Random Turkey Burgers

I'm minding the kids for a few days. So not only am I cooking, I have to cook things they will eat too. I bought some turkey mince with the intention to cook turkey burgers. Looking around the net for recipes, I found that about the most important thing about turkey burgers is all the other stuff you put in since turkey itself has very little flavour. So here's what I put in my turkey burgers today. They were tasty enough and the kids ate all of theirs which is fairly remarkable. I picked a few things that I figured would give them some flavour - salami, olives, garlic, white pudding and some random other stuff. I just squished it all up together in a bowl with my hands, shaped it into burgers and then grilled them. The amounts below are what I used today and in no way represent an ideal amount. It would almost certainly be better with more of some and less of another but I have no idea which.

• 450g turkey mince.
• Half a onion, chopped.
• 1 slice of brown bread, turned into crumbs.
• 1 egg white, beaten a little.
• 2 slices (12g?) of Aldi Salami Di Milano, ripped into small bits.
• 1 clove of garlic, chopped.
• Half an inch of white pudding (20g?).
• 8 olives in brine, chopped.
• Various herbs and stuff, I think it was celery salt, cumin, basil, thyme, salt, black pepper, Lidl Puszsta spice mix.
• Cheddar cheese, grated - I didn't use it but I saw it suggested and I'm putting it here to remind me.

I used half of that to get burgers for 1 adult and 2 kids and I cooked these really easy potato wedges which the kids ate too, despite being a bit burned.

Oh, there's also this which looks pretty good and I might try it at some stage.

Quick review: aldi and lidl tins of tomato

More of a note to myself than a review. I make a tomato dip that is a cheap and easy version of a friends more lovely but more labour intensive tomato dip. It's great with a cook-it-yourself ciabatta from Aldi. You just get a tin of chopped tomatoes (I have been using Aldi chunk chopped with herbs), add a teaspoon or two of pesto (I have been using Lidl's) maybe some extra olive oil if you like and a bit of salt and pepper.

So the point of this post is to note that when I made this with Lidl's "Nostia" chopped tomatoes it was nowhere near as nice. Theirs seems much more watery. I haven't tried it Roma. I doubt I will since they are 3 times the price of Aldi's and unlikely to be 3 times tastier!

Recipe: Penne ala Irish Breakfast

I hesitate to call this a recipe, it's just something I did for the first time today without much thought for what would be "right" but it was pretty cool. I probably would have added a rasher if I'd had one.

Ingredients:

• pasta (I used penne because that's what I had).
• 4 sausages - 160g (Dunnes' Simply Better or whatever you like yourself).
• white pudding 50g (again Simply Better)
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 2 dried chillies with the seeds removed (I might use 1 next time)
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes (Lidl I think, not that it matters very much)

Method:

• Start the pasta cooking.
• Fry the sausages in some oil (I used olive oil for no particular reason) until they are mostly browned. You don't have to worry too much because they're going to cook some more later.
• Take them out and slice them into circles about .5cm long - maybe 10 or 12 slices per sausage.
• Slice the garlic and fry it and the chillies in the pan for about 30s or a minute. I just let them fry in the little bit of oil that was in the pan from cooking the sausages.
• Put in the tin of tomatoes and stir it up.
• Put back in the sausages and stir it up.
• Mash in the white pudding - you want it to break up into little grains and be spread all through the sauce.
• Leave it cook some more, stirring now and then to make sure it's not sticking to the bottom of the pan. About 5 minutes of cooking seemed to do the trick for me.
• Pour it on the pasta and eat it.

That's a nice spicy, tomatoey way of getting all the vitamins and goodness contained in an Irish breakfast. Maybe it should have a fried egg on top but I was never one for fancy presentation.