Don't let summer slip away without filling your burger quota; try these!

I’ve already blathered on and on about my lifelong affection for burgers, which I believe I acquired from my mom, the queen of burger lovers. I’m always on the hunt for inventive ways to serve them up. Southern Living’s July 2011 issue warmed the heart with zillions of new twists on burgers; what wasn’t included in the magazine (13 more ways to prepare burgers) was available on the website, southernliving.com/grilling. I was in hamburger heaven!

After offering the recipe for Basic Turkey Burgers, the article then featured a variety of burger dress-ups. Since I love pimiento cheese almost as much as I do burgers themselves, I was drawn to Pimiento Cheese Bacon Burgers as a way to add some special pizzazz.

I absolutely adored the fact that the Best Turkey Burgers recipe featured both chopped fresh parsley and fresh mint. I almost always have some fresh parsley in the veggie bin of my fridge; seems as though I buy some for a recipe and then have a ton left over. And the mint—well, it grows, indestructable, right outside my door. We grab it to go in iced tea and look for recipes that give us an excuse to trim some off.

Pimiento Cheese-Bacon Burgers calls for topping the Best Turkey Burgers with your favorite Pimiento Cheese mixture (storebought or mixed up with your own shredded cheese or cheese blend.) I ran my fave in the very first blog entry I ever wrote for this column—May 16, 2010. But for grins I’ll repeat it here today—295 blog entries later!

Pimiento Cheese-Bacon Burgers

2 pounds lean ground turkey breast

1 teaspoon salt (or salt substitute)

1 teaspoon lemon zest

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

1/4 cup chopped fresh mint

Preheat grill to 350 to 400 degrees (or use countertop grill). Combine above ingredients gently. Shape mixture into 6 (5-inch) patties. Grill, covered with grill lid, 4 to 5 minutes on each side or until beef no longer is pink in the center. Top each burger with your favorite pimiento cheese recipe (mine appears below), cooked bacon slices, lettuce, and tomato slices. Makes 6 servings.

Old South Pimiento Cheese

1 cup chopped/broken pecans

1 (8-ounce) block extra sharp cheese (grate on small side of cheese grater)

1 (8-ounce) block sharp cheese (grate on large side of cheese grater)

1 1/2 cups mayonnaise

1 (4-ounce) jar chopped pimiento, drained

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon grated onion

1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper

Set oven to 350 degrees. Toast the 1 cup pecans for 8-10 minutes. Stir halfway through the toasting. Mix the grated cheese, mayonnaise, pimiento, worcestershire sauce, onion, and red pepper. Add pecans. Spread on bread.

Green Tomatoes (this time in a burger) just keep happy-ing up our lives

Green tomatoes are wriggling their way into just about everything on our dinner table this summer. After Southern Living in a back issue featured inventive ways to use this delicacy, then in its most recent edition it slipped in another green-tomato recipe: Green Tomato Feta Burgers. As I’ve already blogged, I love nothing better than a hamburger and always seek ways to put a new twist on them. This did it!

The magazine first featured a recipe for Best Turkey Burgers, which forms the basis for the other burger dress-ups that follow. The basic burger involves ground turkey, salt or salt substitute, lemon zest, mayo, and fresh parsley.

Then, for the reset of the story, SL recommended adding a container of feta cheese, red onion, and minced oregano. Burger patties shaped from this mixture then go on the grill. A word of warning that because these are turkey burgers, their ability to stay constituted into a pattie and not crumble is compromised a little, so better use a greased piece of aluminum foil or a grilling pan to help hold them together.

The result was a burger to end all burgers, warm and even a little crusty from the grill. And where do the green tomatoes, straight from my garden’s tomato rows, fit in? They’re toppings along with a thinly sliced cucumber (I used an avocado instead) and a shake of red pepper flakes.

As the magazine touts, this recipe takes this backyard basic to new heights. Even the crumbly parts that didn’t make the core pattie were wonders to behold.

Green Tomato-Feta Burger

2 pounds lean ground turkey

1 teaspoon salt (or salt substitute)

1 teaspoon lemon zest

1/2 cup lite mayonnaise

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

1 (4-ounce) container crumbled feta cheese

1 tablespoon finely minced red onion

1 teaspoon minced oregano

Preheat grill to 350 to 400 degrees (medium-high) heat. Combine ingredients gently. Shape mixture into 6 (5-inch) patties. Grill, covered with grill lid, 6 to 7 minutes on each side or until a meat thermometer inserted into thickest portion registers 170 degrees. Top each burger with sliced green tomatoes, lettuce, thinly sliced cucumber or avocado, a pinch of dried crushed red pepper, and a fresh dill sprig.