Brought to you by City Market

I have a few minutes to myself this morning as J took Mr. Man on an adventure, AKA: errands!  I thought I would, for once, follow through on posting when I say I will!  And I have a feeling that once B2 makes his or her debut, there will be v. little cooking, let alone blogging!

Like I said, we went to the C'ville Farmers Market, locally referred to as the City Market - bestill my heart, it runs through December!  We bought some gorgeous heirloom tomatoes for a steal ($3.60 a pound, I paid upwards of $6/lb in Seattle!) and a heaping bouquet of basil so I decided to make these yummy Pesto Chicken Burgers!

Pesto Chicken Burgers

Adapted from Everyday Food, July/August 2012 ~ serves 4

Ingredients

1 cup fresh basil leaves
1 cup fresh spinach (I love that this is pseudo healthy pesto!)
1 clove garlic, peeled and quartered
1/4 cup walnuts
4 Tbsp olive oil, plus more for grilling
Coarse salt and pepper
1 pound ground white-meat Chicken (surprisingly hard to come by - I had to go to two stores to find it.  I did find ground turkey with "natural flavorings."  Huh?  If you are flavoring the turkey, I suspect it isn't all that natural...)
3 ounces fresh mozzarella, sliced (tip: pop the mozzarella in the freezer about 30 minutes before you slice it, makes it much easier!)
4 buns (the recipe calls for focaccia and it was a huge flop for us - we tried this recipe once before and the the focaccia fully fell apart and was a huge disappointment)

Instructions

1.  In a food processor, puree basil, spinach, garlic, walnuts, oil, and 1 tablespoon water.  Season pesto with salt and pepper.  (We made this pesto last week and still have a ton and it keeps nicely!)

2.  Heat a grill or grill pan to medium-high.  Combine 1 tablespoon pesto, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper (I eyeballed the salt and pep) and chicken and form into 4 patties.  Clean and lightly oil hot grill.  (Okay, the recipe also said to brush tomatoes with oil and season with salt and pepper and grill with the patties - I do not like grilled tomatoes so we skipped this step.)  Grill patties, covered, 4 minutes.  Flip patties and top with cheese.  (At this point you add the tomatoes, flipping once until they are lightly charred.)  Grill burgers for 4 more minutes or until they are opaque throughout.

3.  Assemble burgers by spreading pesto on each side of the bun, add toms and lettuce.  I added a bit of mayo because I hate a dry burger!

Bon Appetit!