A Saturday night feast

Since I don't know many people out here in SF yet, I've had plenty of time to make some nice meals. Last night I made a southwestern themed meal with combinations of dishes from several recipes.

I made a burger with fresh salsa on top of it. Salsa was just a homemade combo of chopped tomatoes, shallots, garlic, cilantro, jalapeno peppers, lime juice, and salt and pepper. I put salt, pepper, and chili powder in the ground beef when I made the burger.

I also made some chili powder onion rings, taken from this recipe. I don't often fry things, but occasionally I check what little sense of healthy eating that I have at the door and fry away. I just substituted chili powder for the garlic powder to give it a little heat.

Finally I made a southwestern salad, adapted from this recipe. I just left out the shrimp.

It was a bit of a juggle to watch the onion rings and the burger at the same time. I also burned my finger and had a small paper towel fire(!!), but the meal turned out really well.

By the way, if you don't have one consider buying a grill pan. It is a pretty good alternative to real grills and nice to have when you live in an apartment building like I do and grilling outdoors is not an allowable option. This is the one that I own and I've been pretty happy with it - I use it a lot.