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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Clean & Lean - Roasted Butternut & Broccoli

Well we've made it to day 5 of the Clean & Lean diet. How are we feeling? Not quite full of energy as hoped but I think we've both lost a bit of weight our sugar cravings are now subsiding. We did, however, treat ourselves to a bit of dark chocolate today which tasted phenomenal.

Tonight's dinner was surprisingly easy and tasty. We did modify the recipe from James Duigan's Clean & Lean Cook Book as it called for 1.25 cups of feta cheese! OK, we get some fat is good for us but just couldn't justify that much of it. We also cut back on the seeds too as we'd snacked on them throughout the day. We have to confess that since our butternut squash was quite small we gobbled down the whole meal which was supposedly for four....

Ingredients

1 butternut squash, cut into wedges

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 teaspoon of cumin seeds

1 teaspoon of chili flakes

1 large handful of broccoli

1 handful of seeds

Feta, salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Toss the butternut wedges in the oil, cumin seeds and chili flakes. Place in an oven pre-heated to 200c for 35-45 minutes.
2. Boil the broccoli until al dente, about five minutes, and then add to the roasting dish with the butternut. 
3. Add the seeds, feta and season. Serve immediately. 

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