Hamburgers and Corn, Tomato, Feta & Basil Salad for Dinner - YUMMO!

I found this recipe for Corn, Tomato, Feta & Basil Salad on Pinterest in the Spring.  I knew I'd be trying it this Summer with some fresh corn.  I was a little worried about the flavor combinations and it being a hot dish but it was delicious!  As you can see from my inferior picture, I did not use cherry tomatoes.  I had plum ones in the house so I seeded and chopped those and used basil from the hubs' herb garden.  I highly recommend this recipe.

I served the salad with the best hamburgers I've ever made.  And I've made some pretty good hamburgers in my life.  Flavorful hamburgers will all kinds of stuff in them: Monterey Jack Turkey Burgers, Turkey Stuffing Burgers, Pacific Rim Turkey Burgers, Inside-Out Beef Bacon Cheeseburgers, hamburgers with a little ranch dressing and freshly grated pepper mixed in, etc.  The burgers I made tonight were just plain ole 80/20 ground beef, but the way I cooked them made all the difference in the world!

When I make burgers, I split 1 lb of ground beef into 4-6 burgers, depending upon how much other stuff I put in them.  Tonight, I divided the 1 lb of ground meat into 8 balls.  I have a panini press that opens up completely flat and came with both griddle and grill plates.  I opened that thing up, put on the griddle plates and heat up to sear/425 degrees.  Than I put the back, flat side of my bash 'n chop kitchen tool on top of a ground beef ball and hit it with my meat mallet, smashing the ball into a cardboard thin patty.  I saw this technique used on a show last night.  A gentleman was touring the US, visiting the best burger joints.  One of the places flattened their burgers like this and served 2 on a bun with 1 slice of cheese in-between.  Then they fried the burgers in a pot of grease that is over 100 years old!  I cooked mine on my dry griddle plates.  The burgers weren't handled much because I wasn't mixing anything into them and being so flat, they cooked in a flash.  That's what contributed to the tastiness.  2 patties with a slice of American cheese in between them on a potato hamburger roll and we all agreed they were the best burgers we'd ever had.  I am going to make burgers like this from now on!

Leftover Wednesday - Trial & Error Chicken

Saturday through Tuesday we were out of town, visiting my in-laws at their Summer home in the mountains of western North Carolina.  The hubs and I thought we had emptied the fridge of all potentially lethal-foods-if-left-unattended-in-the-fridge before we left, but we were mistaken.  ;o)  We came home to a smelly fridge and it took me a bit to identify the culprits - decaying cilantro and an avocado past its prime.

I awoke this morning with the intent to go mega-grocery shopping since there was not much in the house, but the hubs had other plans.  I am so impressed with the progress this man has made during our 17 years together!  He declared that since tomorrow, Thursday, was our BIG shopping day, we should "make do" with what we had today.  So, after taking B to see the movie, Brave, this afternoon, the hubs and B went off to the range, and I was left to figure out what to make for dinner (popcorn at the theater was lunch).  As you know, I always have chicken breasts on hand and usually chicken wings, pork chops and ground beef.  Before leaving for the range, the hubs said we can do "something" with chicken breasts.

I opened the fridge, stared and tried to receive inspiration.  I saw Brussels sprouts (thank you, Robin D., for correcting me on my reference of this vegetable!) and grape tomatoes, both of which were on the cusp of being thrown out.  Finally, inspiration hit me - Grilled Bruschetta Chicken!  I love this recipe!  It's one of the recipes my friend, Julia, passed onto me.  Although I did not have Kraft's Sun-Dried Tomato Vinaigrette Dressing on hand, I had over a pint of grape tomatoes, and I figured I could make something close to that.  I was patting myself on the back for such brilliance (waaaaay too early, it turns out).

I looked online for recipes of Sun-Dried Tomato Vinaigrette and decided I could substitute the "sun-dried tomatoes" with oven-roasting the grape tomatoes I had on hand.  @@ (That mean "eye rolling" in type.  You may already know that, but I did not always know that, so I am sharing in case you did not know that).  Then I looked online for a recipe to slow-roast tomatoes.  I found 2 that I liked.  One called for roasted grape tomatoes (which I had) for 3 hours at 225 degrees and one called for roasting plum tomatoes (which I did not have) at 450 degrees for 25-30 minutes.  Since it was already 4:20pm and I did not have 3 hours to roast said tomatoes, I opted for the higher temp/shorter time recipe.  Unfortunately, I did not allot for the fact that I had grape tomatoes and the recipe called for plum tomatoes.  So, I cut all the viable grape tomatoes in half, sprayed them with grape seed oil (I am allergic to olive oil), grinded fresh pepper corns over them and sprinkled them with Kosher salt.

Don' they look nice?!

I put them in an oven set on Convection Roast for 30 minutes and they came out looking like this...

OK.  So my attempt at Grilled Bruschetta Chicken! did not go as planned.  You know what?!  My "vacation" away with the in-laws did not go "as planned" either, but I was not going to be defeated.  By now, it was after 5pm, so I made myself a drink, and knew the hubs would help me figure out dinner when he and B came home from the range.  And he did!  He went out back and snipped some of our fresh herbs:

He snipped Rosemary and Thyme and mixed them with Panko bread crumbs, salt, pepper and I added Parmesan cheese and did the traditional flour, egg wash, seasoned bread crumb mixture into a pan with oil.  And that's all we had for dinner - chicken.  No Veg.  No starch.  Just chicken.  And it was so wonderful and flavorful that we did not need anything else!  We went/are going to bed as happy campers with full bellies!  Woohoo for Leftover Wednesday!