Greek Turkey Burgers

We had a lovely little weekend at home. It’s not often that we are both home, or that we don’t have plans. We saw Bridesmaids the movie on Saturday night, and I cooked up a storm that you’ll see later this week.

This Friday, I’m going to Washington D.C. for my second food blogging conference. This one is called Eat Write Retreat. I hope to learn some technical writing and photography skills to help grow my blog, and see the great city of D.C. too! I haven’t been since middle school maybe? I’m going by myself and don’t know anyone. Should be interesting!

Also this weekend, my dad completed a 10K in Dallas and he was in the Dallas Morning News! He ran a race called the Bagel Run as part of the Jewish Community Center, and he is the longest running runner since the race began 25 years ago. He even got a plaque! I ran it last year right when I started my blog.

I have realized that a key tip to not wasting food you buy and keeping your grocery bill tame is to eat similar foods during the week. For Greek week at home, we weren’t falafels and olives all week, but we had similar flavors. I created a turkey burger recipe modified from different ones I read about to accommodate what I had at home, and used feta cheese, olives and bell peppers in other meals during the week too.

Greek Turkey Burgers

Ingredients:

• 1 package Jennie O Lean ground turkey (about 1.25 lbs)
• 1/3 C feta cheese, crumbled (I use Athenos)
• 1/4 C red onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 T Greek seasoning
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper

For tzatziki sauce:

• 1/2 C plain Greek yogurt (I use Oikos)
• 1/4 C cucumber, chopped
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp red pepper (I subbed paprika because I had either red pepper flakes or chile powder and didn’t want to use those)

Instructions:

• In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients for turkey burgers. Let refrigerate for 30 minutes to a few hours.
• Make round burgers the size you desire, mine made 7 burgers.
• On a hot grill pan or skillet, spray cooking spray and cook for six minutes per side.
• For the sauce, combine all ingredients in a small bowl and mix together. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

I served the burgers over lettuce and with roasted vegetables on the side. These burgers are Jeffrey approved. We both really liked the flavor of the burgers with a lot of spice but not heat. The feta was nice inside too, but it didn’t get melty and ooze. The sauce was not too tangy to make you feel like you’re eating yogurt. It was creamy and sour cream like. I don’t want it to taste like yogurt. It should taste like a sauce! The burger size was also good, I thought–bigger than a meatball but still thick and juicy without being too gigantic.

For leftovers, I had turkey burgers and sauce and roasted up fresh vegetables like a sweet potato and mushrooms.

And sticking to like flavors, we used olives, sun dried tomatoes and feta cheese for a big Greek salad with cucumbers and bell peppers.

It’s easy to have different meals with similar flavors in a few days time without wasting ingredients when something calls for one ounce of cheese.

Do you have creative ways to use leftovers?