Burger Time

This week I've prepared two delicious meals for friends, but I don't have much to prove it other than their testimonies.

Monday Night:

Bison burgers
Grilled veggies over couscous
Bleu cheese slaw (I cannot take credit for this, it was made by mom)
Palm Beach brownies over vanilla frozen yogurt (brownies also made by mom)

I cooked the burgers and veggies on a grill pan. I mixed the bison meat with Worcestershire sauce and half a packet of onion soup mix. I cooked the burgers for about 7 minutes on each side, but that was too long. I recommend doing no more than 6 minutes on each side on medium-high heat.

Another tip on burgers! If you are making patties, press your thumb into the middle so you have an indention that is about the size of a quarter and the depth of a black bean. Without it, your burgers will bubble up!

I cooked the veggies (zucchini, red bell pepper, onion, and mushrooms) in the same grill pan as the burgers so they could soak up the residual meat juices. It adds flavor and lessens cleanup time.

Wednesday night:

Black bean burgers
Roasted broccoli
Grilled veggies over couscous (con't)

The black bean burger recipe is from Peas and Thank You, and you can find it HERE. The burgers are very simple and call for few ingredients.

Tip on cooking burgers that are not made of meat: these burgers are more liable to fall apart, so you have to be extra careful when flipping them. My trick is to use two spatulas to cradle the burger and keep them looking good!

For the broccoli, I lightly drizzled it with olive oil and roasted it in the oven for 20 minutes on 400. It's a nice change from steamed broccoli!