Mushroom Burgers

Homemade burgers are a great family meal. They're fairly cheap (especially if you've already got a whole lot of ground beef in your freezer from a sale), really quick to put together, capable of feeding a crowd, and can be jazzed up to impress BBQ guests. They can also be frozen to use later, though if you plan on cooking them from frozen make sure you don't make them too thick.

Today I made mushroom burgers for lunch. There isn't really much to the "recipe", but I thought I'd share anyways.

First, chop up some green onions (as much as you want, it's all about personal preference here). If you're like me, you've got a bunch sitting on your windowsill. You can tell which ones I cut up today. The ones with new growth have only been there for 3 days - they grow fast!

Then cut up some mushrooms. Again, as much as you want. I normally use about half a container of sliced mushrooms for 2lbs of meat. Of course, it would be cheaper to buy them whole, but sometimes less prep work is worth a few cents more.

Fry the green onions and mushrooms in some butter. No cooking spray, no oil, just butter. Don't get me wrong, I love cooking spray and I use oil (especially olive oil) for most of my cooking, but with mushrooms it needs to be butter. I spent two years wondering why my fried mushrooms weren't as good as my mom's before figuring that out.

Let the fried mushrooms cool a bit. While you're waiting, put the ground beef in a bowl and kneed it with your hands a to make it easier to work with. I normally use 2lbs and make four 1/2lb burgers, but I think I'm going to have to start making 1/4lb ones now that our 2.5 year old is interested in eating them.

Add the fried green onions and mushrooms to the ground beef and kneed it again, making sure it's thoroughly mixed.

Now you just have to form the burgers and cook them. I make a ball out of the meat and then squish it between my palms. Then I put it on an indoor grill preheated to 400. You can also cook them in a frying pan or on the barbecue, but I can't help you much with temperatures. I don't have a barbecue and I prefer the indoor grill for cooking most meat.

While the burgers are cooking, you can broil the burgers if you like. I definitely prefer them toasted a little.

You only want to flip the burgers once. They dry out if you fiddle with them too much. If you like cheese on your burger, you can add some now so it will melt. Swiss goes really well with mushroom burgers. Unfortunately I thought of the cheese a little late - as you can see, it didn't quite melt.

Top with whatever you want (I usually just add a slice of tomato) and enjoy!