be anchovies, thanks to the job of my youth working in a pizza place.)

Cookbook Review: Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats

First of all, I think Rachael Ray is brilliant at coming up with different (and usually fairly healthy) twists so you’re not eating the same old food. I watch her shows regularly. I have three of her cookbooks (the only other person who holds that honor is the late, great Peg “I Hate to Cook” Bracken).

I will say that in her 30 minutes, she gets a lot more done than I do! (Unlike Rachael, my area of food “expertise” is baking.) I’d almost never do a new main dish and a new side dish together on a week night, which she always manages to pull together on 30-Minute Meals.


My first (partly) successful Rachael Ray recipe, 3 Beans and Some Chicken, was from Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats. The pan-fried chicken, which incorporates EVOO (extra-virgin olive oil), thyme and the juice of one lemon, was terrific, even if it took me longer than 30 minutes. I don't exaggerate when I say the chicken portion of the recipe alone is worth the price of the book. It’s my favorite way to eat chicken.


The beans didn’t turn out as described, primarily because I added too much chicken stock (there's a big difference between one can and one cup of stock!). It had to be served as “stoup.” It did taste good and I think I’d leave it as “stoup” if I made it again, but I'd also add some garlic to it. The next time, when I didn't have the time (or patience) to make the side dish and the chicken, I thought, “I hate to waste the lemon zest used in the bean mixture” and threw it in with the rest of the marinade. The lemon zest made it even better. The third time I made the chicken, I decided to marinate it in the cast-iron frying pan I cook it in and simply let the marinade evaporate until the point that the chicken browns on both sides. It was still awesome, and I had one less pan to wash.


Here is a recipe I made inspired by this recipe, featuring key lime juice, zest and cilantro. I have yet to try orange juice with the chicken, mostly because I’m not sure what herb to use to complement it.


Lime-Cilantro Chicken


Ingredients
Thinly-sliced chicken tenders (about 1 to 1 1/4 pounds)


Marinade:
two turns around the pan (about two TBSP.) EVOO (extra-virgin olive oil)
zest and juice from two key limes
Salt and pepper to taste
2 TBSP. roughly chopped cilantro (I don’t recommend dried cilantro for this)


To make marinade: Put the olive oil, lime zest, lime juice and cilantro in the pan, turning the pan around until the mixture covers the entire bottom of the pan. Salt and pepper chicken to taste (salt can be omitted, if desired), then marinate about 5 minutes on each side. (Each piece of chicken should have cilantro on it.)


Just before the marinating is complete, pre-heat the burner on medium high and then put frying pan on (I use a fine mesh pan cover so the oil doesn’t spatter too much. Clearly, I also use an electric stove; on a gas stove, I'd start with the pan on the burner.)


Reduce heat slightly when oil is sizzling. Cook approximately 6-8 minutes on each side, until browned and chicken has no more pink in it. (I usually cut the largest piece to be sure it’s done.)


The next recipe I plan to try from Rachael is in her May 6, 2010 web edition: Coconut Mango Chicken with Black Beans.