Recipes and the birthday party

Well, like I expected, I didn't get any pictures of the food. I barely even got to eat it! I was running around refilling jugs of drinks and making sure that everyone was happy all while trying to be sociable. I'm just happy that everyone liked it so much! I think it was a huge success. I only got two drumsticks and I was getting interrupted so much while eating them, but boy were the delicious. Hah! I was eating vicariously through our guests. Everyone loved the mushrooms, by the way. Edward said that they were delicious.

The only bad thing was that I tried to turn out my cake too early and it broke. A friend of mine did manage to get the stuck piece out and put it on so that it didn't look so bad. Since everyone was there I didn't try to frost it and glue it back together. It was supposed to be a carmel glaze anyway (I ran out of time to glaze). I was disappointed. Last year I had cake problems for Edward's birthday party too. I couldn't even get it out! I guess this is a step up. I usually don't have problems with this bundt pan though so I was pretty surprised. Even though it wasn't super pretty, the cake was very tasty. Allrecipes.com is a life saver. I did manage to get one picture during the party. This is literally the only picture I took. We've decided that we're the worst party picture takers ever. We always forget!

See the broken part?

This is the batter. Those chunks are apples and walnuts. Don't worry, I made sure everyone knew that there were nuts in the cake. Since working at the Y, I'm much more aware of food allergies and try to take them into account when making food for large groups of people. No one said that they were allergic to nuts so I added them, but still shouted out that they were in there just in case.

Anyway, enough of that. A couple of weeks ago I was on a burger making kick. Here are some yummy chicken burgers. We didn't grill them. I think that it was pretty cold outside and dark so I did them in a pan. For the chicken burgers I added EVOO since the meat is pretty lean. For the regular ground beef ones I didn't add any. That's homemade blue cheese dressing! I'll type up and post the recipe at some point. I don't normally like blue cheese, but this dressing is tasty. A friend of ours at the party liked it too and he's the same about blue cheese as I am.

Allison's Chicken Burgers

1 lb ground chicken
3 tbsp chili powder
2 tbsp onion powder
2 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp red pepper flakes
1 tbsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce

Mix everything together and marinate for 1 hour. Form into patties. Cook over medium heat until centers are fully cooked through. The patties will be pretty squishy if you make them thick.

Serve with homemade blue cheese dressing and toasted buns.

Grade: A+

The next day I also made regular burgers. I think Edward said that he liked them better than the chicken. I recall enjoying the chicken more. I apparently didn't write down what I did with the burgers, but I think I used onion and garlic powder, a minced chipotle chili, salt and pepper. Probably some red pepper flakes too. Since I didn't put a binder of any sort in, the burger didn't stay put together very well.

For Edward's bday I also whipped up some spicy salsa. We had gone to Applebee's the night before and their salsa was pretty good. After inspecting it, I decided that I could make some myself. I had a habanero pepper in the fridge so I used that. It was soooo good and spicy, but if you don't like the kick as much as we do, you can use jalapenos.

Allison's spicy salsa

1 habanero pepper, with seeds
5 cloves of garlic
half a medium size yellow or white onion, coarsely chopped
2 tbsp kosher salt
1 28 oz can of petite cut tomatoes or diced

In blender puree habanero, garlic, onion, salt, and a little of the tomato liquid until it is smooth. Mix the puree with the tomatoes so that the puree is distributed throughout. Serve cold with chips.

Other significant events around here:

• We got a Chipotle! It's about 35 min away, but we still travel out there. A new one is going to be opening up in October and it will be only 10 min away. We are so excited. What we do now is buy one burrito to eat there and then buy one to take home. Since Chipotle burritos are delicious reheated, this isn't a problem at all.
• Emmy hurt her paw. We were playing at the grassy area across from our house and I noticed that her paw was all bloody. She just kept on going while I was freaking out! You all know how intense she is when it comes to frisbee playing. She didn't even seem to notice until I rushed her home. Then she was like, "Oh, hmm, I'm hurt." It's been about a week now and it looks like the nail is going to come off. It was sticking straight out at one point during healing. I guess she got it caught on the ground and it tore away from her ankle. She hasn't been limping as much lately, which is good. The poor girl is probably getting cabin fever. We haven't take her to play since it happened (we do try to take her on car rides though). When we had the BBQ she was all excited because of our guests and the house across the way was also having a party. Just running back and forth woofing her head off in the backyard had her limping hard. Yesterday she came barreling into the house on three legs. She wasn't even putting down the hurt paw. That made me sad and I made sure to tell her how much I love her. So we've cut back on play time since she got hurt. As soon as she's better we'll be back out on the field. I haven't been very worried since she's still on antibiotics for her hole. I figured that if she starts getting an infection the antibiotics will help it. She's been keeping it really clean though, so I don't think there is any infection setting in. She's going to the vet tomorrow for her followup so we'll have the doctor check it out just in case.

• Last, the semester is now over for the both of us. We are so relieve. I'm just not looking forward to the intensive summer class (a whole semester's worth of work crammed into three weeks) that starts on the 11th of May. But on the bright side, I'm three weeks away from being a Master!

Here are some bonus pictures of Emmy having at a rice spoon. Look at that tail! She wasn't even giving me the time of day when I got down and put the camera in her face.