It's a brilliantly cool August Saturday in Alabama (what?), and I'm sitting on the couch watching Ina make grilled cheese sandwiches. "I've got just a very simple Pullman loaf ... Good bakery loaf—not, like, the stuff from the grocery store."

She's the most cheerful snob I know.

I have always loved my neighborhood Winn-Dixie grocery store, thank you very much, but I have to admit that when it underwent a floor-to-ceiling overhaul about a year ago, I wasn't terribly thrilled. I didn't want to lose the great Asian food stocks, my treasured self-checkout lanes (no human interaction! my favorite!), and my beloved solitude (a theme develops). I was quite often, at any time of day, absolutely the only person in there, which may tell you a little something about why the powers that be at the W-D decided the place needed a spruce-up in the first place. Everyone was flocking to Publix, that vast wasteland of crowded produce sections and employees too intensely fascinated with WHAT ARE YOU MAKING WITH THIS?, and that was A-OK by me. More quiet browsing for me around the corner. The Winn-Dixie aisles became my hallowed library halls.

But when the store decided it just had to bring itself into this decade, I was nervous. Our relationship was going so well; why did things have to change??

Like any good stubborn person, I found that the results were just (SNIFF!) as I expected. The parking lot began to fill, nobody ever stocked the fish sauce, and why in the world was the bread aisle now frozen-section-adjacent?

But over time, I've come around. (And it only took a year! Who's flexible and easygoing?) For one thing, the self-checkout remains, so I didn't have to entertain a deal breaker. For another, I've recently discovered the benefits of having access to an honest-to-god bakery. (Yes, Ina, in my grocery store.)

If there's one thing you should know about me, besides that I can write six or seven paragraphs in praise of supermarkets, it's that I am not a person who should keep bread in the house. If I have bread, and I have cheese, and (god forbid) I have mayonnaise, things can go pretty chubby pretty fast.

My people are from the Midwest. Bread and cheese run through my veins. (Probably literally.)

But the terrific thing about the Winn-Dixie having a bakery is that I can purchase only the amount of bread a normal person should eat in one sitting at a time. This here is a Portuguese roll, and it cost (no lie) 39 cents.

It's been a little light on the meat around the Woodside here lately, which is just fine with me—eating vegetarian, even sort of accidentally, is healthy and cheap, and I am just not a person who misses the meat when there are beans and eggs and cheese to be had.

But every once in a while I do hear my body say BIG DOSE OF PROTEIN, PLEASE and it's insistent that tofu or quinoa is not the proper vehicle. In this case I used ground chicken, mostly because I wanted that cooked-through texture. I really wanted to bite into something meaty. The tomato is a little bit of an affront to the state of Alabama, but I may have chosen it too hastily. It was certainly not the valedictorian of the 2013 summer semester.

The whole shebang, though, is mostly about that chunky avocado-tomatillo sauce. It soaks into the toasty bread (please please toast the bread next to the burger as it finishes) and makes an ordinary weeknight chicken burger something to look forward to.

I got off work the night I made this at 7:45 and spent a happy little decompressing half hour or so in the kitchen putting this together—there's no rocket science here, just a lovely sandwich dinner that will help you forget you worked until 7:45.

The citrus in the sauce is the wild card here—you want the avocado and cilantro to give it good balance, so it's good to get a nice, big, ripe avocado and add the lime juice a bit at a time, tasting until it's as tangy as you like—tomatillos can be unpredictable. I like it on the creamier side, so if your avocado isn't pulling its weight you can stir in a glug of sour cream or (ahem) ranch dressing. (I won't tell.)

Enjoy!


Chicken Burgers with Avocado-Tomatillo Sauce

1 pound ground chicken
1 teaspoon garlic salt
¾ teaspoon black pepper
4 Portuguese rolls, kaiser rolls, or hamburger buns, halved
4 tomato slices
4 red onion slices
Avocado-Tomatillo Sauce (recipe below)

1. Combine chicken, garlic salt, and black pepper in a medium bowl. Divide mixture into four equal portions, and form into thin patties.

2. Cook chicken patties in a greased grill pan over medium heat 6 to 8 minutes on each side or until completely cooked through. During last minute of cooking, place rolls, cut sides down, on grill pan to toast.

3. Top toasted rolls with tomato slices, onion slices, and Avocado-Tomatillo Sauce. Makes 4 servings.

Avocado-Tomatillo Sauce

5 medium tomatillos, husks removed and scrubbed
¼ small red onion, chopped
1 garlic clove
1 jalapeño, seeded and chopped
½ cup fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 large avocado, chopped
¾ teaspoon kosher salt

1. Chop tomatillos, and place in a food processor. Add red onion and next 4 ingredients; pulse until coarsely chopped.

2. Add avocado and salt; pulse until smooth. Makes 1½ cups.

 

True confession time? Cooking burgers makes me nervous.

People, this is not health food. Though at this rate, that probably should be the new name of this blog: thisisnothealthfood.com.

Last night, as I curled up on the couch with a full belly and a sleepy, satiated grin, I ruminated on this cooking business I've been getting into over the past three or four years—I never had any interest in cooking as a child, and my college culinary expertise consisted mainly of cooking a bag of frozen lima beans, pouring them into a bowl, and melting a pasteurized cheese slice on top in the microwave. (Don't knock it till you try it.) But then I got my very own kitchen, doll-sized though it was, and my very own paycheck, doll-sized though it was, and my very own license to stroll the grocery store and pick up whatever my little heart desired.

