Happy Click to you too!

'k, pretty close to midnight ==> Bee is probably staring at her email wondering why I haven't bothered to send her a predictable last-minute Click shot yet. Obviously, I wouldn't dare to disappoint her! In fact, this has become a game of sorts - I look forward to a living-on-the-edge Click shot :)

Like always, I wish I could replicate the image in my head, but this is the best I could do! :)

Adzuki beans (or Azuki or Aduki or whatchamawannacallit beans) rock! Attractive to look at, fabulously tasty - they're used in savoury and sweet foods. This is the bean that goes into mooncakes and bean icecream and baozi (buns) and mochi and amanatto (that insanely delicious Japanese sweet!). They form the essential ingredient in red bean paste - ubiquitous in asian cuisines! And they do make for fabulous burgers too! :)

“Red beans and ricely yours."

Louis Armstrong loved red beans and rice so much he signed his personal letters thus.

Azuki For You

Camera: Nikon D70
Kit Lens

Dishin' about aviyal!

Aviyal:

[Wikipedia] a dish that has a unique place in typical Kerala cuisine. It is a thick mixture of a lot of vegetables, curd and coconut. It is seasoned with coconut oil and curry leaves.

A search for aviyal revealed a zillion similar, yet subtly different recipes. I didn't quite realize the ubiquity of this motley assortment of vegetables! Hell, there is even a aviyal.com site - just a placeholder, but exists nevertheless!

And here is the icing on the cake: a mallu rock band called Avial! I couldn't understand a word of this song except for 'Nada Nada' - walk, walk? Not right now, I'm comfortably ensconced on my couch! But the song does rock :) All you mallu folks out there: translation please?

So, last night's dinner involved Aviyal - the neatest thing about this dish is how adaptable it is. Yes, most traditional versions call for raw banana, drumsticks, potatoes, some yams ... but then again, variations almost seem welcome here - the slight twist in flavour induced by a different vegetable is always exciting! That was one of the fun things about eating aviyal when we were kids - it made for the perfect guessing game :)

This most recent aviyal version chose to skip the bananas. I can hear those traditionalists screaming"Sacrilege!" :) Well, it was a warm evening and I really wanted something lighter - the olio of vegetables included some golden beets, carrots, chayote squash, butternut squash, fava beans and green beans. This along with a dollop of some chewy brown rice made for a perfectly happy meal.

Aviyal Recipe for May 2008
Well, this recipe could hold for atleast a month, right? :)

Servings: 4

Vegetables:
1 chayote squash - peeled
1/2 butternut squash - peeled and deseeded
12-15 fresh green beans
1 cup fava beans (shelled or frozen)
2 carrots
1 golden beet

Gravy:

1/2 cup coconut flakes
4 thai green chillies
1" ginger
2-3 black peppercorns
1 t cumin seeds
1 t turmeric powder
Lightly sour curd/yogurt - 1 cup
salt for seasoning

Garnish:
2-3 bay leaves (I'm yet to drag myself to the indian store to get some curry leaves - are they even back in the stores?)
1 t coconut oil

Cut the squashes, green beans, carrots and beet into long thin fingers.
Toss these veggies into a stockpot, add about a cup of water and boil them till almost cooked - this should take under 10 minutes.

If using fresh or frozen fava beans, blanch them before tossing them into the stockpot. Cook for a couple of minutes once they're in.
If using dried beans, cook them in a pot of water till done before throwing them into this mixture.

Grind all the gravy ingredients, adding water as needed.
Throw this paste into the pot with the veggies and boil for a few minutes.
Heat the coconut oil (low) and saute the bay leaves till lightly browned.
Garnish the aviyal with these leaves.


Opinion?

*zing*! Those thai green chillies packed a wallop! The aviyal turned out really flavourful, the coconut and spices danced quite happily with the veggies. I might be hooked onto this Aviyal-Lite - didn't miss the bananas or potatoes at all!

Feelin' the bean love

So, what do you do when you get a fabulously fresh batch of green beans from your CSA?

