Cilantro-Lime Black Bean Burgers on Nature's Pride Whole Wheat Buns

I'm ready. I'm ready to strengthen my cooking muscles. I'm ready to enhance my kitchen abilities. I'm ready to take my culinary skills to the next level. How am I going to do that? Start inventing more of my own signature recipes.

When Foodbuzz and Nature's Pride sent me some of Nature's Pride 100% Whole Wheat Buns, I wanted to challenge myself and not only make something I've never made before but also try coming up with something new. Lo and behold: Cilantro-Lime Black Bean Burgers. These are so tasty, you don't even need any seasoning. The combination of onion, garlic, cilantro, lime and black beans is so flavorful that adding any salt or pepper would be criminal. These burgers are healthy. Black beans provide good protein. The Nature's Pride 100% Whole Wheat Buns are sturdy and hold up well. You can definitely stack a couple burgers easily in one bun. They taste delicious too.

These burgers are simple and unique. They'll knock your everyday beef burger out of the park! Try it out. What are you waiting for?

Ingredients

1 small onion chopped

2 cloves of garlic

1 29 oz. can of black beans, rinsed and drained

zest and juice of one lime

3 tablespoons (small bunch) of cilantro leaves

1 egg

1/2 cup of breadcrumbs (less to taste)

Sliced plum tomatoes

dollops of sour cream

Nature's Pride Whole Wheat Buns

Makes 6-8 burgers

In your food processor, add your onion and garlic. Pulse until minced. Then add black beans, lime zest, lime juice and cilantro. Pulse until smooth.

In a bowl, add the bean mixture, one egg and breadcrumbs. Mix until the egg and breadcrumbs are incorporated.

With wet hands, form the black bean burger mix into patties. You can get 6-8 out of this mixture, I happened to make 7.  Heat up your grill pan and add a drizzle of light olive oil. When the pan is hot, grill  each patty until its crispy on both sides. These are delicate burgers so be careful when flipping.

Toast your Nature's Pride 100% Whole Wheat Buns. Each package comes with 8, so if you make 8 burgers you can use the whole bag! Add your burger to the bun and top it off with a couple of slices of tomato, a dollop of sour cream and some cilantro. Enjoy!

Cilantro-Lime Black Bean Burgers

Three New Experiments

Hey, I'm not perfect. I never claimed that I was. In fact, there is still a lot about cooking that I need to learn. There are a lot of techniques that I need to fine tune and a lot more recipes for me to try out. Not to mention all the cooking equipment I have yet to use!

Here are a few firsty firsts. Dishes/plates I tried. I made mistakes and I learned from them. Because that's what cooking is all about. Learning from your failures and becoming a better cook because of them.

1. The Meatball Sub

Here I took small Ciabatta rolls and split them in half. I laid out 8 bottoms onto a baking pan and topped each with three meatballs, some marinara sauce and some fresh mozzarella cheese. I broiled it in the oven until the cheese was a little brown and very melty. Then I placed the tops back onto each sandwich.  I really love meatball sandwiches and dream of creating the perfect meatball. Alas, the right mixture of meat, filler and seasoning escapes me. I can't quite get it right. In this sandwich, the meatballs were so-so but the combination of the marinara, fresh mozzarella and the Ciabatta bread made it a worthy meal.

2. Pulled Pork Plate

Maybe my biggest mistake was making this on a queasy stomach? I saw a recipe for Slow Cooker Chipotle Pulled-Pork Sandwiches on the Betty Crocker website and thought it would be a good last hurrah for my beloved Crockpot before I put it away until the Fall. The recipe calls for a whole pork shoulder which I intended to buy but just couldn't. I carried a shoulder with me through the grocery store and freaked out about it looking like a real body part. I put it back into the meat section and picked out another cut. I don't remember what it was but it worked. I rubbed a dry seasoning onto the pork, set it to cook in my crockpot and when I came home from work it was cooked to perfection. Soft and fall-off-the-bone-that-wasn't-there-to-begin-with. I made the sauce per the directions but I think I had too little sauce for that much meat. The coleslaw was an experiment. I tried a dressing of mayo, dijon mustard, salt and grated onion. It was so-so. I wanted to put a sprinkle of sugar but my beau fought against it as he started to devour the bowl. I really wish I had pickle slices and thinly sliced onions to go with the sandwich. And that the bread was better. The salt and vinegar kettle chips went well with the meal and the sandwich was just fine!

