Noah's Fries Chicken Fried Cheeseburgers

Here's Noah's out of control cheeseburger idea, and it was a hit around here, as well as a hit to any diet ;).  Noah wanted an over the top cheeseburger, and he partly got the idea from one of our favorite restaurants around here, Mama Burger.  They put fries on their burgers, and Noah wanted to do that too.  Anyway, Aaron wanted another one of these, the boys and Aaron gave this a perfect 10, and I gave it a 9, because it was too much for me :).  Each burger is about 700 calories with everything on them.  We chicken fried the seasoned hamburger, topped it with cheese and fries, then made our burgers with toppings to taste.  Here's what we did:

1 lb hamburger meat
soy sauce, onion, powder, garlic salt and salt to taste

1 c flour
salt
dash of cayenne
1/8 t baking soda

1/2 c buttermilk
1 egg
salt

Oil for frying

curly fries, baked
sliced cheese

Toppings such as tomatoes, pickles, lettuce, hamburger buns, and condiments as desired

Heat the oil in a deep pot or a deep fryer to 350.  In two separate bowls, mix together the flour, salt, cayenne, and baking soda, then the egg, buttermilk, and salt.  Make the hamburgers with seasonings to taste, then form them into patties.  We made six burgers.  Dip each patty into the flour, then the buttermilk mixture, then the flour again.  Fry for about 5 minutes, then flip to the other side.  Place each patty on a hamburger bun, then top with cheese, fries, and desired toppings.  Serve!

Lauren's Latest Microwave Cinnamon Quinoa

Somehow, with changing out my Lumia phone back to an iphone, my pictures are not all there, sadly.   The good news is, I can now actually receive calls again at my house, so win!   Anyway, we tried out this breakfast quinoa from Lauren's Latest, and although we had to cook it longer than the recipe said, since I doubled the recipe, it was still a pretty fast and easy breakfast, and we all enjoyed it.  I didn't use maple syrup, I used brown sugar, but Owen and Noah both liked the syrup in it, and it was great with the bananas.  Each serving, with bananas and brown sugar, was 276 calories, but that will change based on how much or little brown sugar/syrup used.  Try this for breakfast, it's great!  We all gave it a 9.

Cook's Illustrated's Tacos (tostadas) al Pastor

Aaand once again we have no picture, I don't actually know what happened to them, but oh well, sigh :).  Tacos al pastor is a pretty traditional taco, and I've always shied away from making them because of the pineapple.  I don't love pineapple with meat, but I decided to go for it, because we are all about tacos in this family :).  I ran out of corn tortillas, and so we made these into tostadas, which worked out well.  This was a hit.  They were a little spicy, a little sweet, and the meat was tender and delicious.  It was also surprisingly simple to make, so a total win around here.  Owen and I gave these a 9, and Noah and Aaron gave them a perfect 10.  Calories are hard to figure out, depending on how many servings you want, but it is low, since the majority of the calories are from the rest of the ingredients, not the meat.  Plan for about 40-50 calories per serving.  I found this recipe from Cook's Illustrated's Best International Recipe cookbook, and here's the easy recipe the way I made it:

3 dried chilies
1-2 chipotle chilies in adobo sauce
6 oz pineapple juice
1-2 c cut up fresh pineapple
garlic salt, salt, cumin, and a pinch of ground cloves
around 2 lbs pork loin
1 T white vinegar

Preheat the oven to 350.  Toast the dried chilies for about 5 minutes, cool them and then stem and seed them.  Cover them with about 3 cups of hot water, and stir them intermittently until the chilies have softened.  Drain the chilies, transfer them to a food processor, then add the pineapple juice and spices, and chipotles and puree until smooth.
Lay the pineapple pieces in a greased square baking dish.  Place the pork on top of the pineapple, then cover it with half of the pureed mixture.  Cover the dish tightly with aluminum foil and bake it for about 2 hours.  Remove the pork from the oven and let it set.
Shred the meat with two forks, add in the vinegar, and more of the chili mixture if desired.  Serve.

Tartine's Lemon Tart

This was a rich, deliciously tart, crispy dessert that we all really enjoyed.  I found this recipe in Tartine, and we liked that the tart wasn't too sour, as sometimes lemon tarts can be.  We all gave this a perfect 10, and the calories per serving were around 450, depending on the tart shell used.

