Cooking With Us - E17 - Feta Burger

Finished product, from above

Howdy Everyone!

Sorry that it's been a few weeks, but are you ready for another episode of Cooking With Us?

I went to the market having really no idea what I wanted to make, but somewhere along the way I decided I'd make a sirloin burger with feta, as well as dried red pepper sauce, avocado, cilantro, and mushrooms!

Also, I was really excited and wanted to show off my new shirt ;)

 

Yes, it may have been a while in coming, but I finally have an 'Official' KumoCafe shirt.

Yay!!! 

Isn't it awesome?

Now, the only thing wrong with our burger turned out to be the meat, which I bought pre-made at our favorite local meat market. Sadness!

What was wrong with it?  It was just... well... boring!

I mean plain meat is rather plain, after all, isn't it?

Here comes the video, which you should, as always, watch full screen, in high-res, and of course - share everywhere!

Did I mention I was proud of my shirt? 

Yeah, the back has my URL on it. Woohoo!! 

Now, on to the cooking!

First things first: Making the red pepper sauce!

This is what the delicious, home-made sauce will look like when you're done!

First you're gonna start by adding ten Guajillo peppers to your blender Ninja!

And for some reason you're going to do this with a weird face.

I then added only three Ancho chilies because I wasn't really impressed with them.

To this, add a fair amount of water, since you're dealing with dried peppers.

Now blend!  Blend away!!!

I added a LOT of cloves of garlic, like maybe twenty? Something like that.

And yes, the text on the pic is right, we did boil it ;)

I also added what I would guesstimate was about a cup and a half of white onion.

Sadly it's true, I added seven Thai peppers and it didn't get very spicy at all. 

Will have to kick it up a notch next time.

Put it in a small sauce pan, and let it cook till it boils, then turn it down and let it cook a lot more.

You want to get rid of any of the chewiness from the peppers having been dried, which means a lot of cook-time.

While your sauce is cooking, rinse and saute your mushrooms. 

Now it's time to mess with your meat.

Oh you know what I mean!

Though I've found people in the North(East?) don't seem to care as much,

I grew up with a mom who made A-Ma-Zing hamburgers with tons of flavor just on their own.

I will probably dedicate a whole entry just to her burgers 

to make up for this egregious lack of effort on my part!

Any-hoodle, what's done is done.

We added our burger meat to a pan sprayed with Pam and let it cook.

My husband masterfully flipped it, and we drained the grease.

There was so much grease!

Also, don't forget to slice your feta, which will end up covering everything else on your burger.

If you happen to have a small dog in a bag on you, he might lick his lips repeatedly.

First, layer your cooked burger meat with the delicious red-pepper sauce you've made.

It will be the saving grace of this bland-burger.

Then, layer on some sauteed mushrooms. 

Yummy yummy!

If you love cilantro, go ahead and put some on too.

Your hubby might start talking about how this method of layering makes it a 

"Gourmet" burger... Just remember half the reason you love him is because he's crazy.

Now stack on some delicious avocado!  Avocado is, after all, awesome!

It's ok to marvel in the glory of the avocado.

Finally, top everything with your (hopefully) thinly sliced feta.

Then place it into your oven on bake (really, broil!) to cook the feta a bit.

And, no, plastic pan handles don't melt....

What?

Out comes your finished product!

Now, try to get a forkful of everything. 

Looks to me like Theron's first bite was lacking avocado - tragedy!

Don't forget to take a bite yourself!

I actually *did* get some of everything. 

Go me!

Feel free to glare at your husband when he mentions you live in Wisconsin.

Glaring is OK because you know that you've lived here for Three Years now!

Finally, both of you shrug because - while all the toppings and the sauce were awesome, the meat itself left a lot to be desired.

It's ok to admit a semi-failure.

Sorry about that - but feel free to work with the sauce and other goodness we shared with ya!

The sauce would truly be great on just about everything: Steak, chicken, ice cream, cookies...

Also, point out that you've been slacking on updates, and have your ever-supportive husband remind you that really, the food industry is doing just fine without your blog being updated every month.

Thanks babe.

But look how cute Brigly is eating feta!!!

D'aww that's so darn cute!

And finally, because you always support your family, be sure to once again try

selling the awesome earrings your cousin Sharlin made back in November 2013!

(She made lots of different varieties, so contact me for more info and pix!)

Did I mention you should buy one of these rad t-shirts as well?

No?

You really should ;D

Be my walking advertisement :D

The recipe and transcript follow, as always.

And thanks for checking in with us!

Ciao for now my friends,

-Val!

Recipe:

1. Red Pepper Sauce:

Thoroughly rinse 10 guajillo and 3 ancho peppers.

