Southwestern Turkey Burgers

Posted on March 16, 2017 by Our Growing Paynes

Winter is back with a vengeance! Mother nature does like to mess with us. Offices were closed so I got a snow day. It was lovely to watch the snow come down in the comfort of home. It also allowed me to catch up with some projects I’m working on. There is a possibility I might have to have hand surgery soon so all my knitting and crocheting projects need to get done. Which might guarantee I won’t need surgery! Fingers crossed.

We are also getting ready for our exchange student to come this weekend. She has actually been here since August but they way they do it now is the student spends three months with a host family then moves on to another one. So now it’s our turn. She is from Denmark and I’m looking forward to trying out recipes from there. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I am looking into the Danish rye breads to give that a go.

Before winter returned we had some fabulous warm weather which meant lighter meals. I do miss salads. I thought it would be fun to do turkey burgers, not realising how mushy the ground turkey can be to work with. Very sticky! But if you can get past that you can have a great meal.

To make the burgers I mixed a pound of ground turkey meat with half a cup of freshly grated cheddar cheese, a few splashes of hot sauce, 1-2 tablespoons of chili powder, and a teaspoon of ground cumin. Season with sea salt and pepper. Mix and form into burgers. Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Brown both sides.

Finish off in the oven at 350F/175C. Finely chop scallions, peppers, garlic, and mushrooms. Add them to the skillet with 1-2 cups of frozen corn. Add 1-2 tablespoons of chili powder, a teaspoon of ground cumin, 1-2 tablespoons of lime juice, sea salt and pepper, finish with fresh cilantro.

As the burgers finish cooking top with pepper jack cheese to melt. Serve over mixed lettuce greens and top with the veg mix. We also cooked up some sweet potato fries.

An easy dinner to put together when you want loads of flavour on a busy night.

Leek and Bacon Burgers

Posted on July 5, 2016 by Our Growing Paynes

When I started blogging I was nudged by a friend to just go ahead and do it. Instead of just thinking about it and worrying whether it could be successful or not. For a few months now I’ve been wondering about starting a YouTube channel. Of course I have been trying to figure out if I could pull it off, what would I do, how would I do it, that sort of thing.

I’ve been inspired by Stéphane of My French Heaven who has started his channel. He has already uploaded a few videos and he is doing a great job. It’s a bit of a learning curve for me as I don’t have a Mac and we don’t use Windows. So I found an open source video editor Kdenlive to try out. I took a few videos to practice and boy did I feel silly! It’s one thing to have in your head what you want to do and another to actually press record and do it. So I’ll do a bit of practicing and see what I can sort out. I have iMovie on my phone but that screen is too small for me and I don’t have enough space on my iPad. Then I have to figure out camera set ups. I think this could be fun, once I learn the ropes.

This past weekend was absolutely gorgeous so we did a lot of outdoor projects. Which meant easy dinners was the name of the game. My husband wanted burgers. I wanted to do them with a twist. For the actual burger I did the same ones as I did in my gourmet burgers. Though instead of goat meat I used beef.

Instead of buns I bought large portobello caps to grill. Just prep them with sea salt, pepper, and olive oil. Set aside while you prep the burgers. Slice about half a cup of leeks and a few button mushrooms. Cut up a few rashers of streaky bacon.

Start cooking the bacon in a skillet. Once it is half cooked add the mushrooms and leeks to the skillet. While this is cooking grill the burgers and portobello caps.

Stack the burger on the mushroom caps, add goat cheese, and top with the leek and bacon mixture.

For this you can pick just about any cheese you like, my husband likes jarlsberg. You don’t need much more than this as it is quite filling.

Please let me know if you have a YouTube channel or any advice on having one.

Italian Style Burgers

Posted on September 9, 2015 by Our Growing Paynes

Labor Day is the unofficial end of summer in the states. Usually marked by BBQs and last trips to lakes and beaches. And it was hot this weekend! Thank goodness temps are looking to break tomorrow. I’m over the humidity and heat. I’m very ready for autumn.

Burgers was the main request for Monday night and we tossed around ideas of what to make so I could have a recipe to share. My husband mentioned it would be fun to stuff them with mozzarella. Sounded good to me!