1 recipe pate sablee (here is a link to one from Martha Stewart, I used the one in Tartine), cooked and cooled

1/2 c plus 2 T lemon juice
3 whole large eggs
1 egg yolk
3/4 c sugar
pinch of salt
2 sticks/1 cup butter

In a double boiler, combine the lemon juice, whole eggs, egg yolk, sugar, and salt.  Whisk together constantly, allowing the mixture to become very thick, which could take quite a while.  Remove the bowl from the boiler and allow the mixture to cool a little.  Cut the butter into small pieces, and then place the butter piece by piece in the lemon mixture, and using an immersion blender, blend up the butter.  The cream will be opaque and quite thick.  Pour it into the tart pan, cover and let cool completely.  Serve with whipped cream.

Owen's Copycat Taco Bell Beefy 5 Layer Burrito

Well, here's another Taco Bell treat, and this turned out so well.  Everyone felt like these tasted just like Taco Bell's Beefy Five Layer Burrito, but with a better tortilla and a little more flavor, so all good things :).  Owen loves this burrito, and so we decided to recreate it at home, and hooray, everyone but Owen gave it a perfect 10, he only gave it a 9 because he doesn't like the spice in the nacho cheese (he gets his without nacho cheese at TB :)).  This isn't really that difficult, the only thing that is in any way difficult is the nacho cheese, and it is important to note that it uses some Velveeta, because nacho cheese isn't the same without processed plastic cheese ;).  Anyway, each serving is around 450 calories and here's what to do:

home made nacho cheese sauce 
1/2 c of 1 lb velveeta melted with 1 can Rotel or Rotel dip
1 lb hamburger
1 T chili powder
1 t cumin
1/2 t coriander
1/2 t onion powder
1/2 t garlic salt
salt and pepper to taste
1 can refried beans (canned is better than homemade because of trying to taste like TB, homemade is better if you like food to taste delicious :))
tortillas
grated cheese
sour cream

Mix together the Rotel dip with the homemade nacho cheese, stirring well, and keeping warm.
Brown the hamburger in a skillet and drain the fat from the pan.  Add in the spices to taste, and set aside.  Cook/warm the tortillas, then layer the tortillas with nacho cheese, hamburger meat, refried beans, grated cheese, then sour cream.  Roll and serve.

Thanks Owen for a fun dinner idea :)!

Anne Burrell's Roasted Pork Loin with Cider and Applesauce

While I wasn't sure we were going to love this, especially when things went south with my applesauce, we ended up really loving this.  I found this recipe on food network, and it is Anne Burrell's recipe.  Each serving was 267 calories for six servings, and the score was a 9 from everyone.  I didn't use nuts, and the apples ended up burning, so I supplemented with unsweetened apple sauce that I cooked down with the rest of the ingredients in the recipe, then followed the recipe normally.  This was a fun, easy to make recipe, and we enjoyed it.

Owen's Baked Mug Root Beer Donuts

So making baked donuts is similar to making muffins, you just get to use a fun pan :).  Anyway, these donuts Owen came up with were a hit with the boys, and they worked well.  I wanted my glaze to harden more, so I used the idea from Peabody for her glaze.  This will give you a nice frosting rather than the syrup we got :).  The calories are 311 per donut, and the boys gave them a perfect 10, and I gave them an 8.  We didn't have any root beer flavoring, this would be better with a root beer flavoring, but if you just like a sweet, semi-root beer donut, use vanilla extract like we did :).  Anyway, Owen loves root beer, so we made these donuts for him.  Here's what to do:

2 cans root beer, cooked to concentrate it  (it takes at least 20 minutes to cook it down to 1 1/3 cup)

2 1/4 c flour
1 T baking powder
1/2 t salt
1 c sugar
1 T vanilla (or vanilla and root beer extracts)
1 c concentrated root beer
2 T butter melted
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1/2 c yogurt

1/3 c concentrated root beer
8 T butter
2 1/2 c powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 350.  Grease a donut pan or line a muffin tin.
In one bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.
In another bowl, mix together the vanilla (root beer extract), concentrated root beer, melted butter, egg yolk, egg, and yogurt.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, stir until just coming together, then place in the greased donut pan (or place in paper muffin cups) and cook for 10-12 minutes for the donuts.  Remove from the donut pan, let cool a few minutes, the dip in the glaze.

Cook the concentrated root beer and butter until the butter is melted, then stir in the powdered sugar.  Let cool a little then dip the donuts in it and let them cool.