Or, what to cook when you know you’ll want some good leftovers.
Our house has been dealing with a bout of illness. And while this is super fun for you all to read about, I’m sure, what I actually want to talk about is planning for times when you know you won’t feel like cooking. So this doesn’t have to be about illness, but in our case, it was.
Others in my house were felled by this bug before I was, but I had a hunch that I wouldn’t escape unscathed. (Everyone from work caught it, and then their entire families did too. I’m just not either healthy or lucky enough to escape those odds.) In short, I knew that I needed to stockpile groceries and some cooked meals to tide us over.
(It was also during this time that I wondered why nobody has yet provided meal delivery service for sick people – chicken soup, Sprite or Ginger Ale, hot tea, and crackers/dry toast delivery seems like it would do really well! But maybe delivering food to people who are already ill is not the best health and safety/legal move for a business startup. Hmm. Not such a bright idea? This is why I should stick to recipes and photos at TBK? Got it.)
Anyway, I like the idea of little patties or mini burgers. They keep well, reheat well, can suit varying appetites and portion sizes, and can be eaten in a variety of tasty ways: in a bowl (as shown here), in mini sandwiches, crumbled into broth with rice or noodles (or by themselves, really) for soup, with salad, with pasta and marinara sauce, etc. This list goes on and on. The point is, these Mini Meds are versatile and full of the flavors of the Mediterranean. They are good stockpiling food.
I served them with roasted vegetables and a minted yogurt sauce the first time around, and we ate them in a variety of other ways while we were either ill or recovering. They did the trick.
- 2 lbs ground turkey
- 1 egg, beaten
- ¼ cup breadcrumbs
- ⅓ cup crumbled feta cheese
- zest of 1 lemon
- 4 green onions, sliced
- a handful each of green and kalamata olives, diced
- 1 tablespoon capers in brine, minced
- ½ cup chopped parsley
- salt and pepper
- olive oil
- Add all of the ingredients except the olive oil to a medium sized bowl and mix well. I confess that I am lazy and cracked and beat the egg right into the mixing bowl, then used the same fork to mix the other ingredients together.
- Form the mixture into roughly golf ball sized portions, then flatten into patties, placing on a plate as you go.
- Cover the plated patties with plastic wrap and rest in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes but up to several hours. Don't be tempted to skip this step - it's crucial for texture and flavor.
- Heat a skillet (I used nonstick) over medium high heat.
- Add a thin coating of olive oil, and then add several patties, allowing enough space between patties for easy flipping. Do not crowd pan. Cook each patty until the bottom is nicely browned (about 4 minutes per side). (For reference, I did this in three batches, removing cooked burgers to a clean plate as I worked.)
- Serve with roasted veggies and a minted yogurt sauce.