Double the Cheese double the love

I had a yearning for cheeseburgers the other day.  I wanted to make a gourmet hamburger I could hopefully serve to the public one day.  Yes, the dreams of a startup bistro or small restaurant still runs through my head.  Ive been making and remaking recipes to perfect them for a couple years with fam as the taste tester.  Sometimes even the cats too.  I had recipe success with these burgers and I am damn proud of myself.  Even my family, which is hard to please loved them too.  But we could only eat so much.  It's summer here in Las Vegas and eating a lot of food is out of the question.  It was the perfect summer food.  I should only have bought some fries or something to complement the burgers!!
Nobody made the face of death either!! Even My brother in law ate it up.  Yay!!!!!!!  so here's the recipe which I am pretty proud of.  Enjoy the oozy cheesy goodness!!!

Double Cheese Italian Burgers

Serves 4-6

1 ½ lbs ground beef

1 egg

1/3 c. Italian style breadcrumbs

6 small slices fresh mozzarella

1 T lemon pepper

2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. onion powder

1 tsp. garlic powder

6 slices cheddar cheese

Directions

1. Place the ground beef in a large bowl with all the powders and spices. 

2. Put in breadcrumbs and egg.  Mix whole thing together with your hands

3. Put ½ c. of the mixture in your hand. Form it into a patty.  Place one slice of mozzarella in the middle.  Get ¼ c. of ground meat from the ball and place it on top.  Cover mozzarella completely and make sure you pinch the sides so cheese doesn’t leak out of the burger.

4. Place burger patties in the fridge for 15-30 minutes to firm up.

5. Put grill on medium heat.  When hot, place patties on grill and let cook.  It should take about 5 minutes When one side is cooked, you will see the sides as brown. Turn over and let cook for 3 minutes. 

6. Place slice of cheddar cheese on top and cover. Let steam melt the cheese. 

7. Place on toasted sesame seed bun with your choice of fixings.

YUMMMY CHEESE!!!!

 

Healthy or Unhealthy? Whole wheat cookies

My sister asked me for a request the other week.  PLEASE STEPH PLEASE BAKE ME SOME HEALTHY COOKIES!!!!!!!!  Ok, maybe not so dramatic but it got to me.  For the past year, we have all gotten fat off of my cooking, yes my cooking.  I've been baking like crazy and making cakes as well.  Demented Betty Crocker anyone?  So, we've cut back to TRY to be healthy.  I've only cooked in olive oil, added no salt or less salt to my stuff and bought low fat everything.  
This is my recipe to try to marry buttery shortbread with not so fat cookies.  It turned out pretty well too.  It's a good base for many platforms like snickerdoodles, or chocolate chips, etc.  It's a tea cookie though.  That means it will be dry.  So drink some no sugar green tea or black tea or soymilk or lowfat milk.  it will be pretty good but I found it a little fibery because of the whole wheat.  I'm thinking of maybe pulsing it in the food processor and sifting it fine to make it smoother next time.  

Enjoy!!!!!

Whole Wheat Shortbread Cookies

Serves: 36

1 1/2 c. margarine, softened

½ c. butter flavored shortening

2 c. whole wheat flour

1 c. all purpose flour

1 c. ground walnuts

2 tsp. cornstarch

1 ¼ c. white sugar

1 c. chopped pecans or walnuts

1 ½ tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

1. Sift flours and cornstarch together into a bowl.

2. Place margarine, shortening, and sugar into a large bowl and beat until whipped and fluffy.

3. Add vanilla extract and mix.

4. Add flour and ground nut mix slowly to margarine until everything is combined. 

5. Place in wax paper or plastic wrap and roll until you get a log shape.

6. Chill for at least 1 hour before cutting cookies.

7. Cut cookies ½ in to 1 in. in thickness and place in sheet pan with parchment paper. 

8. Bake at 325 for 15 minutes.

This is what it looks like:  

F is for fiber!!

Linguine in clam sauce

Linguine with clams

Serves 2-4

½ of a box of linguine noodles

8 oz frozen clams with juice, defrosted

1 ½ T sinigang with calamansi powder

1 T extra virgin olive oil

4 T roasted red peppers, minced

1 T chopped scallions

2 tsp. chopped garlic

1 tsp. lemon pepper

2 c. fresh spinach

¼ c. water

TT salt

TT white pepper

½  c. grated parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Clear 2 burners on your stove.  Set up the pasta pot and a large pan for the sauce.

2. Cook the linguine as per directions on the box.  The pasta should be a little undercooked, like it still has a bite to it.  Take pasta out but save about 2-3 T pasta water for sauce

3. Heat oil in large sauté pan.  Place scallion, roasted red peppers, and garlic in pan and cook until translucent.  This should take like a minute. 

4. Add the sinigang powder and the ¼ c. water.  Bring to a boil and make sure the powder is dissolved.  Add clams with the juice and add the lemon pepper.  Stir and let frozen clams heat through and cook.  About 2-3 minutes.

