Hapalainio Cheddar Burgers

Last month, while at my friend's wedding, I had the pleasure of sharing an inn suite with my friend H and her Hubby. I've known both of them since college (we all lived in the same dorm freshman year), and we used to be neighbors in Beantown before they moved to the Windy City. Anyway, it was wonderful to spend and extended amount of time with them after what seems like years apart: I'd forgotten how much I laugh when I'm with them.

What does this have to do with hapalainio burgers, you ask? What is a hapalainio? Well, it's actually a jalapeno. The night before the wedding in June, M and I stopped at a gas station to pick up some snacks for the weekend. We ended up with some Lay's Kettle Cooked Jalapeno Chips. The second we got back to our room and whipped them out of the bag, H's Hub started calling them "hapalainio chips" apparently because there's an SNL skit in which George Bush (played by Will Ferrell) refers to jalapeno poppers as "hapalainio poppers". Also, H's Hub is hilarious...so it all makes sense...right.

Anyway, we laughed and laughed about the chips for the rest of the weekend...or at least until I got back from the wedding reception and ate the remainder of the bag...which was more than half full I believe. That's what Bacardi and good times will do to you.

So, when M had a hankering for a spicy burger we decided to whip up some of our very own Hapalainio Cheddar Burgers.

Hapalaino (Jalapeno) Cheddar Burgers

Ingredients:

1lb ground beef
2 Jalapeno peppers
1 cup cheddar cheese (we used Cabot Seriously Sharp)

M de-seeded the peppers and chopped them up, whilst I grated the cheddar cheese.

Is this picture gross?

We then combined the beef, peppers and cheese and formed four perfect burger patties.


M threw them on the grill along with some of his Mama's Buffalo Chicken Burgers, which were basically BBQ sauce, buffalo sauce, breadcrumbs and some spicy seasoning.


While M grilled, I snacked on some guacamole and plantain chips. I need to put a serious restriction on the number of plantain chips I'm allowed in one sitting. It's getting out of control.

Along with our burgers we had some sweet potato fries,

and deviled eggs.

After dinner, we retired to the back deck to enjoy the humidity.

Chester was there.

And so was this guy.

The burgers were great. Neither of us have been brave enough to experiment with jalapenos at home, so this was a great first attempt: there was only one accidental touching of the eye incident. The burgers could have been spicier, so next time, I think we'll leave a little more of the pith on the pepper. We were afraid they'd be too hot, so we erred on the side of caution. Overall, a great success!

Buffalo 'n Beets

One of my favorite "in moderation" foods is buffalo chicken. M makes a pretty meal grilled buffalo wing--which I adore--but my heart lies with the greasy fried goodness of buffalo chicken tenders. Every now and then I will convince M to add them on to our take-out order (I pretty much try every time we order Italian takeout, but M has this Jedi mind trick to get me to not want them anymore) and I bask in the bready, fried, blue-cheesy glory that are buffalo tenders.

In an effort to healthfully satisfy my buffalo craving, I decided to make baked buffalo chicken tenders:

Gluten-Free Baked Buffalo Chicken Tenders
(sheesh...what a name!)

Ingredients:

• Chicken tenderloins (or a chicken breast sliced into tenders)
• Almond meal (I used the Trader Joe's variety)
• Franks Red Hot
• 1 Tbsp unsalted butter
  

• Blue cheese dressing for dipping

I started by rolling each tender in almond flour (frowny face unintended)

After spraying both sides of each tender with olive oil, I placed them on a baking sheet. Then I placed them in the oven at 450 for 10 minutes on each side. It was about 90 degrees in Boston last night, and about 120 degrees in our kitchen...

In the meantime, I poured some of our gigantic container of Frank's Red Hot into a frying pan along with about 1Tbsp of butter over medium heat

When the tenders were finished baking, I coated each of them with the buffalo sauce

Voila: Gluten-Free Baked Buffalo Chicken Tenders

To go with our chickens, I decided to make a beet salad using beets I picked up at the Copley Farmer's Market.

I cut off the beet greens to save for another day

Then washed and wrapped each beet in aluminum foil and placed in the oven at 450 for about 30 minutes.

While the beets were roasting, I put together a salad of mixed greens, goat cheese, walnuts and blueberries

Once the beets were done, I rinsed them in cold water. The skin comes off easily in cold water after roasting--all you have to do is gently rub the beets.

Voila: Beet Salad

I was so excited that the beets worked out! They were a great way to spice up a salad that we make fairly often. Plus, beets are in season in Massachusetts right now! We needed a nice, cold salad to offset the spicy hotness of the buffalo tenders: it was, in my opinion, the perfect summer salad.