Summer veggie burgers

1/4 cup olive oil
1 small red onion, halved
2 cloves garlic
1 minced jalapeno
1 medium zucchini, grated
2 cups fresh corn kernels
3/4 cup cornmeal
Flour

Puree the onion, garlic, and jalapeno until almost smooth. Add to a hot pan with the olive oil and salt and pepper. Add the grated zucchini with 1/2 cup corn. Puree the remaining corn and let the machine run until it becomes a thick paste. Cook the zucchini mixture until the vegetables release their water and it starts to evaporate, 5 minutes. Add the corn paste and cornmeal. Remove from the heat, cover, and let rest 10 minutes.

If the mixture is wet, add a little flour. Form 4-6 patties and let rest for a few minutes. Cook in the same pan with olive oil, 5 minutes on each side, until nicely browned.

You can also add 1/2 cup grated cheddar, mozzarella, or parmesan with the cornmeal for a richer burger.

Beet burgers

Stay with me, now. I know you're all thinking, "Beet...burgers?" And then probably, "Ewwww..."

I got a bunch of beets with my CSA, and I wanted something to do with them that wasn't any of the usual things (pizza, risotto, salad). I found this recipe courtesy of Mark Bittman, and I think I have a new beet recipe to add to the repetoire.

I will say this: these burgers are sweet. They are excellent veggie burgers (and the color of blood, if you're into that kind of thing), but they are sweet. Traditional burger toppings, tomato/lettuce/cheese are okay, but you really want something to offset the sweetness--say, a jalapeno slaw on top. I tried spicy beer mustard on the first go-round, and that was fine, but pickle relish went better--and hot pickle relish would have been even better than that.

Also, handle the patties with care. They are soft.

From How to Cook Everything Vegetarian:

1 lb beets, peeled and grated (my food processor worked great for the grating part)
1/2 cup dates
1/2 cup almonds
1 inch peeled and sliced ginger
1/2 cup bulgur wheat
3/4 cup boiling red wine or water
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
Red pepper flakes
Maybe some flour

Combine the beets, dates, almonds and ginger in a food processor and pulse until everything is almost a paste. Put that in a large bowl with the bulgur and some salt and pepper, and pour the boiling wine over everything. Cover and let sit 20 minutes. If the mixture is too wet to form decent patties, add some flour.

Cook patties over medium heat with olive oil or butter, 5 minutes per side.

Italian sausage burgers with lentil-cucumber-feta salad

Last night I used up two things I needed to use up: four links of hot Italian sausage, and some lentils leftover from when I made lentil burgers a couple of nights ago. Italian sausage burgers are the easiest thing in the world: just squeeze out all the meat, mash it together into burger shapes, and cook. The meat is already seasoned! Either hot or sweet Italian sausage works, or you could get crazy and do a mixture of both. I topped mine with a little melted Jarlsburg and barbecue sauce. Yum.

For the lentil salad, I took the cold lentils and added three small diced cucumbers, a handful of crumbled feta, and a few green onion tops. I made a little dressing with 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, 1/4 cup olive oil, and a teaspoon or so of dry mustard, which I mixed together and then added to the lentil mix. Salt and pepper over all.

With my $1.99 bottle of Two Buck Chuck, it was a lovely midsummer meal.

Sloppy joes

A childhood classic. Great for cold winter nights.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 ¼ lbs ground beef (though I've also used a combination of ground beef and ground pork)
¼ cup brown sugar
1 medium onion, chopped
1 small red bell pepper, chopped
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 cups tomato sauce
2 tablespoons tomato paste
Rolls/hamburger buns

Heat oil in skillet, add meat. Break it up, add brown sugar and steak seasoning (barbecue dry rub is also lovely) if you have any. When meat has browned, add onion and pepper with vinegar and Worcestershire, cook 5 minutes over medium heat. Add tomato sauce and paste. Stir to combine. Reduce heat, cook 5 minutes. Serve on toasty buns.

Lentil burgers

It sounds like something vegan hippies would eat, I know. But I recently had a bout of food poisoning from ground beef of indeterminate origin, so I've vowed to no longer eat ground beef unless it's organic, grass-fed, and all comes from the same cow. Seeing that grass-fed ground beef is WAY more expensive than I can afford on a regular basis, I've been trying out inexpensive burger alternatives.
This is one of my favorites. The burgers are actually really good, and you can add cheese and bacon to the end result if you like. I also made a sort-of aioli out of Sriracha chili sauce and mayo that complemented these perfectly.
Plus, since they're so cheap and healthy, you can add extra bacon and not feel guilty about it.
3-4 handfuls dried lentils
1/2 chopped onion
parsley
chopped sundried tomatoes
1/4 cup or so breadcrumbs
parmesan cheese
1 egg
seasonings (paprika, etc. as you see fit)
Dried lentils can be prepared in the same way as dried beans. To wit: soak in water overnight. The next morning, throw them in the crockpot and cook on low while you're at work. The next day, use them to make these lentil burgers. This method has the advantage of cooking out all the gastro-intestinal difficulties, and dried lentils are incredibly cheap.
Take the lentils and combine with the other ingredients. You may need to add more breadcrumbs/another egg to get them to hold completely together. Form into patties, and cook with a little olive oil, 3-4 minutes on each side.
Depending on how many sundried tomatoes you use (I used about 3/4 of a cup, chopped) and how much parmesan, you could conceivably make a batch for less than $1. Cost of hamburger buns and condiments are extra, of course; with a bag of 8 hamburger buns ($1.99), you're still looking at 8 big burgers for less than $3. I'll assume you already have ketchup and mustard in your fridge.That's about 38 cents each--a third of the cost of a Dollar Menu burger from McDonald's, and way healthier (and best of all, no chance of food poisoning).