Hamburgers again! I guess it's summer!

We had some friends over tonight, I wanted to make some yummy burgers. I was out watering our basil and think about how we needed to use it.
Then I started craving mozzarella, basil, and tomatoes together. Yummy!!! (It helped that my friend Jaime made the best couscous that had all of this in it!) Then I decided to try making a hamburger with all of that stuff. I was a little scared that it would taste terrible, but it turned out pretty good. In the end it reminded me of a bruschetta hamburger, so that is what we will call it.
Here is what I did:

About 4 1/2 lbs of hamburger (15% fat)
4 Scallions chopped finely
1/2 cup of chopped basil (lightly packed)
about 2 cups of chopped mozzarella (I thought it would be too much, because it looked like a ton, but it tasted great and was fine once it was cooked. Add less if you want.)
3 Tbls grounded Flaxseed (Just for the heck of it, you don't need it.)
1 egg
Salt (I almost forgot this, which is why my meats sometimes don't taste as good. HA!)

I made it into patties and we grilled them. Then we put a slice of fresh mozzarella cheese on top with tomato and basil. We toasted some bread that had been brushed with olive oil for the buns.

I thought they turned out great and its always fun to have a new way of doing hamburgers. I only ate one, but wanted more. I however was too full from the yummy potato salad that Valerie made and the fruit that Rachel put together. Thanks girls! It was a great meal!

Double chocolate- what more can I say?

I just got the Cooking Light Cookbook and I love it. Mostly I love looking at all the pictures and planning the different things I am going to make from it. HA HA!! I especially like looking at all the desserts, but I can't make them just for us! Therefore I love the opportunity to be the person to bring a dessert for the party or dinner. HA! The dessert I have been dying to do is this:
(Sorry I forgot to take any pictures of it finished on the plate.)

Double-Chocolate Soufflé Torte with Raspberry Sauce

Ingredients

Sauce:
1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 (10-ounce) package frozen raspberries in light syrup, thawed and undrained
1 tablespoon Grand Marnier (orange-flavored liqueur) I used orange juice instead

Torte:
3 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
2 tablespoons Grand Marnier (orange-flavored liqueur) I used orange juice instead
3 tablespoons butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar, divided
1 large egg
1/4 cup fat-free milk
1/4 cup Dutch process cocoa or unsweetened cocoa
2 tablespoons cornstarch
4 large egg whites
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/8 teaspoon salt
Cooking spray

Preparation

To prepare the raspberry sauce, combine first 4 ingredients in a medium, heavy saucepan; stir well with a whisk. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring frequently. Cook 2 minutes. Stir in raspberries; cook 4 minutes, stirring gently. Remove from heat. Stir in 1 tablespoon liqueur. Pour sauce into a bowl; cover and chill 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 300°.

To prepare torte, combine chocolate and 2 tablespoons liqueur in a small, heavy saucepan; cook over low heat until chocolate melts and mixture is smooth, stirring occasionally with a whisk. Place butter and 1/2 cup sugar in a medium bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed 1 minute or until fluffy. Add egg; beat 1 minute. Gradually add milk; beat at low speed (mixture will look curdled). Add chocolate mixture, cocoa, and 2 tablespoons cornstarch; beat at low speed until combined.

Place the egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt in a medium bowl; beat with a mixer at high speed until soft peaks form using clean, dry beaters. Gradually add 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating until stiff peaks form. Gently fold one-fourth of egg white mixture into chocolate mixture; gently fold in remaining egg white mixture. Spoon chocolate mixture into an 8-inch springform pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 300° for 45 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out almost clean; run a knife around outside edge. (The torte falls as it cools.) Cool on a wire rack.

Note: Grand Marnier adds a wonderful depth of flavor to his indulgent-tasting dessert. But if you must go alcohol-free, substitute water or orange juice.

