Our version of an all-American 4th of July.

While thinking of tradition 4th of July fare people mostly thing of hamburgers and hotdogs. Speaking of hot dog did anybody else watch any of the Nathan's Famous hot dog eating challenge? Watching them dunk the hot dogs and buns into water and shoving the soggy mess down their throats is just beyond gross!! I can't believe that anyone can eat 60+ hot dogs in such a short span. I seriously doubt I have had half that many hot dogs in my entire life and thank goodness for that! Those things are soso bad for you. Even my hot dog loving husband has pretty much quit eating them(except for maybe a couple time a year...everything in moderation!) after he learned how horrible they are for you in Med school.

I digress....

So, last night to celebrate the independence of our great country we made burgers. Salamon burgers that is :) We used Mark Bittman's recipe from the NY Times and it was great. Once I saw it had mustard & capers in the mix I knew it was right up our alley! Yum! We don't have an outdoor grill yet, so I did them inside on our Cuisinart griller thingy.

We thawed out some frozen wild Alaskan salmon for the burgers and it worked great. I just cut the skin off and into the food processor it went. I also added one egg into the mix to insure they stayed together on the grill. They needed to stay on our baby grill longer than the recipe called for, but they turned out great! We served with a combination of two types of Alexia sweet potato fries that we needed to use up from the freezer and Annies's mustard for dipping.

We also enjoyed a bottle of Red Truck Cabernet Sauvignon and it was very fruity and great for an inexpensive bottle of wine. It didn't pack quite as much of a punch as most cabs, but for this meal that was actually perfect as it didn't overwhelm the salmon. It was almost more like a pinot noir, I would certainly buy again.

For dessert there was home chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches that had been made previously and frozen, they held up beautifully in the freezer to pull out for an easy sweet fix. We actually ended up deciding to skip fire works because we didn't feel like fighting the crowds or really even leaving the house. It was Mark's last day before his surgery rotation and he just wanted to relax, enjoy the wine and not drive anywhere. We ended up watching True Grit and taking the dog for a walk, thats all American right?

So maybe our holiday wasn't so traditional, but it was relaxing and I got some studying for the bar in. Speaking of the bar, it is three weeks from today (insert panic) so I won't be posting until after that is over. However, after that its back to fun experiments in the kitchen, more exciting days and more blogging! Wish me luck!!!!!