1. Stash the beans in the fridge till you can find a recipe for it
2. Be insanely magnanimous and give them to a friend
3. Skip around in circles all excited about them green beans
4. Pore feverishly through all those cookbooks trying to find a new recipe that'll showcase the beans
5. Do 3. and 4. - basically certifying that you're a minor nutcase! :)

Well, no points for guessing what I did. Kind of hard to keep skipping around in circles while flipping through those cookbooks, but I did it nevertheless! :)

I finally settled on a green beans and garlic recipe - not the traditional pan-asian one, but one with a bit more gravy - a bunch of chopped tomatoes thrown in, along with a batch of cannellini beans for more fiber goodness. A generous dash of white wine totally added a slurpy tingling aftertaste - much better than any vinaigrette could have.

Beans and Beans with Garlic and Tomatoes
Skip as you stir, makes it taste better :)

Servings: 4

12 oz cooked cannellini beans (I just used them drained and rinsed out of a can for this recipe)
1 T olive oil
1 onion - finely chopped
3-4 garlic cloves (crushed)
3-4 tomatoes - peeled and chopped
12-14 oz green beans - sliced diagonally into long chunks
1/2 cup of white wine (I used a chardonnay here)
2/3 cup water (or veggie stock)
1 T fresh parsley
salt
freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oil in a large frying pan and saute the onions and garlic for 3-4 minutes till soft.
Add the chopped tomatoes and continue cooking over low heat for another 3-4 minutes till they start softening.
Add the green beans, wine, water (or stock) and a little salt and stir well.
Cover and simmer for 5-6 minutes.
Stir in the cannellini beans and simmer covered for another 3-4 minutes.
Increase the heat to reduce the liquid and season with the black pepper.
Garnish with the parsley before serving.



Opinion?

The earthy cannellini beans and garlic added a yummy french twist to the green beans - I originally started making this as a side, but it turned out so good that it was the meal of the night, along with some crispy spiced flatbread.



More recipes with beans:

• Bengali Vegetable Medley
• An assortment of chilis
• Chole
• Green Beans and Butternut Squash Dal
• Fusilli and Green Bean Casserole
• Quinoa with green beans and asparagus

This goes to Kel from Green Olive Tree for WHB (Kalyn's brainchild) - thanks to both for organizing this!
And on a different note, if you haven't had a chance to check out Sig's blog yet, head over yonder to read about our insanely fun blog gathering last week. Thanks Sigster, for jumpstarting this!

Burger Time!

Homemade burgers have got to be one of the most cooking fun projects ever. Not only do they make for a tasty alternative way to work with varieties of beans, it is so cathartic to make those "burger-dough" rounds and flatten them into patties. Hmm ... burger dough - is there an official word for that? :)

Black bean burgers have always been a favourite - all the more since I've managed to perfect that recipe to a science! This time around, I wanted to work with kidney beans - so incredibly earthy, chewy and flavourful. And I was contemplating making these patties vegan - just a little olive oil, maybe use soy flour instead of indulging in bread crumbs as a binding agent.


Every once in a while, impromptu cooking works to perfection - no recipe to work off of, we just start throwing stuff together and things fall into place. Ingredients mingle and dance, flavours stand out, all happy goodness! Love it when that happens! Don't you? :)

As the burgers started coming together, I started wondering about making some kind of dressing to go with it -maybe an aoili? I realized I had a slew of sunchokes from PO that I was yet to try out in anything but a salad - was there anything I could do with it?

The first time I saw sunchokes, I couldn't help but wonder "What are these crazy things? They kind of look like round wonks of ginger, but they're not. They smell super earthy. And they look *nothing* like artichokes! Hmmm ...." Well, a dig into Joy of Cooking told me more about them:

The Jerusalem artichoke, also known as a sunchoke is the tuber of a native sunflower. And it has no relation whatsoever to Jerusalem, the tuber was originally named Girasole by the europeans who discovered it. The current name is some kind of folk pollution of Girasole which is the italian word for sunflower. Yay for vegetable etymology! :)

Ok, back to our dressing - it kind of evolved naturally - with a mix of sunchokes and garlic, a dash of vinegar, some hot sauce, feta cheese ...

3-Chilli Burgers with Sunchoke-Garlic Chutney
3 kinds of chillies? Wooooo!