Add them, along with a fair amount of water, to your Ninja. Blend for quite a while.

Add in approx 20 cloves of garlic, 1.5 cups of white onion, and 7 (or more! Thai chilis).

Blend again!

Now add this mixture to a sauce pan, add salt, and bring to boil.  Then reduce heat and let it cook on low for a long time.

2. Burger Toppings:

Saute Mushrooms in their own juices

Rinse and chop the leafs from cilantro

Slice your avocado to top burger

Slice your feta into thin, wide slices to top everything

Layer your red sauce first, and follow with the previously mentioned ingredients.

Get better burger meat - and enjoy!

Don't forget to melt your feta first - though it really isn't necessary!

Transcript:

Hi there.

I know it's been quite a while since we've done a Cooking With Us show, and it's really bothered me, but I've just had other things on my mind and I just haven't gotten around to it.

And I've not been inspired, but today I'm like, you know what?  I'm gonna make something, and hopefully it's gonna turn out good, but I dunno.

By the way, do you like my new T-shirt?

KumoCafe...

And the URL is on the back somewhere.

Anyway, if you want one, which you should, e-mail me and I will... you know, sell one to you...

Even though no one took me up on the offers for my cousin's Dia de Los Muertos earrings.

Insert here... 

If you like my earrings, my cousin Sharlin made them, and if you want them, I will post a link below so you can buy them.

Think about it, 'cause she's really good at making earrings, and she's super talented so... anyway...

What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make a sirloin steak with feta.... and

I got cilantro. I also have some mushrooms I plan to use.  I'm gonna use some onions as well.

But what I'm gonna start out with are my dry guajillo chilis and - ah smells so good - my ancho chilis, which are also dry, and I'm gonna blend them up in here, well that means kill them, 'cause it's the Ninja..

And we're gonna see how that tastes.  I'm gonna add some garlic as well I'm sure.  But let's get started with this stuff first.

Ok so I'm putting ten, um... guallijo peppers in here...

They're not very spicy so... you know you have that going for you if you don't like spice.

This is what a dried ancho looks like.

It's kind of raisin-y and bitter... but we'll see how it tastes at the end... I wanna put three in for now because I'm just not sure.

Now I'm gonna put some water in...

Since right now it tastes pretty boring I'm gonna put in some garlic...

We're gonna boil it all in a little bit... Yeah, that's some.

And... Thai chilis, cause I want this to be spicy.

I'm starting with this much onion.

Time to cook it.

It needs salt, so we're gonna go with that for now.

So I went to Miesfeld's and I got what they called 'super sirloin' which just means it's already ready to be ...on the frying pan. And that's what we're gonna do.

Are you watchin' me?  Yeah? 
Yes you are.  That's how you was the mushrooms.

I think they're ok though.

Brigly probably likes that, that's cheese.

He is licking his lips. 

He's done it like ten times. He's like...

Brigly you can't handle yourself, can you?

So we're gonna put some pepper on the hamburger meat and and we're gonna start cooking it.

You want me to flip it?  Yeah flip it.

You wanna put that on first?
Yeah.

'Cause the meat's essentially done. Yeah.

What's he doing?

He's like, I'm not being included.

I'm putting individual ingredients on it.

That makes it gourmet?

I dunno, it's getting special attention per serving, maybe that's gourmet... Right?

That's plenty.

Yeah... that looks good.

Maybe we should put it in the broiler.
We can put it in the oven and it'll cook from the top, we can bake it from the top.

Mmmm  grease.

That looks like everything. 
It seems to be.

It's like a multifunctional -
You might wanna bend down there.

Hm..

Uh oh...

Hmmmm...

It's not giving me like an outstanding Bow! This is awesome, we should do it ten more times.

The meat doesn't have a lot of flavor. Everything else does.

The mushrooms are good, the cheese is good, the cilantro's good, the sauce is good... but the meat's kinda like, like filler meat.

Mhm, it's cheese... We live in ...Wisconsin.

Uh oh... Hm hm Hmmmm.

The first taste I got was the sauce on the meat and so I was thinking, 'Oh no, it's good!'  But...

It's the sauce.

It's the sauce that makes it good. 

The meat has no flavor.

Nope.

Thank you for joining us on this short episode of Cooking With Us...Where we almost made something really yummy.

Um... but - lesson's learned. New meat next time.

Ciao!

....We've been slacking....

You know, I don't think there's a lot of like, outcry in the food industry because we haven't made an update in three weeks...

Good boy!

You swallow it, Brigly! 

Like he does meat, huh?

That's like how I eat candy.