Turkey Burgers with Pear Salad

Are you ready for... the Umami Burger?!

It's a meat burger with beautiful Vietnamese flavours. The original recipe can be found here, and I've modified it o make it more BTD friendly. This is not a 100% compliant burger because of the fish sauce (anchovies), but it just tastes so darn good that I can overlook the small deviation from the diet.

As for the original recipe from Bodyrock.tv, I'm not keen on sauces with meat, so I made a pear fruit salad, which really involved grilling pears and pineapple and adding them to a salad of tossed greens and some walnuts.

Ingredients - Burger

• 2 lbs ground turkey (mixed breast and thigh)
• 1-1/2 Tbsp fish sauce
• 1/2 tsp honey or agave
• 2 cloves garlic, minced

Directions - Burger

1. Mix all ingredients together and let sit for at least 20 mins. The longer, the better.
2. Form into patties and grill. I grill mine for about 10 mins per side.
3. Serve with salad. What salad? This salad!

Ingredients - Salad

•  2 pears, chopped into large chunks
• 1/2 a pineapple, chopped into large chunks
• small handful of basil and parsley, minced
• drizzle of olive oil
• skewers for grilling

Directions - salad

1.  Combine all ingredients together (except skewers) and let sit for a few minutes.
2. Thread the fruit onto skewers and cook on the grill with your burgers.
3. Combine the grilled fruit with mixed greens, lemon juice and olive oil. Top with walnuts for some crunch. 

Portobello Pizza

I've made stuffed mushroom caps before, but this was much better. The only reason it is remotely in the realm of "pizza" is because of the shape: this is wheat-free, and very pretty when served with a salad.

Ingredients

• 1 package large portobello mushrooms (mine had about 8 caps)
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 handfuls of spinach or kale (I used spinach) 
• juice of 1/2 a lemon
• 1 leek, fine dice
• 1 onion, fine dice
• fresh basil
• fresh parsley
• winter and summer savory 
• olive oil
• salt
• feta cheese, crumbled 

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400F. 
2. Clean the mushroom caps by scraping the ribs out with a spoon and discarding the stems. Put them on a cookie sheet.
3. Heat up a large skillet and add some olive oil. Saute the onion, leek and garlic with a good pinch of salt until they are soft, about 8 mins.
4. Give the herbs a rough chop and add to the pan, letting the mixture cook for another minute.
5. Turn off the heat and add the spinach and lemon. The residual heat will wilt the spinach. Keep mixing until everything is well incorporated.
6. Spoon some of the mix into each mushroom cap. I used a tablespoon measure and got about 2 Tbsp per cap, give or take. Crumble some feta cheese on each cap and pop in the oven to brown for about 10 minutes.
7. Serve with salad for a lovely summer meal.