***

3-Chilli Burgers

Servings: 10-12

1 can of kidney beans - drained
1 onion - chopped
1 red bell pepper - chopped
2 carrots - chopped
1/4 cup walnuts
1/2 block (200 gms) of tofu - finely shredded (we use Nasoya extra firm tofu)
2-3 T soy flour
1 guajillo chilli
1 dried indian red chilli
1 chili padi (thai bird's eye chilli pepper)
1 t olive oil
1 t cumin seeds
salt for seasoning

Heat the oven to 350 F.
Heat the oil in a wok and add the cumin seeds.
Once they splutter, throw in the onions and saute till browned.
Now add the bell peppers, carrots and walnuts and saute for 1-2 minutes.
Add the kidney beans after rinsing and discarding the water and saute for another minute.
Run the veggies+beans through a food processor to make a coarse, chunky mixture.
Mix in the shredded tofu.

Roast the 3 chillies till they start to brown - grind them into a coarse, sticky powder.
Mix this powder along with salt into the bean mixture.

NOTE: You might want to check the spice level as you add this chilli powder. We like it super hot, you may not :)

Add the soy flour, 1 T at a time, mixing constantly till the mixture looks firm enough to be made into patties.

Lightly grease a baking tray lined with foil.
Make a ball of a handful of the "burger dough" at a time and flatten it into a thick patty and place it on the baking tray.
(This mixture freezes really well too, in case you don't want to make it all into patties right away)
Bake the patties at 350 F for about 12-14 minutes till they feel firm.

***

Sunchoke Chutney
sunchokes ... garlic ... parsley ... feta ... mmm!

4-5 sunchokes - peeled and chopped
5-6 garlic cloves - peeled
1 green chilli - chopped
2 T red wine vinegar
1 cup curly parsley
1/4 cup feta cheese (we used a reduced fat version)

Cook the sunchokes, garlic and green chilli in a covered saucepan with the red wine vinegar for 3-4 minutes.
Once cooled, grind the vegetables along with the parsley to a fine paste.
Mix in the feta cheese and season with salt, maybe even a dash of chilli powder.



What did we think?

These burgers rock! So simple, yet so tasty! I think they're my current favourite now - yes! I choose them over the black bean ones!

As for the sunchoke chutney - it was fabulous - one of the best dips *ever*! Creamy, earthy, a vague artichoke flavour, love it.

***

More burger recipes:

Black Bean Burgers
Spicy Kidney Bean Burgers @ Jugalbandi
Pav Bhaji Burgers @ One Hot Stove
Chipotle Bean Burgers @ We [heart] Food

***

This goes to Lia at Swirling Notions for Weekend Herb Blogging (that awesome food blog virus started by Kalyn!)

Paanch Mishuli - Bengali Vegetable Medley

Rosogolla ... rasmalai ... sandesh ... mishti doi ... malpoa ... cham cham ... *drool* ... bengali sweets rock! I love making them, love eating them, love writing about them ... Wait! This blog doesn't have a bengali dessert post yet! That sucks!

Note to self:
Make some yummy rasmalai this week just so I can write about it!

Ok, so this post isn't about bengali sweets. Sorry! But it comes close. It does involve bengali spices and a multitude of vegetables, all goodness. I haven't cooked much bong food, so it was fun to pick up one of those simple postcard cookbooks - this time Bangla Ranna was my choice. It has a slew of bengali recipes - reasonably well written out. I particularly like the fact that the author Satarupa Banerjee dedicated this book to the countless housewives in Bengal who keep the tradition of Bengali cuisine alive. Got to love that :)

As I flipped the pages, page 75 caught my eye - Paanch Mishuli - a vegetable medley that uses a choice of vegetables that are in season. Hmm ... I could extend that to apply to the vegetables that are in season and available in my fridge, right? :)

So, that's what we went with - a medley of acorn squash, plantain, bitter gourd, edamame, beans and snap peas - *lots* of green goodness!

Paanch Mishuli
Variation of the traditional vegetable medley

Servings: 2

1 acorn squash
1 bitter gourd - deseeded and chopped
1/4 lb green beans - chopped into 1" pieces
1 cup of shelled green peas
1 plantain - grated
1 cup edamame

a small ball of tamarind soaked in 1 cup of boiling water
2 t Paanch phoran (recipe below)
3 green chillies - sliced long
1 " ginger - ground into a paste
2 T mustard oil
1 t turmeric powder
1 T brown sugar
salt

Soak the bitter gourd pieces in the tamarind water for atleast 30 minutes.
Cut the acorn squash in half, place the cut faces down in a pan filled with 1/2" of water.
Bake the squash for 10 minutes at 400 F.
Once the squash is cooked, scoop out the meat with a spoon and discard the skin.
Heat the oil in a wok and toss in the paanch phoran.
Stir in the ginger paste.
Add the grated plantain and saute for 4-5 minutes.
Throw in the rest of the vegetables - beans, peas, edamame and bitter gourd (after discarding the water) and cook for another 4-5 minutes.
Now add the squash, salt, turmeric, sugar and green chillies.
Stir and cook covered on low till the vegetables are almost done.
Now, cook uncovered till most of the moisture evaporates - this should be a moist, but not runny curry.

