Working With What You Have: Peppery Chicken Burgers

Since I am going home for Easter weekend, I am trying to make as little trips to the grocery store as possible. I do not like to waste food, so I have been concocting recipes with ingredients already in my freezer and fridge. In a rush to use the almost-gone-bad arugula and mushrooms in my veggie drawer and having found organic ground chicken hiding under the gallon of Blue Bell Vanilla ice cream, I got to work.

Ground chicken and turkey can be sort of... bland. Mainly because it has nearly no fat. Whenever I work with these ingredients I do my best to make them as flavorful as possible. This recipe is sure beat the bland and leave you satisfied!

Peppery Chicken Burgers

2 cups (or more-it cooks down a lot) arugula (a peppery tasting lettuce)

1 cup sliced mushrooms (I used a gourmet mixture I found on sale at the store but you can use any kind you like!)

1 shallot, sliced

1 T butter

3 T Olive Oil

3/4 pound ground chicken

Salt

Pepper

1 garlic clove, minced

1 lemon, juiced

1 T Dijon Mustard

Placed the ground chicken in a medium sized bowl, season with one teaspoon of salt and one half teaspoon pepper. To that add 1 T Olive Oil, the minced garlic, lemon juice and Dijon mustard. Mix with clean hands and set aside.

In a large frying pan melt 1 T (or more if you need it) of butter and 1 T Olive Oil. To that add the shallot, mushrooms, and a pinch of salt and cook until soft. Add the arugula and cook until it is completely wilted.

Transfer the frying pan mixture into the bowl with the turkey and mix well. It will be soft and moist and you'll find mushroom caps and arugula stems sticking out every which way, but don't worry! Form into five or six patties.

When you are ready to fry, drizzle the last T Olive Oil in the pan. Fry for 5 minutes on each side. Serve in between buns or thick bakery bread.