Chicken burger with sweet potato fries and lemon zucchini

I made this meal for a Skype dinner date with my boyfriend. I modified it a little bit to feature lemon--a nice zip during the winter, when that summery taste of farm-fresh fruits and veggies is tragically missing. Here is the original recipe (in Dutch).

This recipe has a lot of components, so here's a road map of what the final product looks like--helps you keep perspective :)

You assemble it like this:
Bottom half of toasted bun-->lemon zucchini-->chicken burger-->tuna salad-->top half toasted bun
The remaining lemon zucchini is served on the side with the sweet potato spears.
Recommended order of cooking:

Zestin' lemon!

1: sweet potato spears, because they take quite a while to bake. I recommend the recipe I linked from Mango Tomato, but instead of the serving sauce she recommends, just drizzle the fries with lemon juice when they are finished.
2: Put a liter of water on the stove to boil--you'll need it for blanching the zucchini.
3: Zest and juice a lemon (needed for every component in this recipe).
4: Prepare the chicken burgers. While they're cooking, you can whip up the tuna salad and finish the zucchini.




So, without further ado, here's the recipe :)

CHICKEN BURGERS
with zucchini and baked sweet potato spears

Serves two.

Burgers
2 buns
1 chicken breast, finely shredded (I used a food processor)
Zest of half a lemon
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
Pinch of salt
1 tsp. canola oil for frying

1. Mix all the ingredients well and form into two patties.
2. Heat oil in frying pan over med-high heat.
3. Add burgers and fry for about 4 minutes on each side.

Tuna salad
1 5-oz. can tuna in oil, drained
3 Tbsp. mayonnaise
1 Tbsp. capers (without juice)
A handful of chopped onions
Zest of half a lemon

1. Mix all of the ingredients well.
2. Put in food processor and mince finely, until the capers are no longer little round guys.

Lemon zucchini

Thinly sliced, y'all!

2 zucchini, very thinly sliced (I used my carrot peeler to slice them)
Juice of half a lemon
1 Tbsp. olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

1. First, blanch the zucchini. Put the thinly sliced pieces in a colander and pour at least one liter of boiling water over them. That's it! You're done cooking them!
2. Allow the zucchini to drain well, then toss with the rest of the ingredients. Set aside.

Assembly
Toast the bun. Layer a few pieces of the lemon zucchini on the bottom half of the bun. Top with the chicken burger and a couple scoops of the tuna salad. Serve remaining zucchini on the side with the sweet potato fries (drizzled with the remaining lemon juice).

Starbucks Berry Hibiscus Tea Copycat

I'm so obsessed with the Berry Hibiscus Tea from Starbucks. It's the perfect amount sweet and refreshing. I know people are all about the autumn drinks right now, but I can't get enough of this iced tea despite the cold temps! So, I recreated it, with some inspiration from this blog.

ICED BERRY HIBISCUS TEA

1 cup brewed yerba mate tea, cooled

2 Tbsp. hibiscus simple syrup (more or less to taste)

a handful of fresh raspberries

ice

Mash the raspberries with a fork in the bottom of a glass. Add ice cubes and pour the tea and simple syrup over; stir.

Hibiscus simple syrup

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
2 Tbsp. dried hibiscus flowers

Heat the sugar and water over low heat until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat, add hibiscus and let steep for about 10 minutes. Strain hibiscus using coffee filter or cheese cloth.

Links to new recipes I love

So, I haven't posted in FOREVER which means I have about 20 new recipes. These are the recipes I didn't change at all (or very little), so I'm just posting pics with links :)

ROASTED SWEET POTATO SOUP

This soup is FANTASTIC and from one of my favorite bloggers (I think she will start appearing a lot in these pages...). I used sunflower seeds because I didn't have any pumpkin seeds; other than that I followed Olga's recipe completely.











SWEET POTATO FRIES WITH GARLIC YOGURT SAUCE

Again, made directly as Olga says :) I just added some mayo to the sauce...because I'm weak, so weak.

 BEET AND PEAR SALAD 






Too good. Honestly, this is the perfect blend of flavors--I'm astounded by how well everything works together. Find the recipe here.










MINESTRONE SOUP

The perfect pair to the salad. I pretty much followed this recipe, but I had to cook for much longer than it says to soften up the potatoes and carrots I added.








These two recipes, I might modify more and repost in the future. For now, just links and brief modifications.

RED VELVET CUPCAKES

I made these for a friend's birthday and they were fantastic! Just a couple words of advice:
-Whip it good! But seriously, whip the batter between steps as much as possible (at least as much as the recipe says, maybe even more). It will keep them moist and give them great texture when they're baked.
-I used beet juice in place of half of the food coloring. I was worried about the food coloring giving the cupcakes an artificial tang, so I roughly chopped and boiled 3-4 beets (skins on) for 45 minutes. Keep the water level low, you don't even need enough to cover the beets; this will concentrate the color in less liquid. Then, use the water they were boiled in in place of half of the food coloring. I think I might try all beet juice next time.
-The frosting recipe is excessive. I could have easily halved the recipe and had enough. I'm also going to try it with less powdered sugar next time so the cream cheese taste will come out more.

BUFFALO CHICKEN ROLLS

I love these. So much. I usually use this recipe as a template for homemade/healthier blue cheese dressing to dip them in.
Modifications:
-I've found that straight hot sauce is too strong for me. I usually mix in a bit of butter. Heat up the butter and hot sauce (about 2 parts hot sauce to 1 part butter) and stir until blended.
-I hate cooking spray, so I just use olive oil and brush that on the egg rolls. It covers them better and doesn't have the artificial aftertaste of cooking spray.