Easy and Tasty Burgers

Given my ineptitude in the kitchen I am always looking for fool proof recipes and when my hubby suggested making these simple burgers I thought, "Why not?" and tried them! I have now made them several times and they could not be any easier.

I am sure most of you are familiar with this recipe from Campbell's Soup. Basically you take 4 burger patties and brown them in a pan. You add one can of Campbell's Condensed French Onion Soup to the party, bring to a boil then knock down the heat to simmer for 6-7 minutes. That's IT!!!!! I melted down some swiss cheese over my burgers and ate mine with some BBQ sauce an tomato slices and my friends there you have the easiest, quickest and tastiest burger!


Recipe:

1 pound ground beef

1 can (10 1/2 ounces) Campbell's® Condensed French Onion Soup

4 slices cheese (I used Swiss but you can use whatever you like)

• Shape the beef into 4 (1/2-inch-thick) burgers. (I bought pre made patties from the butcher, they come out better and are uniform in size)
  
• Heat a 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Add the burgers and cook until well browned on both sides. Remove the burgers from the skillet. Pour off any fat.
• Stir the soup in the skillet and heat to a boil. Return the burgers to the skillet. (I didn't even take the burgers out) Reduce the heat to low. Cover and cook for 5 minutes or until desired doneness. Top the burgers with the cheese and cook until the cheese is melted. Serve the burgers on the buns with the soup mixture for dipping.

Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken and Sauteed Spinach

Hello everyone! Sorry I have been such a slacker. I haven't really been cooking because I have been being a bit of a baby lately and cooking stresses me out but today I went grocery shopping and cooked some dinner so I thought I'd share with you what I did.

I made goat cheese stuffed chicken with sauteed spinach on the side. Boring, I know... I should have made another side but I am lazy!


The chicken was easy. Not extraordinarily flavorful but not bad at all. All I did was take boneless, skinless chicken breasts and cut a slit in the middle for the stuffing. I stuffed each with garlic and herb goat cheese, dipped each piece in eggbeaters, flour, eggbeaters, flour and stuck them in a pan to brown. After they were brown on each side I transferred them to the oven (on 350 F) for about 10 minutes until they were cooked through.


The spinach was a piece of cake, I should make this more often because it is tasty and easy. I heated a few tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and about a tablespoon of minced garlic in skillet and added my washed spinach to it, some red pepper flakes and a splash of lemon juice. I put a top on it, cooked it on medium heat for 6 minutes or so and it was done.

Spinach cooks down a lot so it looks like a ton when you first put it in but you wind up with a smaller portion. One thing I found is that it gave off a lot of water so I had to drain it before serving. I don't think there's much you can do about that.




So I could have used another side, I know... but it was tasty and pretty decently healthy. Goat cheese is my favorite thing ever. It's so decadent. YUM!

Until next time.....

Overcooked Meat Anyone?

Yup. So I set off BOTH smoke decetors in the house.... a few times... And since hubby works 3rd shift he was sleeping and NOT excited to hear the deafening beeping. At least I know they'll work if the condo ever IS on fire, right?

So I tried to make london broil. Issue: We don't have a grill. We LOVE grilled food... especially any steaks. Steak, IMO is only really good at a restaurant or grilled. We live in a condo and though we have no where to keep a grill and each summer we get depressed knowing we have to go elsewhere to enjoy some good BBQ. My husband loves red meat and red meat comes out disgusting when it's cooked inside, IMO but alas I tried it and here's what happened.

I broiled it. I did 5-8 minutes on each side as recommended. Well 4 mins into the first side the freekin' smoke alarm starts going off. Panicking I ripped it from the ceiling downstairs (let's hope hubby can fix that when he gets up). Since he was sleeping I didn't want it to go off so I removed the battery... well it works without it. Good in case of fire... bad when there's no fire and honestly no real smoke... there was some smoke but not fire like smoke. THEN the upstairs alarm, outside the bedroom door went off. Yup, he woke up... not too excited but he went back to sleep. It went off a few more times after that and I was near tears thinking "why didn't I just get takeout?"

So anyway I made the following.

London Broil marinated in this Jack Daniels Mesquite marinade.
Mashed red potatoes with cream cheese and dill.
Mushrooms with garlic and butter.
Asparagus with lemon, garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil. (This is how I usually make it. I usually cook it in the oven but since I was broiling I just sauteed it on the stove and it came out fine).

So ya. Nothing can ever go smoothly. My entire house smells like meat now and to top it off it was incredibly overcooked and dry. Yes, I let the meat stand before slicing, it still sucked.




I must apologize for being MIA. Honestly I am so stressed looking for employment that I didn't want to deal with cooking and for the last 2-3 weeks we have just been ordering out everyday. I should have ordered out today too.

Behind the Blog: Interview with Gina

Tell us about yourself.

I'm Gina. I am a 25 year old [unemployed] attorney, and a blogger. Like Sarah I am obsessed with Disney and I was also married in Disney World in 2009. When I am not in Disney World I wish I was and unfortunately I don't get there nearly as much as I wish I could but I have to admit I do go there more often than most people I know. I have two adorable kitties, Shooter Kitty and Deuce who I spoil and a wonderful husband named Steve who spoils me.


What are your hobbies?
ha! I don't do much. Hobbies were pretty much non-existent during law school (I had no time!) and now that I am out of law school I find myself with ample time and nothing to do! I spend most of my time looking for a job (yes, I passed the Bar exam but all those comments about how bad the economy is right now are true folks.) I love blogging and I love to read. I like all types of books. Lately my favorite author is Jodi Picoult but she can be depressing at times so I am on to lighter things in between her titles.

What scares you most about the kitchen?
EVERYTHING. OMG. I hate grocery shopping, as you've heard. I hate meal planning and I stink at it. I cannot even tell you how many BURNS I have from attempting to cook. The kitchen is the Devil!

I read a recipe and I just freak out. I look at it on the paper and say "nope, too much". Or WTF is it about recipes sometimes. Like I have a chicken salad recipe that starts with "8 oz. of cooked chicken", well tell me, how was I supposed to cook it. Grill? Fry? Bake? Why doesn't it TELL me!?

What can you cook?
Ha!! Microwavable entrees & pre-mixed cookies? Honestly, not much. I can make a decent burger and I have one interesting chicken sandwich, but as a far as homemade items go, that's about it.

What was your biggest "kitchen catastrophe"?
I actually severely burned myself in high school while baking cookies. I was on the phone with my husband (he wasn't my husband or even boyfriend then LOL) and I went to pull the cookies out of the oven. I felt the cookie sheet slipping and just out of instinct attempted to catch it. I have a MASSIVE horizontal line shaped scar on my left arm as an eternal reminder of that.

More recently I tried to make chicken cattatorie in the crock pot. Did I get a recipe? Nope. I winged it. It was so disgusting it tasted like plastic. IDK what I did wrong. I threw that into the garbage and got a Tendercrisp.

What are your favorite foods?
Chicken Parm, Filet Mignon, Lobster (YUMMM), I love spicy hot Thai food, I love all Mexican Food, cheesecake, red velvet cake (with creamcheese frosting), buffalo anything if it's super hot, anything cheesy anything fried anything hot.

What is your biggest kitchen confessions?

I buy lots of food, especially veggies and fruits and let them sit in my fridge and go bad. I have great intentions of using them but never do. I waste far too much food on a weekly basis.

<---- Sarah's answer and mine as well. I couldn't have said it better myself.