A quick and easy dinner

My son and I were both craving burgers. The benefit of buying meat in a share is that we always have ground beef in the freezer. The meat is packaged and frozen in little one pound packages which makes it super easy to defrost under a bit of water.

Since I’m watching my gluten, I tend to eat my burgers over a salad and other veggie sides. Over time, my husband has mostly followed my lead as well. However, our son still prefers to have his burger in a bun, but not just any bun, for a perfect burger he prefers a fresh brioche.

I placed my trusty cast iron pan into the oven and allowed it to warm to 300 degrees. While the oven warmed and the meat defrosted under a slow stream of water, I whipped up a crunchy green salad. I had two Kirby cucumbers, a few handfuls of snow peas, and a bunch of arugula. I chopped all the veggies into large chunks and dressed them with a dressing of very well crushed and chopped garlic with some sea salt, e. v. olive oil and the juice of a small lemon. To this I added some crumbled goat cheese and tossed to distribute. Always save a bit of goat cheese to crumble on top of the salad before serving, just for the presentation.

My husband requested some broccoli as a side dish, so I prepped a streamer basket in a small pan, cut the broccoli crown lengthwise into quarters and steamed it for just a few minutes until the broccoli is a deep emerald color. Really fresh broccoli is sweet, requiring very little to taste good, so for this dinner I left it plain.

To make the burger patties I add a dash of smoked sea salt, a dash of smoked spices, a dash of garlic powder and a tablespoon of coconut oil to the defrosted ground meat and mixed. Once well combined, I shape the meat into patties, thinning out the middle and leaving the edges a bit thicker, this allows for more even cooking of the meat.

Once hot, the cast iron goes onto a medium flame and coated with a swirl of coconut oil. The burger patties are placed on the hot pan and allowed to brown, first on one side and then the other. The patties brown for about 2 minutes per side and then finish in the hot oven. Since our beef is 100% grass-fed and very lean, I prefer to cook it slow and moderately low. This allows the meat to stay juicy and tasty. Shortly before removing from the oven I topped the patties with a mix of cheeses and placed back into the oven to melt.

This was totally spot on for our burger craving, but we weren’t left feeling heavy and greasy; a quick, delicious and nutritious dinner. What’s your favorite burger dinner?

Posted in: broccoli, burger, goat cheese, grass-fed beef, green veggies, salad