Week 31: Broiling

Let me start out by saying it is wayyy too hot here in Phoenix to keep the oven on 400+ long enough to broil anything even remotely thick or dense.  That's why, for this week's broiling challenge, I chose to do broiled tomatoes.

I sliced the tomatoes in half, then removed the tough center.  The resulting hole was stuffed with goat cheese and smothered with pesto.  I sprinkled on a heavy coating of bread crumbs and broiled the tomatoes in the oven for around 6 minutes.  They were delicious, and grandma and I ate them for lunch next to last night's veggie pasta.  

Week 30: Burgers

For some reason I'm still a week behind with these entries! I'm doing plenty of cooking, just not finding the time to post here.  Last week's challenge (ending July 29th) was burgers.  I've been really impressed with the Real Simple cookbook I got from the library a few weeks ago, so I pulled a delicious looking recipe from there.

I present to you grass fed beef chuck burgers with smoked gouda cheese and a fennel and onion relish:

I thought it was a little lacking in flavor, and my Aunt Maggie blames it for my Grandma's recent loss of appetite.  However, the relish and gouda were tasty, and put together with the potato salad it made for a nice meal.