Chimichurri cheeseburger

Chimichurri is Argentinian in origin and is similar to pesto, but most often used as a marinade or a sauce for grilled steak. The common ingredients are parsley, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, while variants may include ingredients such as oregano, cumin, red peeper flakes, etc. But it's the garlic that is pretty much a quintessential complement to grilled beef - even hamburger.

Thicker hamburgers (1/2 lb) can be a challenge to cook properly - it's not difficult to char the outside yet and have a raw interior, yet cooking it thoroughly risks a result resembling a hockey puck. And if you want a cheeseburger, you have to add the cheese near the end, and more often than not, you lose some of it down the sides where it burns/drips and is generally wasted.

My solution to guaranteeing a tasty cheeseburger - putting the cheese *inside* the burger.

I like my burgers on the fluffy side - when you form your patties, you should *not* compact them - kinda like with rice when you are making nigiri - it should just barely clump together. But to make a stuffed cheeseburger, you'll have to find a balance between a loose clump and a firm enough pressure so as to keep the "stuffing" from leaking out.

You can probably go as small as a 1/4 pounder, but a 1/3 lb per patty is about the smallest I like when I stuff a burger. Take the meat and form it into a bowl shape. Place a piece of cheese (preferably sharp cheddar, but whatever you have will do).

Here's where the chimichurri comes in. I then add 1/2 tsp of minced parsley, minced garlic to taste, a dash of oregano and a couple of drops of balsamic vinegar, then top with another piece of cheese. Then fold over the "rim" of the bowl, enclosing ingredients inside. Grill/cook as usual.

Because the center is somewhat hollow, it cooks more quickly, and with the cheese in the middle, it's guaranteed to be moist on the inside, nice and garlicky.

1/3 lb. ground beef
parsley (if you don't have it, try cilantro)
garlic (can't skip this though)
balsamic vinegar (any vinegar or even lemon juice will probably work)
oregano (optional)
cumin (optional)
red pepper (optional)
cheese (preferably cheddar)

Corn & Potato Chowder - crockpot version

The weather forecast was for rain so the choice was pretty simple, a soup made in the crockpot. i often use the crockpot to make rice porridge ("jook"),  as befitting my asian roots, but it might surprise you as much as i to discover that China has been the world's largest producer of potatoes for a number of years.

The recipe is pretty straightforward - dice about 8 medium sized russet potatoes (you may peel them, but i prefer to just scrub them and keep the skins on for the additional fiber and nutrients (including phytonutrients which are a natural source of antioxidants. On the flip side, potato crops might be sprayed with pesticides which could be concentrated in the potato skins. If that weighs heavily on you, go with organically grown potatoes.). As medium sized is equivocal, I will guesstimate a volume of about 8 cups of diced potatoes.

Place them in the crockpot (assuming you have a 5+ qt crockpot), and add a 1 lb bag of frozen corn.

You could get away with using ham, but the traditional chowders use bacon, and I love to saute my aromatics in the rendered bacon fat before adding them to the crockpot, especially since i have a market nearby that sells the bacon end cuts for about a third of the per lb cost (something like $1.29 /lb) of regularly packaged bacon which seems to sell for about $4/lb nowadays.

Take about a cup of diced bacon and saute it gently in a pan and remove the bacon once it has cooked but not yet become crispy and add the bacon to the potatoes & corn already in the crockpot. If you have and like carrot, dice one and saute it in the bacon grease. After a couple of minutes, add 1 diced onion (call it 1.5-2 cups in volume) along with 2 peeled cloves of garlic to the pan and continue to saute until the carrot is soft. Add the sauteed aromatics (which will have absorbed most of the bacon grease) to the crockpot. Now add flour to the pan (volume should be comparable to the amount of grease remaining in the pan - we are now making a roux to thicken the chowder, but also add depth of flavor) and continue to stir gently over low heat until flour starts to brown (note: you should already have some "brown" in the pan due to the caramelization of the onion/carrot mixture). Add 1 cup water, bring the heat to medium and deglaze the pan, loosening any bits that may have been stuck to the pan. Add the contents of the pan to the crockpot. Add salt/pepper to taste.

Add an additional 3 cups of liquid (some combination of water & chicken bouillion, chicken broth, chicken stock, etc. works for me. Purists may prefer milk/cream but I think my roux and the bacon fat are sufficient in terms of flavor - and this is a poor man's chowder anyway), set the crockpot on low, and come back in 6-8 hours. The result may appear to be a bit watery for chowder. To thicken it, dissolve 1/2 cup flour in the same volume of COLD water, and add the resulting slurry to the crockpot and let the flour heat through.

8 cups diced russet potatoes
one 1 lb. bag of frozen corn
1 cup diced bacon
1 cup diced carrot (optional)
1-2 cups diced onion
2 peeled garlic cloves
flour
water
3 cups chicken bouillion/stock/broth

which will result in about 3 quarts of chowder - plenty for guests and neighbors, and it's even better the next day..