Greek Turkey Burgers

Dinner tonight...nice and moist for turkey burgers too. I figured I'd try sealing some feta inside the burger rather than crumbling and mixing it all through the meat to keep it from oozing all over the place and burning. Worked great!

Greek Turkey Burgers:

1 lb 93% lean ground turkey (the pre-packaged turkey I bought only came in 1.2 lb size, so if you're in the same boat don't worry about increasing the other ingredients)
1/3 cup whole wheat bread crumbs (or reg.)
2 egg whites
~3/4-1 cup chopped baby spinach
~1/3 cup diced red onion
~1/2 tsp dried Greek oregano
zest of 1 lemon, ~1 tsp
~1 Tbs chopped Italian parsley
~1/2 tsp garlic powder
~1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
olive oil to cook burgers
4 feta cheese slices
whole wheat buns

Optional toppings:
mayonnaise (I use Spectrum brand vegan mayo)
lettuce
tomato
avocado

Mix turkey through black pepper using the paws that Dog gave ya.
Divide mixture into 4ths, then each 4th in half.
Make 8- ~1/4" thick patties.
Place a slice of feta on 4 of the patties.


Top each of those with another patty sealing the edges around the cheese.
Heat some olive oil in a non-stick skillet that you have a lid for over medium-high heat.
Sear burgers for 3 minutes on each side, then cover and reduce heat to medium, cooking for another 8 minutes, for a total of ~14 minutes.

Fish and Chickpea Burgers (salad) with Tartar Sauce

These are a great healthy meal and my guess is that even kids would like them on buns...specially since I found the recipe on a blog called Eco Child's Play. The tartar sauce was really great too, that recipe gleaned from Epicurious.com. I only made 1/3 of the tartar sauce recipe, but I'd say for this amount of burgers 1/2 would have been the perfect amount. I should note that I wouldn't have made tartar sauce, but for the fact that we have a vegan eggless canola mayo by Spectrum that is only 35 calories per Tb, versus regular mayo's 90. It's a really great mayo that I don't feel the least bit guilty buying for my Monster's daily lunch sammie. Much better for you than the still icky "light" mayonnaise. But back to the recipe...the only thing I added was a little touch of agave nectar, and I didn't have any viable tarragon, but I'm sure that would have been great. I might mention that the Monster ate 3, I ate 2, leaving 3 remaining. So I figure this recipe feeds either 2 adults + 2 kids, or 3 adults worth.

Fish & Chickpea Burgers:
(Vanessa Brown at Eco Child's Play blog)

Canola cooking spray (I use Spectrum brand...good stuff)
1 lb of fresh natural tilapia filets
1/2 tsp kosher salt
Pepper to taste
1 cup canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup fresh parsley leaves (I didn't really chop them for the 1/2 cup measure)
1/4 cup bread crumbs (I found whole wheat bread crumbs in a store brand..sweet!)
1 egg, beaten
Mini whole grain buns, or bread if you're making a sammie instead of a salad.
Optional...last time I made these I added a shake or two of Old Bay, and some Tabasco sauce into the mix

Romaine lettuce
Tomato slices
Tartar sauce (recipe follows)
lemon wedges

Preheat oven to 375°F. Spritz foil-lined baking pan with cooking spray and add fish. Season with 1/4+ tsp salt and pepper to taste. Bake until flaky, 7 to 10 minutes (taking care not to overcook the fish since it still has to be subjected to more heat in the patty cooking process). Remove fish from oven; leave oven on.

In a food processor, puree chickpeas, parsley, 1/4 tsp salt and bread crumbs. Process for 1 minute. (If you don’t have a processor, use a potato masher instead.) Place bean mixture into a large bowl with the egg; crumble in fish. Gently mix with your hands until it’s incorporated, then form into 8 small patties.

Coat an ovenproof skillet with canola cooking spray (or you can just wipe some canola oil around the pan with a paper towel) and put over medium heat. Add burgers. Cook until brown on one side, about 5 minutes. I spray the cakes lightly with more canola spray before flipping cakes carefully, then place in oven for 5 minutes.