3. Tuna Noodle Casserole

Who the heck eats this stuff? This is the first time I have ever even tasted Tuna Noodle Casserole let alone make it. My cooking and recipe skills were at it's best here. I completely created this recipe from scratch with virtually no help. 1-1/2 bags of egg noodles, Bechamel sauce made with 2 tablespoons of flour, 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 cups of milk, a cup of frozen peas and 3 small cans of tuna. Salt and pepper to taste and a breadcrumb topping. Baked it in the oven at 375 degrees for 20 minutes and when I opened it up to take the casserole out I was almost knocked unconscious from the bad fishy smell. Blech. When I tasted it I felt a bit strange. Like that feeling you get when someone looks at you inappropriately and it gives you the heebie-jeebies. I much prefer my tuna and pasta combo cold, not hot or warm or even room temperature. Double blech. Let's hope my beau doesn't get food poisoning when he eats the stinky leftovers.

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Have you had any recent failures or experiment gone so-so? What's the best lesson you've learned from a cooking mistake?

Greyhounds & Carlos' Birthday Dinner

Tuesday was Carlos' birthday and we celebrated by having a quiet dinner at home. The menu consisted of Carlos' favorites. Pastel de Choclo, a Chilean casserole with beef, chicken, eggs, olives, raisins and a special corn topping. For dessert, it was Chocolate-Chip Banana Bread. For an after-dinner drink, I made Carlos' favorite cocktail, the Greyhound. These were very easy to make and were absolutely delicious. So delicious in fact I may have over indulged a bit. If you make these, please drink responsibly because they are pretty strong.

Greyhounds

Ingredients:

2 parts vodka

5 parts grapefruit juice

ice cubes

Add the vodka and grapefruit juice shaker with a few ice cubes thrown in. Shake shake shake. Pour into highball glasses that have a few more ice cubes in them. Or you can serve them in cocktail glasses with or without ice.

Back in Carlos' bachelor days, his friends got him a Bachelor-style set from Funusual which contained a shaker, a jigger and two cocktail glasses. It's such a fun set. The shaker has pick up lines printed on it and the cocktail glasses have the male and female symbols. Invite a lady over to your place, mix her a drink, use some of the pick up lines and maybe get a little frisky later. Oh well. Too late for Carlos. He's stuck with me! He never used the set and I pulled it out of the original box and packaging (the receipt was still attached!) and am now putting it to some good use.

Flan ~ A Story of a First Attempt

Flans are difficult to make. The process requires much delicacy and it's so easy to turn it into a dessert disaster. First there is the caramel. If you don't get the right heat, your sugar water could turn into a dry crystalized cake or into a super thick burnt caramel. Gosh forbid that you stir! Then there is the egg custard. It's so easy to make an egg custard taste like sweetened scrambled eggs. Bleh. You need to temper the eggs and slowly add the hot milk mixture or otherwise you risk the irreversible curdling of the eggs.

Flans are scary.

I was brave and tried one anyways. I have to say that it came out pretty decent. Your regular flan would be a little darker on top. Mine was very light because I couldn't get my caramel to come out to that dark amber color that I wanted it to. However, the custard came out smooth and creamy and it set perfectly. I was very nervous about flipping the custard and breaking the flan. But when I turned it over and it came out of the baking dish without any breaks, I gasped with delight. I jumped up and down in my kitchen doing my special happy dance, much to my boyfriend's amusement.

The original recipe comes from Emeril Lagasse from the Food Network site. This one called for vanilla bean and orange rind but I stuck with vanilla extract to simplify.


Ingredients:

1 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of water

3/4 cup of sugar
1 tablespoon of vanilla
1 quart of milk

6 egg yolks
4 whole eggs


You'll need a 2 quart baking dish and a larger baking dish that the 2 quart can fit inside of. I only had a 1-quart baking dish so I used half of this recipe.

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

In a medium sauce pan, combine 1 cup of sugar and 1/4 cup of water until the sugar is fully dissolved. Heat over medium heat until the sugar becomes an amber brown. Whatever you do, DO NOT STIR. You can stir initially to combine but as the caramel heats up make sure you only swirl the sauce pan. Once the caramel is done, quickly pour it into your baking dish covering the bottom thoroughly and moving a little of the caramel up the sides. Set aside.

In another pot, add a quart of milk, 3/4 cup of sugar and the tablespoon of vanilla. Stir and heat over medium heat until it comes to a boil. Turn off heat and let it sit for about 20 minutes.

In a large mixing bowl, add your yolks and whole eggs and whisk. Slowly add the hot milk mixture. Be very careful. You don't want those eggs to curdle. Take it little by little constantly whisking.

Pour the mixture into your baking dish. Place the smaller baking dish into the larger one. Fill up the sides with hot water until it reaches half way up the smaller baking dish's sides.

Add to the preheated oven and cook for 1 hour.

Remove from oven and let side for 20 minutes. Then remove from the larger baking dish and let cool for 20 more minutes. Cover and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.

When cool, run a knife along the edges to loosen up the flan. Take a plate and flip it over onto the top of the baking dish. Flip the baking dish and plate and tap the bottom of the baking dish to loosen up the flan so it comes out. Remove the dish. Serve cold.

Flan