Veggie Hamburgers

This morning, I had a rude awakening. My dog was getting sick 1/2 hour before we had to get up. Of course, we got up and cleaned up and stayed up. No sense going back to bed for a very short time, so we stayed up and got ready for our garage sale. First thing was first, food and coffee.

I had my standard breakfast, whole grain cereal and coffee. We headed to my parents house for the garage sale, since we live in an apartment. We made a pretty decent amount. We're very happy. Since it was going to be so hot out, I wore shorts, tank top and a sweat short (it was cold in the we early hours).

A few hours into the garage, I started getting hungry. We had brought some pop tarts and I had one. Memories of childhood. My favorite flavor, strawberry.

During the garage sale, my parents neighbor (like my family) came over and offered us some fresh veggies from his garden. He just picked everything that morning. Of course, you can't turn down free, fresh veggies.

Since it was getting so hot so early. We out out of there by noon. 101 degrees is too hot to be at the garage sale (with no shade).

Here's the veggie loot I came home with: a HUGE green squash, some round cucumbers, onions, yellow squash. eggplant, tomatoes, and herbs. Man, we got lucky. If you tried to buy this stuff at a grocery store, it would easily be at least $50. I wish we had a house, so we could have a garden.

Needing to cool off, I had made a smoothie for lunch. Yesterday, my boss gave me some freshly picked blackberries from her garden. In the smoothie, I use about 1 cup of the blackberries, 1 banana, about 1/2 cup frozen blue berries, 1 cup of strawberry Greek yogurt and some tropical punch that was left over in the fridge. I blended everything together in the blender and enjoy and fresh, cold smoothie to help me cool down.

After taking a nap for a couple of hours (being groggy the rest of the day, too), I managed to get up and fix dinner. I wanted to make hamburgers with a ton of veggies in them. I used not even a quarter of that huge squash, the yellow squash, 1 cucumber, the eggplant, all the herbs (chives, parsley, oregano, and thyme), 3 cloves of garlic, and another type of yellow squash (all fresh from peoples gardens). I was going to use some spaghetti sauce and garlic powder, but decided it wasn't necessary.

I chopped everything into teeny, tiny bites and mixed it with 1 pound of ground beef.

I added 2 eggs, and made nice small patties out of them.

I used the George Foreman grill. I love this thing because it takes all the nasty fat out and gives you a nice piece of meat. I usually would have made this with ground chicken, but the beef was cheaper.

I added a few pieces of American cheese on a select few while the burgers were still hot.

I used whole wheat bread with very little mayo, mustard, ketchup, fresh tomatoes, mixed green (and Jason added a few slices of an onion). I sandwiched everything in between the two pieces of bread and began to feast.

It was so good, I will have the rest for left overs for the next couple of nights. I think I may toast the bread tomorrow???

I finished my night off with the rest of Curb You Enthusiasm (season 7) and 1/2 of a strawberry Greek yogurt. Now, off to bed early to recover from my sunburn from the garage sale. I'm toasted.

What are your favorite veggie burgers? Home made or store bought?

If you have a garden, what do you grow?