Easy Turkey Spinach Burgers

If you are not positive that your pan is completely nonstick, spray it with some Pam cooking spray.

I read a recipe about adding frozen spinach to ground white turkey meat to make turkey spinach burgers. The recipe sounded like a good way to use up extra fresh spinach before it has to be thrown out or another way to use chopped frozen spinach. Here is the recipe:

1 pound of ground white turkey breast (ground without the skin)
1 pkg frozen spinach thawed and squeezed to remove the juice or fresh spinach which has been lightly sauteed in water and chopped. In both cases, remove as much liquid from the spinach as possible.
6-9 leaves of fresh basil or your favorite fresh herb cut up (in winter I use my fresh frozen basil or sage)
2 Tablespoons of panko bread crumbs if the mixture seems too thin.
Black pepper (optional)

Mix ground turkey with the chopped cooled sauteed spinach or thawed frozen spinach, basil, pepper and panko bread crumbs.

Notice, mixture may be thinner than for a regular turkey burger.

Use the mixture to make the burgers, I made them thick as wanted them to fit into the pan. I made 6 thick burgers and will reheat leftovers for tomorrow night's dinner when I plan to serve them with microwaved fresh sweet potatoes.

Cook high at first (#9) on my electric cook top and lower the heat (#5) and cover the pan. After about 15 minutes check the underside of a burger, if it is crusty, turn all the burgers to the other side. If you turn them too early, they will stick to the pan rather than have the crust stick to the burger. Continue cooking for another 15 minutes if the burgers are thick (#4). Cut into a thick burger to be certain it is completely cooked.

My husband loves anything roasted or cooked to the max. Just seeing this crust enticed him to want to try one!

Herbs from the Garden

There are no flavors as great as freshly picked herbs. We have a deer issue in our area, so I include herbs that flower. Although they tend to get huge and I rarely use them, I grow leeks in my garden as the deer do not seem to want to cross over the tall leeks. I am planting more and more herbs. My garden has lots of Lemon Thyme forming a carpet and newly planted sage has taken off. I love spearmint and basil too, but keep it in pots in the front of my yard to protect plants eaten by deer.

I have frozen herbs and I also dry some, but even in winter, I can find some fresh Thyme and kale.

Fall Veggie Spaghetti

We love vegetables in our spaghetti instead of meat. I include tomatoes (canned these days as the deer eat anything that I plant but for herbs), a can of no salt kidney or other beans labeled no salt, sliced mushrooms, thin sliced zucchini, garlic, herbs such as fresh lemon thyme and basil, cinnamon, tumeric, and today I added a few tablespoons of a butternut squash that was not as naturally sweet as usual. I included half of a jar of a prepared sauce from the grocery store and the small bit of baked butternut squash gave the sauce some body and a very smooth texture.

I will always add some baked winter squash to future sauces as it thickened the sauce and added a hint of sweetness. Sometimes, I add a bit of honey to the spaghetti sauce.

Deer eating up your garden, flowers and plants?

It was a cold 6 months of winter and now spring is here and we are starting our gardens for the yummy vegetables or will we have some? Most probably many of us are "sharing" our flowers and vegetable plants with the local deer herds. Yes, I mean "herds" of deer.

One came to me while I was mowing my lawn, after he ate the neighbors geraniums -- yes, they were sprayed with deer repellant, but we have no sure solutions in my area and we are using much Irish Spring soap and physical barriers like herbs, and objects to try to alter the path of the deer. They love my day lilies and I had to hide my tomato plant among leeks, basil, stakes of soap.

Luckily, the deer do not eat my Italian Heirloom Kale and that is most of my garden this year as they cleaned out my tomato plants last year, right down to the ground!

Here are some photos of the soap inside cut up onion bags and pantyhose! Can you find the lonely tomato plant surrounded by leeks, basil, and small bags of Irish Spring soap?

 

The deer is headed for my day lily garden!

 

You can see my kale plants, luckily the deer leave the kale for us to eat and we love it on sandwiches instead of lettuce, in smoothies with banana and almond milk, and sauteed for a few minutes. 

Kale is also great added to any soup in the fall. Kale also freezes well. 

Found in the Greenbean Patch

I have a bumper crop of parsley, cilantro, arugula, and basil. I have made my first large batch of pesto as a topping for pasta and pizza and have made much parsley salad. I love to watch everything grow and share the produce with members of my family and neighbors.

My cherry tomatoes are starting to turn red. My Mr. Stripey and Hillbilly heirloom tomatoes are still green. My garden was planted late this year and whoever is eating my squash plants and some of the branches of my tomatoes is still in the area. Whoever it is also knocked down some of my large green tomatoes.

I saw a rabbit jump out of my garden. He ate all of the zucchini plants but left me a couple butternut squash plants that are intermingled with the arugula. I think our bunny does not like arugula or the marigolds around the garden but jumps over my low plastic gate that has protected squash plants in the past.

I would love to plant a fall crop of beans. Seven years ago, I found a newborn kitten in my garden patch, exposed to a hot August day with a storm on the way. She is now a house cat and we love our dear Precious most dearly. However, my husband will not let me plant green beans as our Precious allows us to live with her in our house. She is truly a full member of our family and loves to be hugged and sung to by my mother.

Our vet helped us much with suggestions for taking care of our newborn kitten seven years ago and we have become more and more attached to our Precious as the years go by. This August 23 we will celebrate her seventh birthday. Unlike the Cheetahs pictured on my web site at
http://www.raskinfo.com, our Precious was found alone in our garden and I tried to be the best kitty mother I could.

In case you are wondering what is under Garfield, it is a towel with a hot water bottle as the vet said that we had to keep Precious warm. In her earliest days, with little hair, we had to keep the temperature in the house at 90F in August for our dear Precious, who was named by our vet!

Precious does not like anything I grow in my garden but she loves a vase of Lovage (Levisticum officinale) from my mother's garden. Lovage reminds me much of celery but has a much stronger scent that Precious enjoys playing with whether it is green or dried.

Gifts from the Garden

The parsley is wonderful, the cilantro is flowering so that I can collect seeds for next year as is the arugula.

My cherry tomatoes are ripe but someone has been munching on my summer squash plants and knocked down large green heirloom tomatoes.

I planted the Italian, flat leaf, parsley this year from seeds, and it is doing wonderfully. The basil I planted from seed is growing as fast as the basil plants I purchased at a local nursery. I planted the basil seed in between my tomato plants as I read they do well growing near each other.

We have been lucky to have some rain almost everyday and my garden includes mulch.

The bush cucumbers are small but very tasty and crunchy. There is nothing like a just picked cucumber from the garden.

In regard to seed germination, the arugula germinates most quickly, followed
by cilantro. About a week later the parsley and basil appeared.

The marigolds around my garden include many bright colors and are doing well.

I have made salads with the parsley, arugula, and cilantro as well as some wonderful egg dishes. Arugula loses the spicy taste when cooked.

I wish I knew who was eating my squash leaves as I never had this problem before.

Help, does anyone out there have any ideas or had any experience with an animal eating squash leaves and/or destroying some of the branches on my tomato plants?