Peanut Butter and Chocolate: The Perfect Marriage

As I mentioned earlier, Randy gave me a break from cooking on Saturday and baked a chicken. When he brought up the idea of having hot chicken sandwiches, I jumped on board. Food smothered in gravy? Yes please!

Like I said before, when it comes to cooking in our house, Randy handles the basics and recipe-less meals while I take care of recipe experimentation. He cooked his chicken and filled our kitchen with a yummy, warm mix of chickeny smells while I chilled out on the couch with a glass of wine and some Ricky Gervais Show (best. show. ever.).

We're making a concerted effort to try different types of wines - I don't like red at all (there's something about the smell that just irks me) so we're trying to buy more variations of white wine from different countries and whatnot. I prefer Sauvignon Blanc and this weekend, we picked up a bottle of Monkey Bay - a reasonably priced (13 bucks a bottle) New Zealand wine:

I really liked this wine. It was fruity but not overpowering. Yum!

Meanwhile, Randy was in the kitchen cursing on the gravy (turns out he accidentally put in too much gravy browning and turned it black) and being the perfectionist he is when he cooks, he opted to dump it, despite my cries of protest. Knowing how bad I was jonesin' for some gravy, he had another go at it, using chicken broth. He paired it with some boiled potatoes and carrots, all of which I drowned in gravy:

Randy insists the whole meal was a bust and that his gravy was the shits, but I really enjoyed this! If you look closely, you may be able to see some chicken in my delicious gravy soup.

This is him preparing the chicken, prior to his gravy frustrations:

Yesterday, I wanted to make some turkey burgers as we had some ground turkey left in the freezer. I have a lot of problems with some turkey burger recipes I have come across so far - turkey burgers have a reputation for being somewhat bland and dry and the recipes I have found so far do not do much to fight that reputation.

Until I found a recipe for Spicy Turkey Burgers online and the turkey burger was born again.

Seriously, try this recipe:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Spicy-Turkey-Burgers-109795

I got it from epicurious.com and it is the most succulent, delicious, NOT dry in the least, yummy yummy turkey burger recipe.

I won't post the recipe in its entirety as you can easily click on the link but I will make note of a few substitutions I made. I used medium instead of mild salsa, a regular onion instead of a shallot, no cilantro, and three tablespoons of oil instead of four. Also, I added an egg (there is none in the recipe) as an extra binder and about three handfuls of breadcrumbs (without these, I found the burgers to be too wet).

Burger ingredients chilling out

I plopped everything in a bowl and got to work making the patties. The patties, even with the addition of the breadcrumbs, will still be fairly wet feeling. Resist the temptation to add more breadcrumbs as you run the risk of drying them out, and they are too good to be ruined!

Yummy turkey burger patties

The recipe advises you to let them sit for about three minutes per side before flipping them,  but make it more like five minutes. Otherwise, they will crumble (I found out the hard way, but managed to bring the burger I ruined back to life. Phew!)

When my burgers were done, I placed them on a thinful hamburger bun  (I like this way better than regular hamburger buns...they focus on the meat and not on a double dose of bread!) and topped with a bit of salsa.

You really don't need any other condiments or burger dressings on these babies. The flavour in the burgers is more than enough.

To go with these, I decided to make some hashbrown casserole. I combined one cup of cream of mushroom soup, 1 cup of cheddar cheese, 1/2 tub of sour cream, 2 tbsp mayo, and 1 tbsp mustard and swirled it around in a large bowl.

Looks disgusting, eh? Once I mixed this all up, I added a bag of hashbrowns and folded them in:

I then baked it in the oven at 350 for 45 minutes. Note: 45 minutes is not long enough! I had already taken it out, dished it up with the burgers, only to find out some of the hashbrowns in the middle were still cold :( Good thing the burgers were so great. I ate mine (as it was already on my plate and I didn't really give a crap) but put the rest of the casserole in the oven for another 15-20 minutes.
Today is...you guessed it. Leftovers! But I promise the casserole is fully cooked now (I really hate when I fail at cooking).

Shoutouts from the past two days go to: Peanut Butter M&M's:

Whenever Randy goes to the store, I always ask him to bring me back a surprise and this time, he brought me this delicious treat. Peanut butter and chocolate are really the best combination. I like sucking the candy off the peanut butter center and then eating that separate. Yum!

Before I put an end to this entry, there's one little food-related annoyance of mine that I need to vent about:

Food Pushers.

I hate you. Seriously, I do not understand people who cannot take no for an answer. I am someone who doesn't like to eat a large lunch. I find that if I do, not only does it make me dopey, lazy, and sleepy but it also often sets me up to overeat for the remainder of the day. So generally, I keep it light with a sandwich and a piece of fruit or something similar in size. I have been in social and other situations where there is a big meal being served for lunch, or a big rich snack (when I might have already just eaten) and people will go, "Hey Kathryn, have some of this." Sometimes I will oblige, but other times, (like in the case of a large lunch), I will politely decline. At this point, I believe, the conversation is over. But for food pushers, it is an excuse to say things like "Oh come on, have some!"

(Again). "No thanks."

"Seriously, you should have something to eat. There's lots here!"

This is the point of the conversation when I want to scream and cry "Leave me alone!" but I again have to decline. Why, food pushers, why? Why can't you take no for an answer? Sometimes people just don't want to eat. If we're not 85 pounds and emaciated, take it as a sign that yes, we do eat, but we are just not in the mood for a meal right now. Please and thank you :)

Here's Sebastian chilling out with his buddy, the snowman: