Tasty Tuesday: Burger Week at Little Red Apple Tearoom

It’s burger week over at my cooking blog! Every day I’ll have a new unique take on a burger to share with you.  My cooking blog is at: http://islandtearoom.wordpress.com/

Yesterday’s offering for Meatless Monday was an incredible vegetarian quinoa burger recipe: http://islandtearoom.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/meatless-monday-quinoa-burgers/

This is a recipe I adapted from the July 2011 issue of Chatelaine magazine.

Sweet Potato Poultry Burgers

Ingredients:

1 cup chopped red or vidalia onion

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 cup baby spinach leaves (they used kale)

1 egg

1 T. olive oil

1 T. flax meal

1 T. ground coriander

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp rosemary (I added this in)

salt and pepper to taste

1 lb. ground turkey (or chicken)

1 cup cooked sweet potato, cubed

1/4 cup chopped toasted walnuts’

Cooking spray

Instructions:  Spray a pan with cooking spray.  Saute onion and garlic until softened.  Add in the spinach and cook until it has wilted.  Let cool a bit.  Whisk together the egg, oil, flax meal, and seasonings.  Mix in the meat, sweet potato, onion mixture, and walnuts.  Shape into patties and grill – you will want to grease or spray cooking spray on the grill before starting as this is a sticky mixture.  Grill with the lid closed until cooked all the way through – this takes about 5-7 minutes per side.  As a sauce for these burgers, they suggested (and it was yummy!):

Sweet Potato Cream Sauce

Cook a large sweet potato until tender and puree in a blender or food processor.  Mix in 1/3 cup fat free Greek yogurt (they used fat free sour cream), 1 1/2 tsp. olive oil, 1 1/2 tsp honey (I just used Greek yogurt that comes with honey in it already), salt and pepper to taste (I really love a bourbon pepper here) and blend until smooth. 

A great cocktail to accompany these is:

Lychee Slush:  Puree 1/2 of a 540 ml can of lychees with 2/3 cup of the syrup from the can, 3/4 cup ginger ale, 1/2 cup apple juice, 1/3 cup lychee liqueur (if you can’t find it, you can substitute vodka), and 2 T. lime juice in a blender until smooth.  Add 2 cups ice and continue to blend into a slush.  YUM!