Tandoori Turkey Burgers

Last week, we did Cub Scout camp. For five days, I spent the hours between 8:30 and 5:30 at a campsite, helping boys do crafts, shoot arrows, use slingshots, cook in a cardboard box oven, play football and badminton, and generally just be dirty, busy, loud, active, competitive boys. My two sons participated in camp, and my daughter worked her tail off as a junior volunteer.

Each night, we came trudging into the house, peeling filthy socks off our feet, dropping the camp t-shirts into a pile, and flopping onto the couch. 

Dinner needed to be something simple, and something quick for these kids who had run, climbed, swam, and hiked all day long in the hot sun. They were hungry and tired... not a great combination.  

These turkey burgers did the trick! They are pretty simple to throw together, they can be grilled in just a couple of minutes (while the kids hose the first layer of grime off each other), and they are TASTY. Topped with cilantro, onion, and cucumber, and a delicious yogurt sauce, they are nice and light and flavorful, just perfect for a hot night.

The recipe came from Bake Bree, and I only made a few tweaks. 

Tandoori Turkey Burgers

1 pounds ground turkey
4 green onions
3 Tablespoons grated fresh ginger
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
1 Tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoons cumin
1/2 teaspoons ground cardamom
salt and pepper to taste
Pita bread
persian cucumber
cilantro
red onion sliced thinly

yogurt sauce:

1 small container plain Greek yogurt
1 Tablespoon fresh mint, chopped
2 teaspoons cumin
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
salt and pepper

Using your hands, combine the turkey, green onions, ginger, lemon juice, and spices. Form into 4-5 patties. Grill over medium-high heat until cooked through. Grill the pita bread for the last couple of minutes.

Meanwhile, stir together all of the ingredients for the yogurt sauce.

Place a burger patty onto each piece of pita bread. Top with the cucumber, cilantro, and onion. 

Drizzle on some sauce, and enjoy!

Grilled Chicken Salad from Martha Stewart

Oh my oh my. Martha Stewart. Just when I was ready and set to give up on you. Just when I felt like every recipe in your magazine required the purchase of either (a.) a new specialized baking dish or kitchen utensil or (b.) a farm in New Hampshire, you came through for me.

In the May issue of the magazine is the feature "Lunch in the Garden," in which Dana Gallagher rewarded several of her friends for helping rescue her weedy garden by serving them a delicious lunch that she made largely with the fruits of their own labor.

It was another one of those serendipitous moments for me. I was leisurely leafing through the magazine, just about to quit my Martha habit cold turkey, when I spied the recipe for the Grilled Chicken Salad. It listed several ingredients that happened to come in my box again this week (thanks be to seasonal cooking once again! Dana Gallagher's garden and the Abundant Harvest Farms both seem to have produce that understands it should be ripening right now. Those smart little veggies.).

Lettuce, peas, mint, lemon? I've got that!

This recipe is really easy to put together, especially considering lots of it can be done ahead of time. If you've been around here for very long at all, you know I love something that can be done ahead. There just isn't time between school and karate class and baseball practice and piano lessons and scout meetings to really dedicate any length of afternoon/evening to the kitchen. This salad let me marinate the chicken in the morning, grill it while I cleaned the veggies and whisked up the dressing at lunch time, and throw the salad together just in time to intercept the starving family as they zipped though my dining room. The chicken can actually be cooked at any time during the day and kept refrigerated until showtime.

I sat at dinner and ate and ate and ate until I was uncomfortable (which has been pointed out to me, isn't easy to do with a salad). It was just so delicious that I couldn't stop! I didn't know how I was going to feel about mint in my salad, but it was amazing! I am hoping to get more peas right quick so I can make this one again!

Here is the recipe just how Martha presents it. The only substitution I made was to use Romaine instead of butter lettuce. I think the butter lettuce would have been even better, but Romaine was what I got this week, and so Romaine is what I ate. I also cooked a little less chicken (feeding only five, rather than the 20 or so that seemed to be at the featured garden party). I loved that it called for both legs and breasts. The kids love eating chicken drumsticks!