This medley goes well with most indian breads or rice.

***

Paanch Phoran Recipe

This is usually a combination of 5 whole spices, though I've encountered a few variations.

1 t cumin
1 t kalo jeera
1 t mustard
1 t fennel
1 t fenugreek

Lightly roast the spices before grinding to a powder.

***

Opinion?

The paanch phoran flavours rock! I honestly don't know how the traditional mishuli is supposed to taste, but this medley with some garlic naan made for a terrific dinner!

I'm dedicating this post to Sandeepa, the awesome Bong Mom whose blog is inspiring me to try more Bengali recipes - we haven't seen her post in a while, I'm waiting for her to come back :)

Chili 1-2-3

Cold and wet outside.

Winds gusting.

Snow in the mountains.

Mmm ... something warm and earthy starts sounding good. Hot soothing liquid, full of flavour and spice.

This pretty much sums the mood that often prevailed over the last couple of weeks - this craving for "warm+spicy+soothing" led to several chili cookouts :)

So, is vegetarian chili an oxymoron?

Isn't chili the quintessential texan dish that is meant to have just beef, chiles and spices. Not mounds of chopped up vegetables. No peppers, not even beans! CASI apparently has really strict regulations about what goes into a chili and what doesn't.

The meat is the medium, but the chile is the message.
- Cheryl and Bill Jamison, Texas Home Cooking

And to paraphrase Didi Emmons: With vegetarian chili, we're just changing the medium, not the message!



You say chile, I say chilli ...

Hmm ... I'm in a quandary of sorts as I type this post. There is chili - that fiery bowl of goodness. And there is chile - the peppers that define the chili. And there are chillies - what we use to refer to all the members of the Capsicum family. So many variations!

Anyway, chile peppers truly rock! They're not just about heat, but about flavour. Every chile has its own unique taste, the flavour even varies depending on whether the chile is ripe or raw or dried or not. And they have fabulous aromas to boot! For the most part, atleast for veggie chili afficionados as well as non-traditionalists, just the plethora of chile flavours and smells seems to hit the spot. And once we start combining varities, the flavour level totally skyrockets. And we can't help but believe "Chile makes the chili, not the meat!" :)

White Bean Chili with Spicy Mango Salsa
Chili 1 (adapted from Didi Emmons' Vegetarian Planet)

Servings: 4

White Bean Chili

2 cups of dried navy beans
1 t olive oil
1.5 cups chopped onions
6 cloves of garlic - minced
3 cups chopped green cabbage
1 rutabaga - diced
1 t dried oregano
salt and pepper to taste

Soak the beans in cold water overnight.
In a large pot, cover the beans with water and bring to a boil. Cook 1+ hours till the beans are tender. A great alternative is to throw the beans into a crockpot and cook on low for a few hours.
Drain the beans and reserve about 3 cups of the liquid (add water if necessary to make up 3 cups).
In a heavy saucepan, heat the olive oil and add the onions.
Saute for about 5 minutes till softened.
Throw in the garlic and cabbage and saute for another 5 minutes.
Now add the reserved bean liquid along with the rutabaga, salt and oregano. Cook for 15+ minutes till the vegetables are tender.
Mix in the beans along with freshly ground pepper.

Spicy Mango Salsa

1 large guajillo pepper
1 pinch of freshly ground ancho pepper
1/2 semi-ripe mango -diced
1/2 green bell pepper - finely chopped
1/2 red onion - finely chopped
1/4 cup lime juice
1/3 cup chopped cilantro
salt to taste

Mix all the veggies and spices in a large bowl.
Using tongs, hold the guajillo pepper over a medium flame until it gets charred.
Once cooled, pound the chile using a pestle and add the powder to the salsa.
Season with salt.

