Twice as nice

I went with a double dose of Ellie Krieger tonight, opting for her turkey burgers and onion rings. The onion rings were my first idea, since I am still on a mission to finish up the buttermilk. My problem was that I didn't want to serve Jim more red meat, since he had the rib eye and In-N-Out yesterday. So I looked at the recipe online to see what Ellie paired it with, and turkey burgers it was. I picked up some ground turkey, baked potato chips, and sweet onions at TJ's and was good to go for dinner.

The first thing I did when I got home was to roast a red bell pepper in the oven. Then I started in on the onion rings, which ended up being more work than the burgers. I had to cut the onions in half inch slices and only use the big rings, grind up the chips in the food processor, and then make a mixture of flour, salt, pepper, and buttermilk for dipping. The rings were tossed in a bag filled with flour, then dipped in the buttermilk mixture, and then finally coat them in the ground up chips, which I added a smidge of cayenne pepper too. I actually ran out of the chips, because once the buttermilk mixed with the chips, they clumped up and weren't good for anything. So I improvised with panko for the last few. I placed the breaded (or chipped, I guess) rings onto a cookie sheet and baked them at 450 for 25 minutes.

Once they were in the oven, I worked on the turkey. The turkey was very goopy and extra gross. I couldn't get over the squishiness--the texture was awfully wet and I was very surprised. Anyway, I added some salt and pepper and divided the turkey into fourths. Each fourth was divided in half and assembled into two halves of the burger. I topped one half with mozzarella cheese and the other with the red bell pepper, which I had diced up, and then put the two halves together, sealing the filling inside.

The four burgers were grilled on the grill pan for 5 minutes on each side, toasted the buns, and then dinner was served. Unfortunately I burned the onion rings a bit, so that was disappointing. Jim liked the burgers, and we both agreed that the onion rings had potential. I was a little surprised at how strong of a kick the onion rings had. I really didn't use much cayenne pepper, but it was still pretty spicy. The burgers were deemed different. I was just happy that they were cooked through. It's actually a good thing for me to make the burgers, cuz now the rest of the buns from the Sloppy Joes can get used up.

So I didn't follow Ellie's directiosn exactly for the turkey burgers. I mixed salt and pepper into the turkey and then added a bit on one side. I also used regular lean ground turkey instead of lean ground turkey breast. The turkey breast only had .5 grams of fat per serving, and I figured it was a little too light for Jim. The stuff I got had 8 grams of fat, which I didn't think was too bad. Maybe I'll try it with the extra healthy stuff next time. We'll see. Oh, and Ellie didn't call for the burgers to have buns, but it seemed natural for me to use them.