My Pages are Already Sticking Together-10/1/09

Each month I take a perfectly good Gourmet magazine and make it look like a used dish towel. I've seen those pretty plastic stands that can protect the pages of your cookbook or magazine as you whirl like a dervish around the kitchen but they are not for me. I almost pride myself in how unbelievably messy I can make a book look after just one dinner in my kitchen. Even my cookbooks have warped pages and odd unidentifiable stains. It's the sign of a dedicated cook... or a really messy one. I'll call myself the latter.

Tonight I made only one recipe from my new October Gourmet and tonight when I came upstairs to post to the blog, I had to carefully pull the pages apart so as not to rip the other recipes on the page I haven't made yet. I made the Portobello Buffalo Burgers with Celery Apple Slaw on page 128. They were not the prettiest burgers I've ever made but I got to reuse the homemade ketchup, mustard, relish, and buns I'd made earlier in the week. Portobellos get really black when you cook them and these burgers looked burned to a crisp. They weren't. It was just the black mushrooms but it was a little disconcerting. I liked the burgers though. The earthiness of the mushrooms was a good compliment to the gamier taste of the buffalo and I really liked the flavor. The slaw was also a good contrast, the sweet apples worked well with the more bitter celery. This was a pretty simple dish that would work well to change up the weekday burger but again, I wouldn't serve it to guests because of the black burnt look of the burgers.

Portobello Buffalo Burgers with Celery Apple Slaw-B