I wanted to use oven roasted tomatoes for this recipe and that does need to be done ahead of time as it takes at least an hour. To prep the burger, finely chop a clove of garlic and mix with a couple of teaspoons of fresh thyme. Add it to about a pound of ground beef. Then add about a 1/3 of a cup of freshly grated parmesan cheese and a few dashes of balsamic vinegar. Season with sea salt and pepper. Mix everything together with your hands. The trick is to not overwork the meat but get everything evenly distributed.

Divide the meat into four portions and place a slice of mozzarella in the centre. Wrap the meat around the cheese. Do your best to seal the cheese in.

Grill them on a hot grill. While they are grilling prepare the topping for the burgers. I had some oyster mushrooms to use up.

In a small skillet heat up a bit of olive oil. Chop up the mushrooms and a clove of garlic. Saute for a few minutes and add the roasted tomatoes.

Add a bit of balsamic vinegar and bring to a simmer. Season with sea salt and pepper.

At the end of cooking add fresh basil. Top the burgers with the tomato mixture and grate fresh parmesan on top with a bit more fresh basil.

And if all goes right, it will be nice and melty inside. Melty, not sure if that is the technical term!

Add a side of grilled corn and it’s a great meal to say goodbye to summer. While I left off the bun, this is also good with a buttered grilled brioche bun. But that is a lot of food!

BBQ Burgers and Family Time

Posted on August 2, 2015 by Our Growing Paynes

Every summer there is nearly a month when the kids are gone. A bit hard on the parents but it means the kids are off on adventures. They do a two week overnight camp and then we usually get them for a couple of days then they are off to Florida to see grandparents with their mother and stepfather.

While we get a break from the usual back and forth of getting the kids round we miss them like crazy. We picked them up from camp Friday evening and they had so many stories to tell. It was non stop and it was fabulous. But they were looking forward to home cooked food.

Our daughter must have missed the kitchen as she made breakfast each morning this weekend and baked cookies. Yesterday morning she kicked us out and set the table with flowers and candles. She really loves going all out.

When we picked them up they mentioned they were sick of cheeseburgers. Shoot, as that was what I was making for last night! Our daughter said oh we love your burgers so that’s ok. Phew!

It was time for something different so I thought I would make BBQ burgers. Our poblanos are coming in and I wanted to use them. Our garden has been a struggle this year but our peppers are doing us proud. I see a lot of hot pepper jelly in our future. Unfortunately we’ve used up all our Peach BBQ sauce I had made so I had to use, gasp, store bought. Peaches are showing up in the shops now so it is on my list to make another batch.

I had a pound of ground beef which is more than enough for the four of us. The only issue is it’s impossible to find decent buns that aren’t enormous. So the buns tend to dwarf the burger. I think a quarter pound of meat is more than enough but I think I’m in the minority in this country. My husband and I went without the bun. In a bowl add the meat. Mince 2-3 cloves of garlic and add that with a few teaspoons of fresh thyme. I didn’t have enough cheddar to do slices on top but I did have enough to grate for the actual burger. The amount I added was about a quarter of the meat in volume. Then add a few tablespoons of BBQ. Mix well and form into patties. Set aside. Cook up several rashers of streaky bacon and set that aside as well.

My husband brought home some fresh corn yesterday. So exciting! I love having them grilled. Very easy to do, just soak for about 20 minutes in water. Then grill for 5 minutes on each side until cooked through. When these were halfway cooked I added the burgers.

Once you flip them add sliced onion that have been prepped with olive oil and seasoned with sea salt and pepper. Add the poblanos after deseeding them. You want the peppers to blister a little but don’t go crazy. You want to grill the onions so they have the grill marks but aren’t burnt. When the burgers are almost done add slices of cheddar or jarlsberg to the burgers to melt.

Layer with BBQ sauce, bacon, onion, and pepper. Butter up that corn and enjoy! My husband did up some sweet potato and regular potato chips (fries) to round out the meal. I was stuffed. I think a bun would have sent me over the edge. I didn’t even have room for ice cream!

