white truffle mushroom cheeseburgers

• 1.25 pounds of chop meat
• provolone cheese
• good quality bbq sauce
• white button mushrooms, sliced
• white truffle oil
• sesame seed rolls

Form meat into four even sized patties, using your palms as sizing guides. Heat mushrooms over a medium high flame in a little olive oil. Cook until mushrooms have shrunk to about half their size, reduce heat to low and add a little bit of white truffle oil. Meanwhile, cook burgers to desired doneness (if you're older than 12 it should be medium rare at most- just sayin) on the bbq, adding cheese during the last 2 minutes of cooking. Assemble on bun with sauce on bottom, then burger, then mushrooms.

The dish: It's official, bbq season is among us and the redroom moves outside to the tiny balcony. Grilling is a great way to cook pretty much any food and you can expect to see lots of different meats and veggies on these pages over the summer, we just had to kick off the start of things with a good old fashioned cheeseburger. This was also a prime opportunity to answer faithful reader Rebecca's request for more recipes using white truffle oil. As a pound of truffles cost about as much as my car, white truffle oil is a great way to dress up some plain mushrooms and give the dish a great flavor without having to mortgage your house. Just be sure to look at the ingredients and make sure you're buying an oil that's actually made from truffles and not artificial flavors. If you haven't already, go out and clean your grill because we'll make sure it gets plenty of use this year. Enjoy these beautiful spring days everyone!

beef and beans stiry fry

• brown rice (I used Chinese take out)
• pre-cut stir-fry beef (that's a lot of hyphens)
• Chinese 5 spice (optional)
• 1 bag of green beans and carrots
• soy sauce
• mirin
• sesame oil
• rice vinegar

Combine equal parts soy sauce, mirin, sesame oil and vinegar together, set aside. Sprinkle beef with a little Chinese 5 spice and brown in a little wok oil over high heat. Once cooked set aside and drain wok of any residue. In a little more wok oil cook veggies for about 5 minutes or until bright green. Turn heat off and add beef and sauce. Serve immediately over brown rice.

The dish: This an easy dish that can be made with a few instant ingredients and some stuff from your well equipped Asian pantry, we talked about that already, remember? We also went over some basic wok skills a while back, so you should be an old hand at this point. If you don't own a wok, go get one. There's no need to spend a lot of money, I have a cheap one and it's held up quite nicely throughout the years. Stir-frying is a great way to whip up a healthy (in spite of the name) dinner that can be ready in less time than most "instant" meals require.

salmon and mixed greens pita

• leftover salmon cakes
• leftover tarragon sauce
• mixed greens
• whole wheat pita

Crumble salmon cakes with a fork. Combine salmon bits and greens in pita, drizzle with sauce.

The dish: Leftovers are great, "planned overs" are even better. Getting two meals from cooking once is never bad, but if they can be two different meals then that's all the better. This particular dish requires a bit of finesse as it's very difficult to have a condo full of people and be able to hide extras of a dish that everyone likes. Let's just say that Kim and I worked on our parental distractions (Wii) in advance and a few extra cakes were able to find their way into a Tupperware (It's not disrespecting the trademark if you use the real deal) in the fridge before anyone knew there were any left. Before you give me a hard time about being a bad host, remember, this was an appetizer, followed by a salad before the meal even began. Anyway, with the 1,000 or so milliliters of pinot griogio that was floating around no one seemed to mind too much of anything.

salmon cakes over creamy corn in a tarragon sauce

• 1.5 pounds salmon (fresh, frozen, or canned will work)
• 1 egg
• bread crumbs
• fresh parsley, chopped
• 1 bag frozen sweet corn
• garlic, chopped
• heavy cream
• Dijon mustard
• fresh tarragon, chopped fine

To make the sauce, whisk together about equal parts mustard and cream. Add tarragon and refrigerate. Chop salmon into small pieces, mix together with egg, bread crumbs and parsley. Form into cakes slightly smaller than the size of your palm. In a skillet over high heat, fry the cakes in a swirl of oil for about 1+ minute per side. Once all have been browned, transfer to a 275 degree oven in a covered dish. Meanwhile, saute the garlic (to taste) in a little olive oil over a medium high flame for about 3 minutes. Add corn and continue to cook for about 5 minutes until corn is cooked through. Reduce flame to medium and add a touch of heavy cream. Season to taste with coarse salt and pepper and add any of the parsley or tarragon if you have any left over. Assemble by placing corn on plate, placing salmon over it and drizzling it in the sauce.

