Burgers in Pitas with Lemon-Mint Mayonnaise, May 1, 2017

Last night's dinner was so excellent, I did something I rarely do. I had the exact same thing for lunch today. I made burgers tucked into pita halves, with a lemon-mint mayonnaise and some spring mix for extra flavor. They were stellar, but not as wonderful as the salad I threw together, which tasted of spring and freshness and light-heartedness. My 17-month-old was crazy about the salad, too. He got a little confused about the cucumbers and kept asking for, "More pickle?" He was also sorry I wouldn't let him have more and more and more of the kalamata olives.

For the salad, I threw some chopped up green pepper, cucumber sliced in demi-lunes, pepperoncini rings, sliced red onion, halved kalamatas, red wine vinegar, olive oil, oregano, salt, and pepper together in a salad bowl. Then, I sprinkled it with a little crumbled feta and tossed it all. I like this kind of salad, absent of any lettuces or other delicate greens, because it's still terrific the next day.

Burgers in Pitas with Lemon-Mint Mayonnaise

1 lb. ground meat (to make it very Mediterranean, you'd use lamb. If you are not a lamb eater, 96% lean ground beef is excellent)

1/4 onion, chopped

1 tsp. oregano

Salt & pepper

1/4 c. mayonnaise (I used olive oil mayo)

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp. lemon zest

1 squirt lemon juice

A handful of chopped mint

Pita halves

Salad greens

Lightly, but thoroughly, mix meat, onion, oregano, salt, and pepper. Shape into 4 patties. Coat a large skillet with cooking spray and heat on medium-high. Cook burgers until browned on both sides and cooked through. Mix mayonnaise with garlic, lemon zest and juice, mint. Spread on the insides of the pita halves. Adorn with salad greens, then add burgers. Serves 4. You could easily adapt this to be vegetarian or vegan by sautéing veggie burgers in onions, sprinkling them with the oregano, and then using a vegan mayo. 

For dessert, we had raspberry shortcake, using some biscuit-style shortcakes I found at Whole Foods. I macerated the raspberries with a smidge of sugar while dinner cooked and we ate. Then, I served them over the shortcake with a dollop of whipped cream. I could cheerfully have just eaten the berries, while my son eschewed the berries and went right for the shortcake. 

Feta Turkey Burgers, October 6, 2015

Tuesday night, I made feta turkey burgers and served them with veggies, yogurt dip, and kettle chips. It was a very simple and very yummy dinner!

Feta Turkey Burgers

1 lb. ground turkey breast (chicken is fine, as well as beef)

1 tsp. oregano

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

Salt & pepper

4 oz. crumbled feta

Pitas

Leaf or romaine lettuce

Sliced kalamata olives

Mix turkey, seasonings, and feta. Form into patties, making sure feta is mostly tucked into the meat, rather than jutting out in big hunks. Cook through until nicely browned, using either a grill, broiler, or skillet coated with cooking spray. Serve in pitas with lettuce and olives. The yogurt dip I made for the veggies turned out to be stellar with the burgers. Serves 4.

Yogurt Dip

1 c. Greek yogurt (0% fat is just dandy for this, but use a fuller fat version if you wish)

1 jalapeño, seeded, deveined, and chopped (add another, if you like spicy)

A big pinch of coriander

A medium pinch of cumin

A wee pinch of ground fennel seeds

1 shallot, chopped

A handful of mint, chopped

A handful of parsley, chopped

Several peanuts, chopped

A splash of key lime juice

A splash of olive oil, if desired

Mix together, either by hand, for a chunkier dip, or in a food processor/blender, for a smooth dip. 

Roman Burgers, August 14, 2015

Last night, we had burger night, but with a bit of a twist. One of the sub shops we used to go to when we lived in Cleveland had Roman burger hoagies. I decided to try my hand at making them. I'd meant to do a salad with them, but I forgot to pick up salad greens at the grocery, so it was just the burgers with crinkle fries.

Roman Burgers

6 tbsp. dry breadcrumbs (Italian, if you have them on hand)

2 tsp. Italian seasoning

1/4 c. water

1 lb. ground beef (I used 90% lean---you could also use frozen Italian-seasoned veggie burgers & omit the breadcrumbs and water)

1 (10 oz) can tomato soup (Healthy Choice works great)

Salt & pepper

6 slices mozzarella cheese (low-fat is good)

6 burger buns 

Mix breadcrumbs with 1 tsp. Italian seasoning & water. Add ground beef and mix well, but not over-much. Form into 6 patties (or 3 oblong ones to put on hoagie buns). Brown in a skillet coated with cooking spray. Mix soup with remaining 1 tsp. Italian seasoning. Pour over burgers. Cover and simmer about 10 minutes. Place a slice of cheese on each burger and cook another couple minutes. Serve on buns with extra sauce from the pan. Serves 3-6. 

