Burger, Why So Blue?

Happy Birthday, Dad! :) In honor of today, I've decided to share a recipe for a meal I made a few weeks back. My dad invited me over for dinner one night, and originally planned on taking us out. Instead, I offered to make us dinner. Not only did he enjoy it, but he had leftovers as well, and it allowed me an opportunity to experiment and come up with my own recipe. So, what did I make? Blue cheese and spinach turkey burgers!

Makes:
4 servings

Ingredients:
1 cup Treasure Cave Blue Cheese, crumbled
20 oz Jennie-O Extra Lean Ground Turkey Breast
2 cups baby spinach leaves
4 whole wheat hamburger buns
1 Hass avocado
1 vine tomato
4 tbsp dijon mustard

Directions:
Turn the stove on high heat, and prepare a skillet with non-stick spray. While the stove is heating, prepare a bowl with the blue cheese. Take your spinach, tear it into tiny pieces, mix in with the blue cheese, and set aside. Toast 2 bun halves at a time (8 halves total), and keep on the heat until slightly hard and brown. When the buns are done, set them aside on a separate plate to cool, and keep the stove on high. Next, take your turkey meat, and separate into 4 equal servings. For each serving, roll it in the blue cheese and spinach mixture, and form into a patty. Cook 1 patty a time on the stove, making sure to flip the patty every so often. Times will vary, but mine took about 8 minutes or so for each patty. When finished, place the patties on the bottom half of the buns, turn off the stove, and let them cool.

While waiting for the burgers to cool, spread 1 tbsp of dijon mustard on the other bun halves, and then cut your tomato and avocado into thin slices, placing 1/4 of each on top of the mustard. When finished, serve the burger open faced, and enjoy!

Overall, I definitely enjoyed this meal! Instead of carrots, I made a side of grilled asparagus, and it went well with the burger. The nutrition will vary depending on which brands you use for some of the ingredients, but mine came out to be around 400 calories for each serving, and over 40 grams of protein. It was fun to spend an evening experimenting in the kitchen, and I definitely plan to make this again. Happy cooking!

<3 Stephanie