I have two things to blog about! Tonight I made Cheddar Ranch Burgers that were absolutely DELICIOUS and super easy to make. I took one pound of ground beef out of the freezer (we get half a beef every year from my brother so we are stocked up on beef), put it into a ziploc bag and put it in the fridge to defrost yesterday morning. Today when I got home from work, I unwrapped the meat, put it back in the ziploc bag, added one packet of Hidden Valley Ranch dressing mix, zipped the bag back up and kneaded it all together. I then broke it up into four equal size portions. I took some mild cheddar cheese slices, folded them into fourths and put it in the middle of each 1/4 pound patty I made. Got my grill pan nice and hot, grilled each patty for about 5 minutes on each side while I preheated the oven to 350. Once I finished grilling, I put the grill pan in the oven for about 8 minutes. When that was done, we sliced some tomato and put a slice of tomato with a patty on a bun and it was soooo good!

I told hubby I had to blog about it and he asked if I had blogged about my Mexican chicken and rice. Well I hadn't so here it is. I had frozen legs and thighs, so I took out two thighs and four legs. Let them defrost and seasoned them with Adobo (one of my new favorite spices). Browned the chicken in a sauted pan in olive oil. Then added teaspoon of minced garlic, teaspoon of minced shallots and about 1/2 cup of Sofrito paste. I then added about 1 cup of chicken stock and let it simmer on low for about 45 minutes. I had some boil-in-bag Uncle Ben's white rice and made two bags of that. Put the rice into a serving dish and spooned the chicken and sauce over the rice. It was obviously a hit because hubby asked if I had blogged about it.

The more successes I have, the higher my confidence level gets. This cooking thing is very exciting.

Happy Eating!!