July 4th Burger Cook-Off

For our nation's birthday, our friends and I celebrated an American invention with a little friendly competition: a Burger Cook-Off in our back yard! The hamburger was first created in 1900 at Louis' Lunch in New Haven, Connecticut, and was popularized at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. This past Saturday, we showed Louis how far we've come since then with our own creative combinations!

Pictured Above: sparkler sets that I made for everyone and jars for catching lightning bugs once the sun went down, both pretty good ways to light up the night.

We started the shindig with all-American snacks, drinks, and yard games. Below: boiled South Carolina peanuts (regular & cajun), locally-famous Hatcher Crackers, refrigerator pickles, and drunken watermelon, which hadn't yet arrived. Refreshments: Roasted Peach Lemonade with South Carolina Peaches from Bush-n-Vine Farm, spiked with a little gin and then Smoked Sweet Tea, sweetened with Kentucky sorghum and spiked with bourbon and a dash of homemade bitters. I let everyone spike their own drinks, so that I could also leave them the option of mixing the two for an Arnold Palmer, my favorite interpretation of these ingredients.

The Cook-Off: Everyone paired up in teams of two (with a few people choosing to compete solo) to create their own featured flavor. Everyone had total control over every element of their burger, including type of meat/protein, bun, and toppings/condiments. Each burger was cut into individual bites so that everyone could sample and vote on their top three. Each team paid $5 to enter, and the winner went home with the cash - $60 worth! Every burger was delicious and well planned, but the winner was our friend, Jessica, whose concoction featured both ground beef and pork, a fried green tomato, bacon pimento cheese, remoulade and a morel cream sauce all on a homemade rosemary brioche bun. Yum!

A little presidential-themed photo booth fun!

Paul and I were so happy to spend the day 

with our great group of friends!

- - - Our Burger: The Italian - - -

makes 4 burgers

1 lb. your favorite local, grass-fed ground beef

100 g. baby bella mushrooms, minced

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 T. Worcestershire

1 T. olive oil

1/2 t. salt

lots of cracks fresh black pepper

Combine all the above and shape into 4 patties for the grill. 

Note: I like to throw my mushrooms and garlic in the chopper.

Toppings:

mix of equal parts dijon and mayo

baby spinach

your favorite cheese

sauteed apples

crisped prosciutto

caramelized onions

Caramelized Onions:

2 lrg. yellow onions, thinly sliced

1 T. fig balsamic vinegar

Saute onions in a little olive oil until transparent and slightly browned. Add balsamic and cook for a few minutes more. Reserve for topping your burger.

Building Your Burger:

Add cheese after taking your burger off the grill, and tent with aluminum foil or a plate to melt cheese and let meat rest.

Spray hamburger buns with olive oil and grill until toasty while meat rests. We used homemade English muffins for our buns.

Spread the dijon/mayo mixture on one side of bun, and layer on your other toppings (spinach, apples, prosciutto, and onions). Add your hamburger and enjoy!

- - - Other recipes - - -

Hatcher Crackers

Boiled Peanuts

Drunken Watermelon

Roasted Peach Lemonade

Everything-but-the Refrigerator Salsa

This year, we started having weeknight cocktail parties at our place. Every time we feature just one drink and a little snack to go with it. I love these impromptu soirees for their ability to bring together unexpected sets of our friends each time. People from our different circles get to meet and mingle and find all the things they have in common, and we get to watch our all-embracing friend circle grow larger and larger. It's a wonderful thing!


This week, we had a tequila-themed cocktail party and went a little crazy with not one, but two, tequila-based concoctions. (We have such an extensive selection of tequila that it seemed like a smart idea!) We made a peach-tequila popsicle with peaches we picked over the weekend and an orange sorbet based drink. (Sorbet has got to be the absolute easiest thing to make in the ice cream maker - just juice and simple syrup!) But at the last minute, I was floundering trying to find a snack to go with our spiked  coolers. I looked to the bounties of our refrigerator, and it gave me a salsa as serendipitous as the cocktail party, itself! Here's as close to a recipe as I can get...

Everything-but-the Refrigerator Salsa

handful of chopped peaches

handful of chopped cucumbers

half a red bell pepper, diced

1 jalapeno pepper, minced

1 lime, zested and juiced

a splash of apple cider vinegar

handful of fresh herbs, roughly chopped (I had parsley & mint.)

dusting of red pepper flakes

salt and pepper, to taste

I considered about adding onions but thought it might be a little much for the kind of drinks we were having. But I do think some mild scallions would be perfect for this. This concoction was very refreshing and light, and everyone went wild over it! 