Serve the chili in large bowls, topped with a few spoons of the fiery salsa.



Opinion?

*good*! The salsa was my favourite part of it all :) I think the chili itself could have used a little more flavour/spice, but then again, I'm the one who buys a new bottle of hot sauce pretty much every second week! :)

***

Chili Verde (of sorts!)
Chili 2 - (adapted from Joy of Cooking by Rombauer & Becker)

Servings: 3-4

1/2 onion - chopped
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped yellow squash
1 cup chopped bell pepper
3 cloves of garlic - minced
3-4 fresh chile peppers - I used these long not-super-spicy chillies I found at the indian store
4 T chopped cilantro
1/2 semi-ripe mango - chopped into chunks
15-20 cherry tomatoes
1 can black beans (drained)
1 block of tofu - diced
1 T coriander+cumin powder
1 t olive oil
salt to taste

Grind the chile peppers, mango, tomatoes and cilantro into a puree.

Heat the oil in a saucepan and saute the onions and garlic for a few minutes.
Add the carrots and saute for 2-3 more minutes.
Throw in the bell peppers and squash and saute for another 3-4 minutes.
Add the coriander and cumin powders along with the black beans and stir.
Pour in the puree and cook covered for 10-12 minutes.

In the meantime, spray the tofu bits with some olive oil and toast till the edges get crispy.

Throw the tofu into the chili and stir for a few more minutes.
Season with salt and maybe some red pepper flakes if you want more zing!



Opinion?

Hmm ... this was good too! I think the tofu was a little overwhelming - maybe I added too much. I'll definitely try this again and scale back on the soy love. Otherwise, the flavours were great - the spicy mango+tomato+cilantro was really good - totally worth a reuse as a gravy for other veggies.

***

Veggie Chili with Rainbow Chard
Chili 3 (the recipe was pretty much whipped out of my behind!)

Servings: 2

1/2 cup red onions - chopped
4 cloves garlic - minced
1 can cannellini beans
3 vine tomatoes - blanched and pureed
1 bunch of rainbow chard - chopped/shredded
1/2 red bell pepper - chopped
1" ginger - grated
1 t olive oil
1 t cumin powder
1 large ancho chile
1 arbol chile
salt to taste

In a large saucepan, heat the oil and saute the onions.
Once they get translucent, add the ginger and garlic and saute for a couple more minutes.
Add the bell pepper and saute for 2-3 minutes.
Now throw in the chard along with the tomato puree and cook covered on low for 10+ minutes.
While the veggies are cooking, char the ancho and arbol chiles over a medium flame till they get charred.
Grind the charred chiles into a fine powder and add to the veggies.
Stir in the cumin powder and season with salt.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream or just garnished with chopped cilantro.


Opinion?

Yum! I think this was my favourite chili - the perfect consistency, flavours well blended and lots of chard goodness!

***

Wow! This is serious legume overdose! Which means this post gets shipped off to Susan, the well-seasoned cook for My Legume Love Affair. Yum!

Ole for Chole!

Hmm ... lots of craving for desi flavors lately - I blame it on the festival season! :) Actually, the main reason we ended up making a simple chole a few nights ago was because we were hoping to make do with the stuff living in the pantry. We finally ended up making a quick trip to Madison Market when I put the kibosh on making naans - which we eventually regretted since the Indian Life naans we bought were totally lame - but that's another story! :)

Anyway, we poked around the shelves and found several cans of garbanzo ... Yay! Chole for dinner. I love, love Chole, best when the chickpeas have been steeped in the juices and spices for a few hours. Hmm ... seemed like we weren't going to achieve that level of food bliss, but we could get close! We started off poking around Indira's recipe, but I finally decided I wanted more flavor - especially the ginger-garlic-green chilli explosion. So, we went with our own version of it, actually Pupp cooked most of it, I just was liberal with the free advice! :)

Chole

Servings: 2

1 can garbanzo beans
2 medium roma tomatoes - finely chopped
1 vidalia onion
3 cloves garlic
1" ginger
1 green chilly
1 t turmeric
1 t cayenne pepper
1 T sesame oil
1 t cumin seeds
1 t curry powder (ya, we took the easy way out :))
2 T lemon juice
a handful of chopped cilantro

Mince the onions, garlic, ginger and green chilli in a food processor to get a coarse paste.
Heat the oil in a work and add the cumins seeds. Once roasted, add the onions, etc paste. Keep stirring this till the onions smell cooked and have started browning.
Add the chopped tomatoes and saute for about 6-7 minutes.
Grind about 1/4 of the garbanzo beans and set aside. Toss the remaining garbanzo along with the turmeric, curry powder, cayenne and salt into the wok and cook covered for about 10 minutes.
Now add the ground garbanzo along with about 1/2 cup of water. Simmer covered for another 15 minutes with constant stirring. Mix in the lemon juice and garnish with cilantro.