Sunday Dinner: Burgers on the Grill, May 24, 2015

Due to various schedule conflicts, illness, and vacation, we haven't had Sunday dinner with the kids in quite awhile. Jeannene loves feeding people and especially loves holidays that include grilling. While, of course, Memorial Day isn't about grilling at all, it is still the first time we usually fire up the grill. I know better than to try to usurp Jeannene's menu-planning for holidays like Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day. She was so excited about cooking that she got out a bunch of cookbooks early in the week and started to plan. She also decreed that bingo would be played and went shopping for bingo prizes, coming home and showing me her dollar store loot with a great deal of glee.

She also exhibited a great deal of glee as we went grocery shopping for the event. I love seeing her so excited---and I certainly don't mind the occasional meal where I'm not responsible for a thing. Jeannene grilled burgers (specialty ones from Whole Foods---salmon burgers for Pie, beef & cheddar for Bubbles, Boca burgers for their vegetarian friend, a garden turkey burger for her, and a really stellar buffalo chicken burger for me) and cheddar brats for our first grill usage of the year.

For the (many) side dishes, she served her special sweet & spicy baked beans (she doctors Bush's using her dad's technique), a corn & rice casserole called "Connie's Death Corn Five" from The Sweet Potato Queens' Big Ass Cookbook (and Financial Planner) (I liked it, the kids loved it, she was disappointed with it---the name made her think it would be more fabulous), dill potato salad from Kroger (I have got to get my aunt's recipe), a bagged iceberg salad with taco dressing and corn chip pieces, and grilled pineapple & maraschino cherry kebabs similar to the ones she had growing up.

If you want the Death Corn Five recipe, I recommend you buy the book. Jill Conner Browne is absolutely hilarious, her recipes are yummy, and the way she writes them is just great, like having her on the phone with you, telling you what to do in between sips of a Big Ass Margarita. If you can't find the book, though, or need the recipe ASAP, you can find it here.

To make the fruit kebabs, pick up a pineapple (she likes to buy them pre-peeled & cored) and cut it into chunks. Soak some wooden skewers for at least half an hour. Meanwhile, mix together 3 tbsp. melted butter, a couple good squeezes of honey (about 2 tsp), and 4 or so dashes of hot sauce. Brush the pineapple with the mixture before threading it on the skewers, alternating with extra-large maraschino cherries. Grill for a couple minutes per side. Me, I would probably add some brown sugar to the mix, but it was delicious as it was.

For dessert, we took the girls to Eva's, a little ice cream joint nearby, for our first visit of the year. Pie didn't want any ice cream, so he napped on the couch until we came home. Jeannene's favorite is a peanut butter sundae---peanut butter ice cream with peanut butter topping and chopped peanuts. Bubbles had, very characteristically, a vanilla soft serve cone with rainbow sprinkles (she claims she is a giant 2-year-old), while their friend picked a strawberry smoothie and praised the freshness of the flavor. I had a simple small vanilla soft serve cone. It was all I could ever have wanted. Eva's is always packed and, once you taste their product, you'll know why. It's also tremendous fun to sit at a picnic table, savoring your ice cream, and watch all the people and dogs there for treats, too.

Cincinnati Porkburgers, March 3, 2015

Last night, we had a nice, home-y dinner of porkburgers (I made ours mini, but will give the full-sized recipe here), egg noodles, and honeyed acorn squash with crushed pineapple, pecans, and cherries. The acorn squash was basically dessert---oh, so delicious! I was pretty skeptical of the porkburgers. I've had the recipe for years, copied down from a creaky old Cincinnati cookbook, the kind where all the recipes are from women who don't have their own names, but are listed as, for example, Mrs. John Taylor and Mrs. George Smith. I wasn't skeptical of the pork aspect, but of the fact that they are cooked in prune juice and port wine. I'd never had prune juice, but it does have a rather bad reputation and, if you recall, I have a thing about sweet and meat together. However, they turned out to be quite tasty and not at all too sweet.