Serve on mini-buns with lettuce, tomatoes and tartar sauce. Or, do as we did and serve atop romaine dressed with a touch of olive oil, lots of lemon juice, kosher salt and pepper. Toss your greens then add avocado slices, tomato, cucumber, patties and tartar sauce and of course more lemon over the top of everything. :-)

Tartar Sauce:
(Bon Appetit, Jan. 1999...got 4 forks!)

1 cup mayonnaise (Look for Spectrum vegan eggless canola mayo)
1/4 cup finely chopped dill pickle
3 tablespoons chopped green onion
1 tablespoon drained capers
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (Tabasco)

Whisk all ingredients in medium bowl to blend. Season with pepper (says and salt too, but ours didn't need it). Cover; chill at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.

Vegetarian Lentil Burgers

These were SO yummy! I liked them even better than the beef burgers we had last night. :-)
In this recipe the burger IS the bun. You split it as you would an English muffin and then fill with whatever you want. The Monster decided to eat his with a knife and fork, but I just ate mine with my paws.
You can spice them up any way you like. I deviated from 101 Cookbooks' original recipe by adding cumin, garlic powder, a diced jalapeno, cracked black pepper and more salt. I also didn't use near the amount of onion called for originally. Green French lentils had to take the place of black ones, since I couldn't find the black. But, I really liked the green and would probably just make them with those again. I filled our burgers with sliced avocado, vine-ripe tomato slices, and a delicious moist feta (this really made the burger for me). Topped it all with some homemade ketchup from the night before and it made for a real winner of a dinner. The recipe made 7 burgers that were about 4" each. I cooked them all then froze 3. I'll update this post to let you know if freezing was an advisable thing to do. (Worked great...thawed out beautifully and tasted just as good! I might just make up a double batch next so we have them on hand in the freezer all the time.)
We ate the cauliflower from last night mixed with some freshly roasted squash and baked new potato slices. I had to find more vehicles for the homemade ketchup afterall!

Vegetarian Lentil Burgers:
(Adapted from 101 Cookbooks)

3 cups cooked French green lentils
4 large eggs
~3/4 tsp teaspoon fine-grain sea salt (taste the goo before cooking it to see if it's seasoned enough)
1 tsp+ cumin
a couple cloves of garlic and then a couple shakes of garlic powder to taste (I didn't measure, sorry)
black pepper
diced jalapeno seeds and ribs removed
~1/2+ cup onion, finely chopped
1 cup toasted fine (whole-grain) bread crumbs (I just whizzed up 2 whole wheat hamburger buns in the food processor and toasted in the oven at 300 on a baking sheet...stirring every so often til toasted)
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil (or clarified butter)

Optional toppings:
sliced avocado
sliced tomato
feta cheese
homemade ketchup
or as in our case...all of the above! :-)

Wash and sort your lentils. Put them in a 3 qt. saucepan and cover with about 3 inches of water. Bring to a boil then cover and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook for about 30 minutes.
Drain the lentils well and let cool for a bit.
Combine the lentils, eggs, salt, cumin, and black pepper in a food processor. Pulse until the mixture is the consistency of a runny yet textured hummus. Just pulse until it comes together nicely, don't over process. Pour into a mixing bowl and stir in the onion and jalapeno. Add the breadcrumbs, stir, and let sit for a couple of minutes so the crumbs can absorb some of the moisture. At this point, you should have a very moist mixture that you can easily form into ~6-7 4" wide x 1 1/2-inch-thick patties. "I err on the moist side here, because it makes for a nicely textured burger. You can always add more bread crumbs a bit at a time to firm up the dough if need be. Conversely, a bit of water or more egg can be used to moisten the batter." I didn't have to add anything.

Heat the oil in a heavy skillet over medium low, add 4 patties, cover and cook for 7 to 10 minutes, until the bottoms begin to brown. Turn up the heat if there is no browning after 10 minutes. Flip the patties and cover, cooking the second side for 7 minutes, or until golden. Remove from the skillet and cool on a wire rack while you cook the remaining patties. Carefully cut each patty in half, insert your favorite fillings, and enjoy immediately. We now tend to just slice them in half and then eat them open faced, topped with goodies.