Grilled Chicken Salad
from Martha Stewart Living May 2012

• 3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided
• 2 tablespoons plus 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice (from 3 or 4 lemons), divided
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon minced garlic (4 cloves), divided
• 5 boneless, skinless chicken-breast halves (10 to 11 ounces each)
• 12 chicken drumsticks
• 2 cups shelled fresh peas (from 2 pounds in pods)
• 2 tablespoons minced shallot
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 1 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh mint leaves, plus 1/2 cup packed fresh mint leaves (from 2 bunches)
• 1 to 2 heads butterhead lettuce such as Bibb or Boston, trimmed and separated into leaves

Directions

1. Whisk together 1/4 cup oil, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, and 1 tablespoon garlic. Pour over chicken, and refrigerate 2 hours.
2. Cook peas in a large pot of boiling water until just tender, 2 to 3 minutes. Drain, and submerge in ice water to stop the cooking and retain color.
3. Preheat grill to medium-high heat or set up grill for indirect heat. Remove chicken from marinade, and grill chicken, turning often, until internal temperature reaches 165 degrees, 15 to 20 minutes for drumsticks and 20 to 25 minutes for breasts. Let cool, and refrigerate until ready to serve. Just before serving, cut chicken breasts into thick slices.
4. Whisk together remaining 1/2 cup oil, 1/3 cup lemon juice, and 1 teaspoon garlic, the shallot, mustard, salt, and chopped mint in a medium bowl. Arrange lettuce, whole mint leaves, and peas on a large serving platter. Toss chicken in dressing, and arrange on salad. Pour remaining dressing over salad.

just peachy

I just can't get enough of summer! It is beautifully hot around here and I am soaking up the sunshine and the outdoors just as much as I can.

We are eating most meals outdoors, which means: less mopping and sweeping indoors, which means: more time outdoors! It is such a happy cycle.

I am also trying to do most of my cooking outdoors. I love my grill. It makes me happy. The kids are all around me while I cook, doing their busy kid things... riding bikes, kicking a soccer ball, climbing trees.

Today, it was grilled chicken breasts with peach salsa. I think I may have died and gone to heaven.

The salsa is sweet and spicy, tangy and fresh. It livens up the chicken (which I marinated in a simple olive oil and lemon mixture), and makes the meal really unique. As a matter of fact, I am considering buying a whole bushel of peaches and canning some of this stuff with the peppers and mint my husband is growing in our garden. I'll let you know how that idea pans out.

Peach salsa

4 ripe peaches

2-3 Tbsp chopped shallots

1 jalapeno, chopped (stem, seeds and ribs discarded)

Juice of a lemon

2 Tbsp chopped fresh mint

2 Tbsp minced ginger

1 teaspoon sugar

Salt and black pepper to taste

Just chop all the ingredients and stir to combine... at least a couple hours before you are going to eat it, so it has a chance to meld.

(This recipe is my own special little take on the one I found here.)

drinking my vitamins

They say that bad luck comes in threes... well this week I had a set of three circumstances that ended up in some very good luck.

1. The fruit that we have been getting in the AHO box lately is absolutely beautiful. There are peaches, nectarines, plums, cherries and strawberries. The kids are eating tons of it. I am so happy!

2. Recently we were on a day trip that took us past a honey farm. We stopped and grabbed a few jars of local honey (having heard that it might help with my husband's seasonal allergies).

3. I had a cocktail recently that contained honey syrup, and I have been wanting to play around with it ever since. Honey syrup is simple ...  honey dissolved in an equal amount of warm water.

Let's now introduce my honey, my fruit, and the concept called "cocktail" to each other. I think three is definitely company in this case.

This is a light and refreshing summer drink, best enjoyed outdoors either in full sunshine or by the light of tiki torches.

Honey and Nectarine Cocktail

1 nectarine, sliced into 8 wedges
2 ounces honey syrup
1 ounce Rose's Lime Juice
3 ounces vodka
club soda
mint

Place 4 slices of nectarine in each of two tall glasses. Pour equal amounts of the honey syrup into each glass. Mash it up a bit. Add half the vodka and half the lime juice to each glass and stir. Add ice and enough club soda to fill the glass, and garnish with mint.