Black Bean-Quinoa Burgers

Very Pretty.

This recipe comes from Vegetarian Times.

http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipes/11676?section

You can "Like" them on Facebook, that's how I happened upon 

this little gem. They randomly post recipe links.

I love quinoa so that in the title always gets my attention.

The recipe is pretty straight forward.
The only thing I question is where they have you add 1 1/2 cups
water to the sauteed onions and then simmer it till most
of the water evaporates. That's a lot of evaporation going on.
I think I will cut that back to just one cup next time.
Also, I didn't have dried steak seasoning so I threw in some
Essence of Emeril. Not my best choice but I will say
the patty is neutral enough that you could pretty
much throw in any spice combo that suits you and it would be good.
Just be sure to go a little heavy, it needs the flavor.

The surprise part of this was the little
tomato-olive salad I made to throw on top.
I had a bunch of small heirloom tomatoes that I had bought
at the farmers market the other day and I couldn't
stand for them to go bad so I cut some up, threw in the
left over black olives from Margarita Friday, some shallots,
garlic, olive oil, basil and balsamic. I copped it all up
pretty fine, thinking a tampanade sort of thing
and threw it on top of the burgers.
Yum!

Score one for the Vegetarians!

Blue Margaritas

In honor of Aidan Matthew!

Lory's newest grandson (she's up to 3 of them)

had the good form to be born on a Thursday

so as to not disrupt Margarita Friday.

And in so doing, gave us extra reason to celebrate.

I like this kid already.

I have a couple of hints about the blue margarita.

Use Blue Curacao instead of Triple Sec. 

And if you want truly blue as opposed to 

the kind of green I got

 ( the color in the picture is way better than real life)

use a clear tequila as opposed to the golden 

standard fare. That combined with the yellowish 

lime juice and golden agave gave me a pretty solid

gold that when mixed with my blue

gave me art 101, green!

So, next week if I take my blue/green margarita

and put in watermelon ice cubes will 

I then get

PURPLE!!??

And, can a rainbow margarita party be far behind?

September 19th

I learned something very important this past weekend.

There is an 

INTERNATIONAL 

Talk Like A Pirate Day.

http://www.talklikeapirate.com/

Oh, yes there is!

 And it's the day before my birthday!

These may have found their occasion!

My catering name for the event will be

Captain Chumbucket.

 I have wanted to throw a pirate wedding ever since

Michael and Michelle's Cinco De Mayo wedding.

I have had no takers. 

International Talk Like A Pirate Day 

may just be the next best thing. 

Shanna and Breese can breath easier. 

S'Mores Cupcakes

Sorry, no picture. 

This was another recipe form 

Cuisine At Home

magazine. 

They don't post their recipes on line so again, no link.

Sorry.

I have found quite a few recipes from this publication

 so I need to be sure to let my sister know that 

should she ever decide to stop her subscription 

to give me the heads up so I can get my own. 

Till then, thanks, Gaye!

This recipe was interesting on a couple of fronts. 

To make a really "graham cracker" cupcake

the recipe calls for you to pulverize graham crackers to dust

and then use said dust as the "flour." 

Interesting, huh?

The other fun thing and the point in my story is the 

marshmallow you make from scratch to top the 

cupcakes with and then toast. 

Toast.

Therein lies the problem.

I went in search of a culinary torch, you know, like a

blow torch but smaller. 

None were to be found except for one at 

Williams Sonoma. 

For $40. 

Um, no. 

The sales lady asked me what I was making and when I 

told her she asked if it was from 

Cuisine At Home magazine and that

I was the third person in there looking for a torch 

for the same recipe. 

That's funny but here's part two of that story;

two of the gals who work there and I put our

heads together and decided that people used their broilers

to brown the tops of things before they started bringing

apparatus in from the garage. 

Um, no. 

It just melts the marshmallow down into a flat disc

on top of your now melted ganache. 

Hence, no photo. 

PS, they did taste good. :o)

Jane Eyre

I have one question:

Did Charlotte Bronte have a word requirement?

As in, at least "X" number of words?

188,209.

I looked it up.
A Tale of Two Cities is only
135,420
and that had 2 cities!
Jane Eyre only has shires. 

The median word count for a novel is

99,341.

Looked that up too. 

http://indefeasible.wordpress.com/2008/05/03/great-novels-and-word-count/

I'm just sayin'....

I thought I was long winded. 

A Shower Gift

27 years later

Mike and I received this set of ten 

glass bowls from Crate and Barrel

27 years ago.

They've held; 

pancake batter on Saturday mornings,

pasta salad on summer evenings, 

gravy on Thanksgivings,

cake mixes for many birthdays,

guacamole for countless parties. 

They've been around for a lot.
And bounced around a bit too. 

So have Honey and I. 

And we're all still here. 

Imagine how pleased I was to find the same 

set of bowls on Caitlin's bridal registry.

I hope her bowls will be as durable as mine. 

Her marriage too. 

:o)

Caitlin's Bridal Shower

I actually went to a party that I didn't throw!

It was so much fun to see what other creative people do.

I didn't go around taking pictures of all the decorations

because I didn't want to be obnoxious but I did take a shot of this:

It's the cake!

And it's all edible!

And we aren't anywhere near Charm City Cakes!

And even more surprising was that it was delicious.

I always thought that it takes so long to make one of these works

of art that the cake must suffer for it. 

This cake was great, oh and it was chocolate.

You know they had to have a game. 

 I have never been a participant in this particular game before. 

I have heard of it. 

In folklore.

The guests are divided into teams and they

are given copious amounts of toilet paper and the charge

to create a wedding ensemble. 

I was in charge of the head piece. 

Obviously I missed my calling. 

Oh, and my team won. 

heh,heh,heh.