Rosemary Chicken Burgers

It's hard to maintain a blog about cooking, when the only times you reallllly cook are on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. I work until 9 pm on Monday and Wednesday nights, which usually means on those nights, I fend for myself, or bring leftovers for dinner. Which I have done today.

Last night, I made this recipe: rosemary chicken burgers with caramelized shallots and blue cheese. The name is long, and sounds complicated, but it was honestly one of the easier recipes I've made (without a crockpot) in awhile.

I don't have a way to upload photos from my nice, fancy pants camera, so I'm having to make do with the ones I took on my phone last night. I apologize in advance for the quality of the pictures, especially the one of the finished product. I was so excited to eat that I didn't realize how awful the light-colored burger would turn out on a light-colored plate using a flash, because my phone is extremely limited, photo-wise. I am an embarrassment.

Anyway! I found the site I got this recipe from through pinterest. And after scouring their recipe index, this one seemed like the perfect first recipe to try. I plan on making more from them, because this one turned out quite well, and there are a few others that really piqued my interest.

I modified the recipe a bit by using store-bought blue cheese dressing (the "chunky" kind from the produce section...I hate that word, but there is literally no other way to put it. It makes me dry heave...but I digress) instead of making my own. I also dusted the chicken patties with garlic powder before putting them in my cast iron skillet (another modification, as I have no outdoor space for a grill, or a grill pan), to give it some extra garlic flavor, in addition to the garlic you already add to the chicken mixture. Because I love garlic. A lot. It also gave the burgers a better charred flavor with my skillet.

I have to add that I really hate raw chicken. I can handle raw ground beef, steaks, pork, whatever with no hesitation. But raw chicken really bothers me. I get that from my mother.

Isn't this lovely? Notice my cat-shaped spoon rest making an appearance.

The burgers turned out really well. I'm actually surprised with myself, as I usually leave burger-cooking to others, when I have ventured into that territory. Next time, I will probably either caramelize some onions or use more shallots, because I eat caramelized onions like candy, and doing 4 shallots was not near enough for me when I'm having to share.

I put some mixed greens on top and drenched it in blue cheese, because I live dangerously like that. My gentleman friend actually ate his with a fork because we both overdid it on the dressing. The rosemary flavor was subtle, but quite nice. Not too seasoned, but not plain at all. I may add a little more next time.

Here it is! Again, sorry for the quality. I was in too big of a hurry to eat to really care about how well the photo turned out. That's the story of my life. I'm always too excited to eat.

Hopefully I will be able to get a memory card reader soon so I can take better pictures. My cell phone just won't cut it forever.