Day 6 - Saturday Night Special...with Spinach

After our celebratory dinner on Friday, we got back on track with a surprisingly tasty Saturday night meal of Greek burgers with some hidden spinach. Cards on the table, while I was making this dinner, I thought multiple times 'my kids will never eat this'. BUT to my surprise, all but one (you can probably guess who at this point) enjoyed the burgers and there was NO COMPLAINING about the hidden spinach in the burger.

For this recipe, Greek Turkey Burgers with Spinach, Feta, and Tzatziki from Eating Well, I made one big substitution. As a family, we have tried turkey burgers about 10 different ways and regardless of recipe, they are never eaten. It's something about the texture of the turkey when it is cooked as a burger for my crew (and me). I substitute turkey in chili, meatballs, and sloppy joes, and it's never an issue but something about when it is in burger form just doesn't work for us. So the big substitution was flipping turkey for lean ground beef. Other than that swap, I kept to the recipe as presented.

In general, burgers typically come together quickly and this recipe was no exception. If you are looking for a fast weeknight meal or a Saturday dinner that doesn't take you away from a football game for too long, this is one to try. It was fast and easy.

The first step in the recipe was preparing the burgers. One thing I loved about this recipe was that the most foreign Greek ingredient, Feta, was hidden in the burger. So my kids, who have never tried Feta, would be eating it without even knowing it. And if all went well, they would also be eating spinach without really knowing it, which while not a NEW ingredient, certainly not a fan favorite. So win-win.

I combined all five ingredients into the burger meat and combined everything with my hands. Bringing burgers together with my hands just feels like the easiest option without mixing too much which can make the burgers dense. Once everything was combined, I portioned the burger meat for our family - two adult size, two almost-adult/junior size, two sliders - and made the patties.

One thing I found when making the patties was to roll it into a ball before starting to form. The ingredients needed a little more pressure to stick together in a patty and pressing each portion into a tighter ball seemed to accomplish this. The patties looked pretty good sitting on my cutting board but as I looked at the burgers, this was the first time I thought 'there is no way my kids will eat this'. I had described tonight as Burger Night and with the spinach and feta, I thought they might look a little too foreign for my kiddos to consider them burgers.

I let the burgers sit for just a few minutes while I prepped the side dish. The recipe didn't come with any suggestions on sides so I whipped up some hand-cut (i.e. rough cut) French fries that I seasoned with the most AMAZING Greek seasoning. Seriously, if you haven't tried Cavender's, I highly recommend the blend. It is great on potatoes, chicken, pork, and so much more. I tossed those into the air fryer to get crispy and then fired up the grill to pre-heat.

Once the grill was warm, I plopped the burgers on and let them hang out for five minutes on each side. I am terrible about oiling my grill. Most of the time, I find the meat has enough fat to not stick to the grates but since I used 93/7 lean ground beef, it probably would have been helpful to grease before I put these on. Luckily, they didn't stick too badly after the first flip and got some nice grill lines.

Once the burgers were ready, I pulled them off and let them rest for about two minutes. While everything looked and smelled good to me, this was the second time I thought, 'there is no way my kids eat this.' The spinach was just so prominent when cooked and not hidden as I had hoped. But I was this far along in the process, so I started assembly which was super easy. I sliced up a few cucumbers, spread some pre-made tzatziki on each bun top and bottom, and put everything together.

To my surprise, when I served the dishes, my two older kids didn't bat an eye at the burgers. The both started with their fries but then happily dove into the burgers and there wasn't one complaint about the spinach, feta, or tzatziki sauce (which was also new to them). My husband also comment several times how much he really liked the burgers, and given he started this meal "hating feta" and "hating tzatziki", he cleaned his plate and said he would love to have them again with even more sauce.

I loved the burger as did Ashlynn. While she didn't want to eat it in the cut-up form I had put on her plate, she happily ate several bites of my assembled burger and Bennett's left-over burger.

Bennett was the one negative review of the night. At this point, this probably already figured out that this is not a shocker. He was excited for burgers but when the slider was presented on his plate, he refused to touch it. After being told he had to try it, he did take one big bite which promptly came back out of his mouth. "I don't like the green stuff," was his response to the bite. This should probably be his slogan for all meals! Since he did give it a try, we warmed up chicken nuggets and he happily took those down.

This recipe was a great way for me to introduce some flavors I love - feta and tzatziki - to the family. It was also an easy way to incorporate some extra green veggies into the meal for 5/6th of us.

Highs:

• Joel ate feta and tzatziki and liked them both!

• Parker and Lucas enjoyed a burger that had hidden spinach

• Ashlynn filled her belly

Lows:

• The burger went into Bennett's mouth and then immediately came out of Bennett's mouth.

• Still on the quest to find a way to get veggies into Bennett's diet

The Scores

Joel: 3.75 (he said it would have been higher with more sauce)

Allison: 4.5

Parker: 5

Lucas: 5

Bennett: 0

Ashlynn: 4