Yield

8 servings (serving size: 1 wedge and 1/4 cup sauce)

This was surprisingly easy. It was super yummy and everyone that had it wanted the recipe. I have now made it two times and will continue to make it.

Lasagna Roll-ups

A while back someone made Lasagna Roll-ups for me and I loved them. I really don't like Lasagna very much, but I liked this variation. The other day I decided to try and make some. I found this recipe and decided to do it. I followed the recipe except I switched the cottage cheese for ricotta cheese. I loved it and thought it was really pretty easy, but looks a little nicer then the regular ones. You are able to dish it out a little cleaner then the typical layering method. I read on someones comments that it also makes a great freezer meal too! Always a plus.

Way to go Honey!

The other day I forgot to defrost any meat and we had a lot of frozen burgers left over from the block party, so I decided to do hamburgers for dinner. My dear husband took it to another level as usual. He decided to marinate the burgers in teriyaki sauce and grill pineapple to put with it. We also decide to use the stove top grill for the first time. It was so fun, but smoky. The burgers where great and was a good way to hide the fact that they were frozen burgers.I grilled up some asparagus and it turned out just right and it picked up some of the chard flavors from the burgers.

Good job Babe! That was a great dinner!

Recipe Review

I have tried my first recipe from the book "Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Seinfeld. I bought the book a while ago, because I liked the concept, but didn't make anything due to the fact that Adona is only 11 months and 29 days old. (HA!) Adona is finally old enough for me to try out these recipes on her, so I pick Tofu Nuggets as the first recipe.
I was expecting it to take a while to make and wasn't sure how the puree (I used peas) would stick to the tofu and how it would taste. I was surprised at how quickly I made this. It probably took me 15 minutes to make with a child holding onto my leg. The puree stuck great and Adona loved them. In the recipe she has you cut the tofu into cube, but I thought Adona would do better with sticks. The tofu is very delicate, so it didn't work the way I thought it would and will do it in cubes next time. I defiantly will make these again, since it is a great protein.

Oh how creative!

Dave loves ice cream and it amazing me the funny things he comes up with. The other day he wanted an ice cream treat, not just ice cream, so he decided to toast up some frozen waffles that we had. Then he spooned the ice cream in between the waffles, making it an ice cream sandwich. I thought for sure it wouldn't taste very good, especially because I think these waffles are not very good anyway. To my surprise it was wonderful! I loved it and have been wanting one since. HA!

Glazing, grilling, etc.

A couple of days ago Dave was watching the cooking channel and saw this recipe for guava glazed chicken. So he wanted to make it and it was wonderful! Ever since he has been trying different things like honey balsamic glaze or pineapple glaze. I must say I have enjoyed all of them, but the guava one is the best. We took pictures of the guava one, but we lost them on our camera, so here are pictures of the other ones.
Dave has saw on the next show grilled fruit dessert, so he decided that he would saute some bannans and put them on ice cream with a chocolate ganache. It would wonderful!!! Here is a recipe for what he did:
2 Bannanas cut in half length wise
Put them in a ziploc bag and sprinkle a tablespoon of sugar
Dave put some Almond extract in the bag too or you could do vanilla, just a drop.
Then put them in a pan and let them brown a little.
Ganache:
Warm 1 cup of Chocolate on the stove
Warm about 1/3 cup of milk in microwave
Add the milk slowly to the chocolate until it is the consistency you are wanting.

Put bananas and ice cream in a bowl and pour the ganache on.
The last thing I'm going to share is something we made for a dinner we were having with some friends. Dave loves stuffed peppers, but I hate peppers. To compromise we did stuffed tomatoes. We decided we didn't want to do rice (mainly because I don't really like rice too much either) so we did couscous, which is pretty much my favorite thing right now. We mixed the couscous with tomatoes and basil with some parmesan on top. It turned out great and I loved how easy it was! We just roasted them in the oven for a few minutes on broil and them were prefect! The best part is that people have no idea how simple it is! HA! They just think its so fancy!