Cincinnati Porkburgers

1 lb. ground pork

1 c. flour

1 tsp. dry mustard

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

2 tbsp. olive oil

1/2 c. prune juice

1/2 c. port wine

1/2 tsp. caraway seeds

Form meat into 4 patties. Mix flour, mustard, salt, and pepper. Dredge burgers in flour mixture. Brown on both sides in olive oil (I'm sure you could also just use cooking spray---the original recipe called for bacon grease). Add prune juice, port, and caraway. Cover and simmer on lower heat for 45 minutes, adding water if necessary. Serves 4. 

Honeyed Acorn Squash

1 acorn squash, halved

1/4 c. butter, melted (this can be omitted)

4 tbsp. crushed pineapple

2 tbsp. honey (or to taste)

2 tbsp. chopped pecans

2 tbsp. dried cherries

Place squash, cut-side-up, in a microwave-safe dish. Microwave on high until softened, about 10 minutes. Mix everything else together and spoon into squash halves. Microwave on high another minute. Serves 2. 

My Year in Food: Burger Night with the Kids, December 9, 2014/La Luna Cooks Gooseberry Patch: Fireside Sipper

Since Pie and Bubbles have moved closer, we normally have them over every Sunday night. Since she recently lost her job, we supplemented that last week with a Burger night on Tuesday, too, and lots of leftovers sent home so they will have plenty to eat. They both really like buffalo and we had some buffalo burgers in the freezer, along with some spinach-feta and some mushroom turkey burgers we picked up from a vendor at Eastern Market in Detroit. So, Jeannene thawed those & pan-fried them. She made fries, mini tater tots, and corn to go with the meal. Very easy, very tasty. I suspect it would be pretty easy to make spinach feta turkey burgers yourownself, by just mixing in some spinach, feta, garlic, salt, & pepper. You could also use some variety of white beans to do the burgers, for a tasty vegetarian alternative.

Bubbles really loves apple juice and apple cider, so I made one of the Gooseberry Patch recipes, called "Fireside Sipper." It called for apple juice, but I like cider a lot better, so I subbed that. It also wants brown sugar and apricot nectar, along with spices. I thought it was entirely too sweet and didn't even finish mine, but Bubbles loved it, so it wasn't a complete failure. If I made it again, I would omit the sugar entirely. Cider doesn't need sugar at all to be good. I did learn a useful trick, though. Whenever I make hot spiced cider, it's good the first day, but if there is any left and I drink it the next day, the spices are overbearing. I never want to bother with fishing them all out when I'm cleaning up. So (and this is probably really elemental, but I never thought of it), the suggestion to bind up the spices in a well-tied piece of cheesecloth delighted me! It worked great!

My Year in Food: Cheeseburgers with Sour Cream and Herbs, November 30, 2014

Much of the time, our family Sunday dinners are more elaborate than what we had last night. However, we've been spending a lot of time preparing elaborate feasts in the last week. Furthermore, with all the dining out we've been doing when not preparing elaborate feasts, I was left with a pack of hamburger that needed to be cooked. So, burgers and hot dogs it was last night!

The Pie and Bubbles arrived mid-afternoon and almost immediately began snoring on the couch (while our Blue Smoke Persian snuffled & snored away in the kitchen with me). The wife and I watched "How To Train Your Dragon 2," then began dinner preparation. I'd planned to make the burgers Wednesday night for Boot, but then my sweetie-pie got a hankering for wings, so that plan went out the window. Last night, I got to try a new take on burgers. It was heartily approved by Bubbles and Jeannene---Pie was too interested in the leftover cranberry yam bake to comment on anything else, but he ate his burger very happily. Along with the leftover yam dish, I also warmed some leftover cheesy hash browns in a skillet and set out veggies with dill dip. Jeannene cooked some hot dogs and I made these:

Cheeseburgers with Sour Cream and Herbs

2 lb. burger (I used 90% lean---I know, I know, they should be closer to 80% or, at most, 85%, according to the burger experts. Hey, they were good & healthier! You could also use ground turkey.)

1/4 c. sour cream (I used light)

1 tsp. marjoram

1 tsp. parsley

A healthy pinch of rosemary

A good grinding of pepper

8 slices cheese of choice (American, but I think brie would be wonderful)

8 buns

Condiments and toppings of choice

Mix meat with sour cream & seasonings. Form into 8 patties. Pan fry until browned on both sides and cooked through. Top with cheese & serve on buns, with whatever toppings each diner prefers. 