We were really hoping to get the flavors to soak in with the extra simmering - I'm thinking a great alternative would be to cook this mixture in a crockpot for about an hour or maybe even bake it? Has anyone done that?

Ok, so now to the sub-par part of the meal - the naans! I knew I should've just made them myself!!! Instead we got the small Indian Life naans - these were really not good enough! I'm thinking I need to fry some yummy bhature to compensate for this the next time around! :)

Oh, and we actually had a pretty good wine pairing here - a Heron Syrah 2003 - the motley of spicy flavors worked surprisingly well! :)

Good old black bean burgers

Ever since I tried the black bean burger special years ago at the Hilltop, I've been hooked. I remember how disappointed I used to get when the special disappeared and I had to settle for the cilantro pesto quesadillas (good, but doesn't stand a patch against the BBB!) instead. And then we discovered that the 74th Street Ale House carries the BBB as a regular entree. As does the Columbia City Ale House! Weeeeeeeeee!!!

So, the next natural step in the BBB ingestion process was to attempt recreating the burger. Pretty much all attempts so far have been pretty good. Plus the burger patties freeze really well - and it works better to make a big batch since I need to use atleast a can of black beans when making these. Well, last night was one of those BBB nights. It has been a few months since I made these, plus the blog doesn't have an entry for it! Which means it was time to embark on making another batch of BBBs. And this time around was the best, by far! All the flavors balanced out, it seemed like the quantities were perfect and the patties cooked really well and held together. And now I *have* to document it for the next time I need to whip up a batch!

Black Bean Burgers
(makes 10 large patties)

1/2 medium vidalia onion - chopped fine
1/3 medium red onion - chopped fine
1/2 orange bell pepper - chopped fine
1/2 granny smith apple - chopped fine
4 cloves garlic
1 jalapeno pepper
1.5" ginger
2 cans black beans
1/2 t allspice
1 t olive oil
1 t cumin seeds
salt
a few drops of habanero sauce

Grind up the garlic, ginger and jalapeno into a coarse paste, adding a little water if needed.
Heat the oil in a saucepan and toss in the cumin seeds. Once they're browned, add the onions and saute them till translucent.
Add the bell peppers, apple, allspice and ginger/garlic/jalapeno mix and cook for another 3-4 minutes.
Now add the black beans, salt and habanero sauce and stir.
Lightly mash the mixture with the ladle - not too much! (We still want chunky black beans in our patties :))
Cook'n'stir for a couple more minutes.

Once the mixture cools, take generous handfuls and flatten each into a chubby 4" diameter patty. These can be cooked in batches on a lightly greased pan till browned and crisp on both sides.


We usually eat these with mediterranean flatbread from TJ's. Place a patty in a folded, toasted flatbread, dress it with maybe some horseradish dip (yum!) and some salad.

Wait, we need a salad! Which brings me to my current favorite fruit - pomegranate! *so* good! Uwajimaya currently has some awesome pomegranates, can't wait to go back for more! So, I had to throw those into my green salad!

Yummy mixed greens salad

2 cups romaine/endive/spinach greens mix
8-10 sugar plum tomatoes - sliced
a handful of pomegranate seeds
1 t balsamic vinegar
a few drops of truffle oil
salt'n'pepper
grated beer cheese

Basically, just toss all of these together :) This beer cheese - a new item at TJ's is totally awesome! Milky, yet somewhat firm and bursting with flavor. And it does have a slight beer aftersmell! Which actually tastes good :)

Mmm ... pomegranates!


These BBBs might just have to be my unconventional entry for Marie's sammy event!


This goes to Zorra and Sandra for their Best of 2007 event - the first batch of burgers that I made were pretty good, but it took a few rounds of experimenting before I finally hit the perfect balance. Burger heaven is a great place to be in!