Roasted Beets with Burgers

Posted on September 17, 2014 by Our Growing Paynes

I know a lot of us who blog have figured out the balance of healthy delicious food with budget. And I don’t think it is that difficult to do. But very often in cooking competitions there is invariably a challenge that involves cooking on a budget. Time and again the reaction is it’s impossible to get flavour on a budget.

For example, I am watching season 4 of Top Chef which I believe aired about 6 years ago. They were given a challenge of cooking a healthy delicious meal with a budget of $10 for a family of four. You might as well have told them to climb Mount Everest! I don’t understand the disconnect for a lot of people when it comes to this balance.

Given that our food budget is about $150 a week which includes things like kitchen roll, soap, etc, I need to be creative with the dishes. We actually do pretty well during the summer because of our veg garden but it gets a little tricky in the winter. I sometimes skate over the line. The big budget buster is meat, especially if it is important to buy local, humanely raised meat. It just goes back to portion control. I’ll take a breast of chicken and use it for the four of us. And it’s plenty.

I also try to use an ingredient a few different ways during the week. This week it’s beets. I had some bacon fat left over from the chicken avocado dish I made so I thought I would roast them. I had half a pound of ground beef leftover so it was perfect for two burgers for my husband and I. To round it of I bought 2 large portabello mushroom caps. When I was doing research into the Paleo diet I was so overwhelmed by all the books on this subject, it was insane. I saw in one book a suggestion to use the mushroom as the base to a burger. I cannot remember which book it was though. I looked at about 30 of them!

This is an inexpensive easy dish to make even with the grass fed beef. I kept the burgers simple and used garlic chives and thyme from the garden.

I chopped up the thyme and chives with a couple of cloves of garlic. I mixed them with the beef and a dollop of stone ground mustard. Season with salt and pepper.

Set this aside. Peel and slice the beets about 1/4″ thick. Beets are so messy! Getting the stain out of my fingers is such a pain.

Set the oven to 400F/200C and place the baking dish with a couple of tablespoons of bacon fat. Allow it to melt then add the beets with salt and pepper to taste. Roast until they are tender. In the meantime, form the beef into patties.

Drizzle the mushrooms with olive oil, salt and pepper. Grill the burgers and mushrooms. Be careful not to grill the mushrooms so much that they aren’t firm anymore. Place the mushrooms on the plate and top with the burger. Spread goat cheese on the burger then place the beets on the cheese.

I’m not a fan of beets but the bacon fat helps. 🙂 Of course after I did the photos and cut into the dish I thought I should have added some greens on top for presentation. Too late at that point!

Gourmet Cheeseburgers

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Our Growing Paynes

We enjoy a good cheeseburger from time to time. Earlier this year I was feeling creative and we had some fresh ground beef from a local farm. So I didn’t want to do a basic cheeseburger. It needed some pizzazz! I came up with this recipe.

In a medium bowl, put in the ground beef, a few cloves of garlic minced, about 1/2 a cup of grated parmesan, 1/3 cup of panko bread crumbs, salt and pepper, a couple of tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce. I’ll admit it is hard to tell if you put enough in as you can hardly taste the raw meat. So occasionally I find I didn’t use enough Worcestershire sauce. Which is a shame as it really makes this burger.

Mix with your hands but be careful not to overwork the meat. It will mess with the texture. If the meat isn’t sticking together enough add a bit of olive oil. With meat from local farms it can be a toss up on the moisture level.

Form into patties and get the grill going. While the grill is going, butter some baguettes and toast for the buns.

Also while grilling the burgers I saute up some mushrooms and onions in a bit of olive oil with some salt. I cook them until the mushrooms are nicely browned.

Once the burgers are done, let them rest a few moments. Now we use different cheeses. My husband prefers Jarlsberg on this so I melt the cheese on the burger in the grill. I spread goat cheese on mine when it’s resting. Then it is time to put it all together. I like to layer ketchup, then the burger, the goat cheese, mushroom and onions for my burger.

Yes it does get to a silly height! 🙂 So I just smush it a bit and enjoy all the flavours. It is messy eating but who cares! 🙂

Our Growing Paynes

A journey about cooking, traveling, gardening, and crafting.

Tag Archives: burgers