The dish: Much like the crab cake sandwich I posted, these cakes are pretty forgiving about exact measurements and spices so feel free to experiment and improvise. The corn was a nice touch, but the sauce was the star of the show. I'm not sure I ever used tarragon before, but I got the idea from something I read and the result was great. To create the cool drizzle effect I used one of those plastic condiment bottles people put ketchup in for picnics and just chopped a little off the top for the herbs to flow through. You can find those at the dollar store (Sam's dollar is the best around if you're local to the New Windsor area) and they're great to have on hand for such occasions. This entry is a little out of order as the cakes were actually served as a appetizer to our meal with the rents, but whatever. You could really serve this as a main dish just by increasing the portion sizes a bit.

red beans and rice

• brown rice (instant or take out works fine)
• 2 cans of small red beans, drained and rinsed
• good quality vegetable stock
• adobo
• 1 large onion, chopped
• hot peppers, chopped fine
• garlic, chopped fine
• fresh cilantro, chopped fine

Prepare rice according to package (or open the bag that your take out rice came in and read your fortune cookie). In a saucepan over a medium high heat, saute garlic and onions in a swirl of olive oil for 3-5 minutes or until just browned. Add beans and a generous pour of vegetable stock and continue to cook, reducing the flame to medium low. If the liquid cooks off, feel free to add more, but be careful not to make it too soupy. As for the peppers, go according to your taste. I used two habenaros and it was hot but not uncomfortable. If you like food more mild, reduce quantity or use a less spicy variety of pepper; if you own stock in pepto bismol, then go nuts and add as much as you like. Add the peppers and cilantro and season to taste with the adobo. Continue to cook for as long as the rice takes adding stock as needed.

The dish: If you notice that we eat a lot of beans, it's at least partly because of two unique things about me; 1. my colon is about 18 inches shorter than yours and 2. I felt younger on my 30th birthday than my 29th. You see, on my 29th birthday I was in the hospital suffering from a severe diverticulitis attack that later caused me to undergo colon resection surgery, essentially cutting about a foot and a half out of my ass (regrettably not the part that would allow me to fit into smaller pants). No matter what old wives' tale you may have heard, diverticulitis has nothing to do with nuts or seeds or corn, but rather it's a disease that's brought about by dehydration and lack of fiber. The whole episode really opened my eyes and although I'm far from the picture of perfect health I've made a few small changes like eating plenty of roughage and drinking lots of water. Needless to say I felt quite a bit younger on my 30th birthday as I wasn't towing around an IV cart (I believe I named mine Claudia when I was in the hospital). Beans are a great way to up the fiber in your diet as they are versatile and cheap- there is a recession going on you know.

chocolate silk cake

• 1 box chocolate silk cake
• whip cream (dream whip is the favorite in our house)
• cocoa powder

Prepare cake according to instructions on the box. We used a Duncan Hines dessert selects cake, but any will work. Arrange slice of cake on plate and top with whip cream and garnish with cocoa powder.

The dish: I'm sure if you were to consult with any of my old teachers they would verify this, but I do not follow directions well at all. I am unable to prepare any instant dessert because I always feel that "maybe it could just use a pinch more of something". That attitude may fly in cooking, but it's a recipe for disaster in baking. If you're new to the party, then you should know that there are two absolutes here: 1. dessert tastes best when instant and 2. Kim is pretty much awesome (and not just for her taste in husbands). She can scratch bake like no one's business, but she can also make instant anything and achieve great results, something I am truly envious of. Along the same lines she also has an aptitude at assembling furniture from Ikea. If you've never had the pleasure of the Swedish furniture giant, you have no idea what you're missing out on. We bought a new 6 drawer dresser this week and it fit comfortably in the trunk of our car in a box that's smaller than what most people deem to be carry on luggage. When you get it home the instructions have no words at all on them and there are many more pieces than you would expect a dresser to have. Needless to say, Kim can navigate through that mess and within just a little while we have a dresser that's a much more solid piece of furniture than you would expect it to be. So I guess the moral is that whether it's furniture or cake, Kim can bring great things out of boxes.

seared chicken in a sage gravy

• boneless skinless chicken breasts
• fresh parsley, chopped fine
• dried sage
• gravy master
• wundra flour
• good quality chicken stock
• dry white wine

Beat the hell out of the chicken with a meat tenderizer, season with a little coarse salt and fresh pepper. Preheat oven to 250 degrees. In a skillet over a medium high flame heat up a swirl or two of olive oil and brown chicken, cooking each side about 3 minutes or until seared. Transfer chicken to a pan in the oven and cover with tin foil. Once all the chicken is cooked, turn heat on pan up to high and add about 1 cup of wine for every 4 breasts that you cooked. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon making sure to scrape any bits of chicken funk from the bottom of the pan (those that have high opinions of their cooking abilities call this "deglazing"). Once reduced (about 5+ minutes), add about a cup of chicken stock and continue the process until that is relatively reduced, add herbs and turn heat off. Add a dash or two of the master, and whisk in wundra (using a silicone whisk- get one if you don't have one) until desired thickness is reached. Season to taste with salt and pepper, pour generously over chicken and serve.

The dish: I've extolled the virtues of using gravy master before; I wouldn't even think of trying to make a gravy without it. This chicken was the main course of our parental dinner and everyone seemed to like it. My sister and her husband stopped by for a pre-dinner visit (I offered for them to stay) with our niece and nephew so we had a full house as this dish came together. The kids were great and nobody seemed to mind that I was pulverizing raw meat in the next room. Thank goodness that all the parents read this blog, otherwise they might not find it so amusing that they had to refrain from eating the hot food in front of them while their son (in-law) leaned in to snap photos. They all learned something that Kim has known for a while; while most of the food you see on these pages tastes pretty good, it's never scalding hot by the time you get to eat it.