5. Add the cooked linguine and stir around.  The linguine should suck up the sauce but if the sauce is still loose, add the leftover pasta water 1 T at a time until it comes together. 

6. Add the spinach and let it wilt then add the salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese. 

Serve in large bowl with toasted garlic bread.

Harsh Landings

blah blah blah!!  I've been busy these last week trying to find work and I hope the cafe one or the starbucks one or the mall job will call me back.  Well, any of the places I applied to could hire me and Id be happy with that.  I don't know how hiring managers pick up the people they want to hire.  I've been to many job fairs and scored some interviews on the spot but I haven't found work yet.  So, I decided to take everyone through the rough road of looking for work and keeping work.  I will blog about this stuff sometimes and hope it will help people. 
I want to talk about the interviews I've been to.  For the couple of years or so, I've been on the hunt for paying work in the valley.  I've signed up and gone to job fairs for about a year.  I've had someone from a resume workshop read my resume and critique it. I've also learned from online forums about how to best get people to read your resume.  One of the hiring managers for a casino told me that they have a computer program that reads all the resumes and applications they receive.  This program looks for key words like hard working, motivated cheerful, etc.  It depends on what you apply for. So, when they ask you to describe yourself or explain why you want the job try to use as many positive adjectives as you can.  The computer will read this and pass it on to the human manager.  Hopefully you will get a callback.  Now, you still have to pass the interviews and other things.   
I've also been on a few interviews, especially on those job fairs.  I try not to get my hopes up when this happens.  I try to look at the interviews where I didn't get the job as practice for the next one.  Well, one of the interviews I'd been in this lady is the hiring manager for the kitchen and waitstaff.  She looked over my resume and asked me a few questions about the work I've done.  Like how busy the restaurant was, how I got along with my coworkers and why I'm there today.  All the while, she is looking over my appearance like clean fingernails, hair etc.  I decided to dress like I'm about to go to work.  So, I dressed up in one of my cleanest chef uniforms and ironed out all the wrinkles. I put my hair up in a bun and made sure my fingernails were clean.  After all these questions and conversations, she asked me if I had any questions.  I already knew I didn't get the position because she directed the conversation to one of the earlier applicants who applied for garde manger.  She told me about his resume and how excited and enthusiastic he was about his work, etc.  She also started to tell me about the way I dressed.  She said I wouldn't fit in their workplace because the people I will work with have tattoos and multi colored hair.  She said I'm not the right fit for their company because I'm not exciting enough?  I guess is the right word.  Mind you, I told her I wanted to apply for an entry level position like buffet or pantry.  I told her I wanted to work my way up and wanted stable work.  I guess my personality was the problem not my qualifications?  It really pissed me off.   I decided I wouldn't waste the opportunity though, and started asking her questions about what they were really looking for and about how much  experience I need to start working in a casino.  She told me they are looking for people with at least 1-2 years experience in high volume environment.  She said that if you work on the strip it's 3-5 years.  So she advised me to work in one of the off the strip casinos first and work my way up.  So, it wasn't a total wasted of 4 hours waiting in line smiling and madly trying to explain my qualifications in 5 seconds to anyone willing to talk to me.   So, I stopped going to job fairs of such a large scale and decided to find work in restaurants, etc.  I also just kept applying online.  Everyone kept telling me, even baskin robbins and starbucks that they only hire online now and told me to fill one out on their website.  It saved me gas, traffic, and the added headache of walking around in the heat.  I signed up for snagajob.com, monster. com, etc. and signed up for job connect nevada.  It's like a hiring agency.  They uploaded my resume in the system and I got to look at the job board.  It didn't really help much, but at least it's in the system.    The amazing thing was I managed to get 3-4 job offers  in the same month.  I got one from Chili's, a scary smoky casino named Luckys, red rock, and as a server in mimi's cafe.    This was last year.  I even got a nice job too.
Well, anyone who knows me knows what happened next.......and I've decided to scale back the amount of stress in my life.  I don't want to work like a madman and be burnt out.  I want something that will leave me time to enjoy my life and work on my big ideas.  They've been popping out of my head in a rapid pace and I feel very creative again.  I don't feel dead inside either :)   But now, I want money so I can pay for my stuff and eat out and buy art supplies.  I applied in michaels, target, walmart, sam's club, ulta, starbucks,  lifetime fitness, panda, smiths, vons, albersons,etc.

 

Now, my problem is talking to someone like an interview, or just plain ordinary conversation.  Last year, I managed to push it away, but it felt like my heart was being torn in pieces.  I started hyperventilating too.  After the job fairs, I'd sit in my car and have a mini meltdown.  It was the same after every interview.  I don't know how I'm supposed to get used to this but everyone keeps telling me I just have to keep doing it to get used to it.  I don't want to complain, but some days everything sucks so bad, I just want to cry.  It gets to the point that I can't stand to go outside and just say hi to anybody.