Meatloaf Burgers & Meatloaf

When I was making these burgers, I wasn't thinking of them as meatloaf burgers. But when Jeannene tasted hers, she said, "Meatloaf burgers!" It's a much quicker way to get the flavor of meatloaf than making a traditional one, that's for sure. They did fall apart like mad, so I suggest adding a handful of cracker crumbs or breadcrumbs when you're mixing them together. We had crinkle fries and lima beans with these.

Meatloaf Burgers

1 1/2 lb. ground beef (I used 90% lean, although they say you should never use super lean meat for burgers---these were not dry)

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 small onion, chopped

1 tbsp. chili sauce

1 tbsp. mustard (the condiment, not the spice)

1 tbsp. worcestershire sauce

1 egg, lightly beaten

Salt & pepper

Hamburger buns (I like the sesame seed ones)

Mix everything together and shape into 6 patties. Broil 5-7 minutes per side. Serve on buns with your favorite condiments (I like ketchup & mustard, Jeannene does mayo & ketchup). Serves 6. Or 3 teenage boys. 

I also made an actual meatloaf this month, using a recipe for the first time in a very long time. I have come to like my own meatloaf quite well and it's usually a result of just kind of noodling around. I will say that I definitely prefer ketchup meatloaf to brown gravy meatloaf. When my beautiful bride makes it, she likes to douse it in brown gravy, in addition to adding all kinds of veggies like peppers and carrots when forming the loaf. The boys would never eat it because of the veggies, but they wished I used brown gravy for mine! When I made this meatloaf, my adaptation of the one they serve at Mary Mac's Tea Room in Atlanta, Jeannene really loved it. I still prefer ketchup to this version, with tomato sauce over top, as the tomato sauce was a little too sweet for me, but it was good stuff and made a fine sandwich the following day. We had it with mashed potatoes & corn, so that Jeannene could have the great pleasure of mixing them together. I always avert my eyes when this happens, but it gives me a little giggle, too, to see her so happy with her supper.

Meatloaf with Tomato Sauce

2 lb. ground beef (I used 90% lean)

1 1/2 c. diced onion (this was a little much for my taste)

1 c. diced green pepper

1 c. uncooked oatmeal

1/2 c. ketchup

2 tbsp. plus a splash of worcestershire sauce (the splash to replace the Heinz 57 sauce I could not find at any grocery around here)

1/2 tsp. pepper (I would reduce this to 1/4)

1/4 tsp. salt

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 tbsp. butter

1 c. tomato sauce

1/4 c. light brown sugar

1 tsp. worcestershire sauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9x5 loaf pan. Mix all the ingredients through the eggs. Place in the loaf pan and bake 55 minutes. Pour off drippings, very carefully, and bake another 10 minutes to brown. Make tomato sauce: melt butter in small pan on medium-low heat. Add tomato sauce, sugar, and worcestershire sauce. Cover and cook about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve over the meatloaf. Serves 4-6. 

Burger Night, Asian Style

Boot has been on a real burger kick lately and Jeannene had to leave for work at 4 this morning, so last night was a good night for a burger night. Since Boot is prone to eating several burgers at a sitting (the boy works out 3+ hours a day), I used 2 pounds of burger. Into that, I mixed a bunch of soy sauce and 5 scallions, sliced thinly. I formed this into 5 patties and cooked them through in a couple of skillets. Since the meat was 85% lean, I coated the skillets with cooking spray first. I served them on sesame buns with warmed hoisin sauce and cheese.

With the burgers, we had wavy chips and French onion dip, baby carrots, & sugar snap peas. I cut up a pineapple into chunks for our dessert. Easy and tasty!

Minted Lamb Burgers with Feta and Hummus

Sometimes, I get weird about lamb. I think it tastes great, but sometimes, if I think about it, I can't use it. However, when I am lamb-tolerant, I love it in burgers like this! If you are lamb-averse, use ground beef instead. This is great with fattoush on the side. The recipe comes from the February 2006 issue of Bon Appetit.

1 1/2 lb. ground lamb
1/2 c. minced mint leaves
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp. paprika
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cayenne
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 tbsp. olive oil
7-8 oz. sliced feta (you can use crumbled feta if sliceable feta is hard to find where you live)
4 kaiser rolls, toasted
8 sweet onion slices
4 romaine leaves
Hummus

Mix meat, mint, and spices. Shape into 4 patties. Heat the oil over medium-high heat and cook the burgers until browned on one side. Flip, add feta on top, and brown the other side. When cooked through, serve on rolls with onion, lettuce, and hummus.