I'd never really listened to my little heart before that.

And today the whole exploit just makes me happy. I love to create something, either by walking in someone else's footsteps or charging wildly down my own path, and I don't know much that's better than having it turn out just as you'd secretly hoped—with every finger crossed and more fervently than you'd ever admit. (I'm a tremendously poor sport when it doesn't. That's the nature of high hopes; their counterpart is nauseating disappointment. Or maybe that's the nature of perfectionism. Ahem.)

I knew last night's dinner needed to be something more wholesome than a gooey mess of cheese and creamy, chickeny goodness. (Praise be to creamy goodness, amen.) There were collard greens in the refrigerator, so that's where this meal began, but the rest just fell together unusually organically. It was one of those rare moments when I knew just what flavors I wanted to taste together. In a way I blame the collards—that greens taste isn't for everyone, and there are a lot of people who swear by cooking them for days to get rid of the bitterness, but me? I know a thing or two about being bitter, and sometimes it just needs a little balance (garlic, spicy red pepper, vinegar, and sweet shallots) and the right partners.

In this case, that meant crispy roasted potatoes and meaty salmon burgers, a throwback to a childhood spent watching the toaster oven, counting down the seconds until my mother's salmon patties were ready. She made them with canned salmon and, because I was a spectacularly odd child, I loved the bones. She always told us that they were full of calcium and other healthy goodness. That way I could convince myself I wasn't just a kid who liked to eat fish bones.

No really, I was very, very weird.

But last night, as I whirred and mixed and assembled, I did marvel at how easy the whole endeavor is becoming with practice. Yes, there are also stunning failures, and I'm not reinventing haute cuisine, and I can't bake my way out of a cardboard box, but it's become something of a healthy addiction. I wondered, after I'd plated my dinner and set up my shots and devoured my plate, how people with lives do it.

Sure, I have my job and my pooper and my family and friends, but workdays end and dogs are kept occupied with backyards and food bowls. Particularly when they are easily distracted. It can't be easy when there are babies and lovers and in-laws in the mix.

So this is my hat tip to you, busy, life-having people. Guess what? You can make this one on a weeknight without breaking a sweat. I promise.

The salmon burger recipe is adapted from a Mark Bittman one, the potatoes are an old Cook's Illustrated masterpiece, and the collard greens are from the back of my brain in a place so dusty I don't remember their origin. But they are delicious. The only improvement I might have made? A dollop of sour cream on the salmon sounds about perfect to me. I just didn't think of it until J wanted to go to the bathroom at 1:43 this morning.



Salmon Burgers
1½ pounds salmon fillets, skinned and cut into large pieces, divided
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 shallots, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon drained capers
½ cup breadcrumbs
Hot sauce, to taste
Kosher salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons butter
Lemon wedges

1. Process about ⅓ pound salmon with mustard in a food processor until it becomes a paste. Add shallots, capers, and remaining salmon, and pulse until mixture is combined with paste and chopped into small pieces (roughly ¼ inch).

2. In a medium bowl, stir together salmon mixture, breadcrumbs, hot sauce, salt, and pepper. Form mixture into 4 large patties.

3. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook patties 3 minutes on each side, or until cooked through. Squeeze lemon wedges over patties just before serving. Makes 4 servings.

Crispy Roasted Potatoes
2½ pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, sliced (about ½ inch thick)
4 teaspoons kosher salt, divided
5 tablespoons olive oil

1. Place a rimmed baking sheet on oven rack in the lowest position, and preheat oven to 450.

2. Place potatoes and 1 tablespoon kosher salt in stockpot with cold water to cover by 1 inch; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes or until edges are soft but centers are still undercooked. Drain.

3. Transfer potatoes to a large bowl, and add 2 tablespoons oil and ½ teaspoon kosher salt. Mix well with a rubber spatula. Add 2 more tablespoons oil and remaining ½ teaspoon kosher salt, and toss until potatoes are coated with a starchy paste.

4. Remove the heated baking sheet from the oven, and drizzle with remaining 1 tablespoon oil. Place potato slices on baking sheet in a single layer, and bake 10 minutes. Rotate pan, and bake 15 more minutes.

5. Remove baking sheet from oven, and, using tongs or a metal spatula, flip each potato slice. Bake 20 minutes, rotating pan halfway through cooking time. Makes 4 servings.

Easy, Don't-Take-All-Day Collard Greens
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 shallot, finely chopped
2 to 3 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper, or more to taste
1 bunch fresh collard greens, stems removed
Kosher salt, to taste
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar

1. Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat; add shallot, and sauté until soft. Add garlic and crushed red pepper, and cook 1 minute or until fragrant. Add collard greens, sprinkle with kosher salt, and pour over ¼ cup water. Cover and cook 15 minutes, or until leaves are wilted but still green. Stir in red wine vinegar, and serve. Makes 2 to 4 servings.



On a personal note? I'm grateful for many things this Groundhog Day. I hope you all know who you are. Today, I didn't see the shadow.