We had another great class cooking with our afterschool kids at Wildwood! We made homemade veggie turkey burgers with a side of fruit salad. We used beets in our burgers to create a fun colored patty!

Skills and Techniques
We started class by reviewing how to properly hold our chef knife and our kitchen safety rules, like using alligator fingers to pinch up on the heel of the blade and wrap the other three fingers around the handle (no wobbly pointer fingers along the spine of the knife)!
Then, we talked about turkey burgers and why they’re healthy. This led us into our discussion on protein, why we need it, and where we can get it in our food! We also talked about vegetarian and vegan sources of protein. Finally, we named meals that had protein it! Some favorites were waffles and eggs, yogurt, and burgers!
Once we were done talking about our recipe, we got cooking! First, we all learned how to dice, and then practiced by dicing our beet and eggplant! We then finely minced garlic and onions and sauteed it all in our pan. As our veggies cooked, we made our turkey mix! We learned how to crack eggs, and got messy mixing all our spices, eggs, and sauteed veggies into our turkey! While our turkey patties were cooking, we practiced our knife skills a bit more on some yummy cantaloupe!
Once everything was done cooking, we all sat down to eat our turkey burgers and cantaloupe!

The Recipe: Veggie Turkey Burgers (makes 15 small burgers)

Ingredients:
3 medium beets
1/2 eggplant
1 red onion
5 cloves garlic
4 lbs turkey
2 eggs
1 tbsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp cumin
olive oil
salt and pepper

1. Mince onion and garlic and dice beet and eggplant

2. Saute onion, garlic, and veggies in olive oil

3. mix together turkey, eggs, paprika, cumin, and sauteed veggies

4. Cook burgers on stovetop for 10 minutes or until juices run clear