Family Recipe: Ruth's Beet Pickles

In the spirit of canning season, I wanted to share a recipe from our family's collection. I've typed it word-for-word as my Granny had it printed in her recipe notebook. I love how this recipe has absolutely no instructions for canning. Now, to learn to can, you have to either search out someone who can teach you or read stacks of books to feel even remotely confident enough to get started on your own. But back then, this was something people (ok, admittedly - women) just knew how to do. It was one more thing learned over mama's and grandmama's shoulders in the kitchen. No written directions needed. This is a tradition that skipped my mom's generation, but luckily, Paul's mom is a home preserver and passed the skill on to us.


I love beets about any way you can make them, and if they're canned, I like them especially spicy. So I think this recipe might benefit from the addition of peppers or pepper flakes of some kind. I haven't tried canning any beets yet, mainly because I haven't come across a really huge amount of them at the farmers' market. But the season for root vegetables is nearing its end, so a good deal may be just around the corner! If you have a great recipe for beets that you'd like to share, please send it my way. I'd love to give it a try!


Ruth’s Beet Pickles

2 c. sugar

1 T. whole allspice

1 ½ T. salt

2 sticks cinnamon

3 ½ c. vinegar

1 ½ c. water

Beats [sic], cooked

Heat all ingredients and pour over cooked beats [sic] in jar. Makes 7 pints.


P.S. That's a photo of radishes & swiss chard - not beets, but the closest photo I had in my farmers' market archives! 

Drink It Up

As promised, here are the drink recipes from the 1920's speakeasy party we hosted this past weekend. I'll just have to say - I could have a BBQ whiskey sour everysingleday if I wasn't worried about turning into a total lush. We served all of these drinks in half-pint mason jars, which we luckily have a slew of from all of our canning. I have been picking up even more lately from all my Goodwill and thrift store trips to stock up for the season. They're fun to drink out of, and you can snag them from 10 to 40 cents apiece. Now try to beat that with a hickory stick! If you try any of these out, let me know which is your favorite!

yours truly, serving up Lemon-Absinthe Poppers

The Blind Pig

recipe adapted from Cherry Tea Cakes

equal parts (1 oz. or 1 shot each)...

whiskey

fresh lemon juice

BBQ simple syrup

The Bee's Knees

recipe adapted from Southern Cocktails: 

Dixie Drinks, Party Potions & Classic Libations

1 shot gin

1/2 shot fresh lemon juice

1 shot honey syrup*

Tequila Toss-Up

recipe created by me!

1  sm. jigger tequila (1 oz.)

1 lrg. jigger grapefruit juice (1.5 oz.)

1/2 lrg. jigger basil or thyme syrup** (3/4 oz.)

splash seltzer

A 1920s Weekend

This weekend, Paul and I threw a stock-the-bar speakeasy party for our friends who are getting married. I just love a good themed party! We went all out with old-timey treats and DIY drinks, and I even turned my dressing room that I use at craft shows into a photo booth! Yes, you had to take your own photos using my camera, but it didn't make it any less fun. And afterwards, I turned them into photo strips for everyone. Below are a few of my favorites from the night that I'll share without getting too many of my friends in trouble. :) On the left, I'm with Paul and one of my very best friends, Sarah. Then when Paul and I were cleaning up the next day, we decided we'd take a few photos with the dogs. (The chihuahuas, Lola and Biscuit are ours. Emerson the beagle we were watching for a friend.) Later this week, I'll share some food and drink recipes with you and a few more photos to go with them.

          

 

Recipe: Pumpkin White Chocolate-Butterscotch Cookies

This past weekend I set up a booth at the Eastern Cabarrus Historial Society Museum's Fall Festival in my hometown of Mt. Pleasant, NC. Aside from all my Verabelle wares, I also sold some of my favorite homemade baked goods. This brought back my summer days selling cheesecakes, caramels, pies, cookies, and endless carrot cakes at the farmer's market one year between college semesters. (That was the second best job ever, next to this one!)

Paul and I spent the day before the festival at my parents' house, using their giant double-oven kitchen getting everything ready. I made lots of fall goodies to share with my Mt. Pleasantians: cherry-chocolate-pistachio cookies, pumpkin white chocolate-butterscotch cookies, 5 flavors of truffles, gingerbread bars, and I couldn't have a bake sale without my famous carrot cake, so I made huge carrot cake muffins. I thought I'd share the recipe for the pumpkin cookies, a rather unusual and delicious treat!

Pumpkin White Chocolate-Butterscotch Cookies

from Fresh Every Day by Sara Foster (my favorite cookbook)

2 c. all-purpose flour

1 t. baking soda

1 c. butterscotch chips

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

2/3 c. granulated sugar

2/3 c. packed brown sugar

1 large egg

2/3 c. cooked canned pumpkin puree or fresh mashed pumpkin

1 c. old-fashioned rolled oats

8 oz. white chocolate, cut into 1/4" chunks, or 1 1/2 c. white 
chocolate chips

1 c. chopped walnuts