Clean and Lean - Turkey Burgers

Turkey can often be seen as a drab and boring meat. It's bad reputation is down to the tendency to over cook it on Christmas day and then be forced to eat leftovers for weeks afterwards. It's a shame really because turkey is lean, cheap and can be very tasty!

I actually bought all of the ingredients for these burgers from Lidl making them exceptionally cheap compared to many meat-based dishes. The turkey wasn't super lean but at half the price of Sainsbury's I didn't mind a couple of extra % of fat!

I was actually really pleased with how these turned out, they were quite refreshing which is an odd word to use to talk about a turkey burger but the lime zing really came through. I'd definitely reccomend giving them a go.

Turkey Burgers - adapted from James Duigan

Ingredients:

• 400g turkey mince
• juice from 2 limes
• 2 lemon grass stalks, bashed
• sea salt
• ground black pepper
• 5 spring onions

1. Chop the spring onions and a small amount of the lemongrass and put into a large bowl. Smash the stalks of the lemongrass with a knife. (The recipe calls for 4 stalks of lemongrass but that sounds like far too much for me as I'm not a great fan).
   
2. Add the turkey mince and squeeze the lime juice over the mix. Combine with your hands and leave to marinade for 30 minutes in the fridge.
   
3. Run your hands under cold water and shape the mixture into patties - I made 4. 
   
4. Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan and then cook for about 4-5 minutes on each side. 
5. Serve - the book suggests wrapping the burgers in lettuce and serving with oven roast veg. I opted for sweet potato mash and grilled asparagus - yummy!

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Quick and easy banana muffins

Sometime the inevitable happens and you buy a bunch of bananas and by the end of the week you have one, solitary, freckled banana left. It feels too wasteful to throw it out but it's not enough to make a proper banana loaf. This week I resolved to find a solution for my one banana and eventually decided to make some banana muffins.

They are quick, simple and tasty. Perfect!

Ingredients:

• 85g unsalted butter, softened
• 75 caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 banana, mashed
• 125g self raising flour

1. Beat the butter and sugar together until light a fluffy
2. Add in the egg, don't worry if the mixture curdles, and beat together
3. Mix in the mashed banana and then sift the self raising flour before folding in.
4. Spoon into 6 muffin cases and bake for 25 minutes at 180c until golden.

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