Gastronomic Interlude - Gourmet Sliders

Proof I am not a food photographer.

Since the arrival of our daughter, and the departure of our spare time, I have taken over most of our cooking duties. Upon hearing this, you will likely have incredible sympathies for my wife. They are not unfounded. 

Desperate hunger masquerading as happy smiles.

Once in a while, however, a momentary mix of luck, inspiration, and necessity leads to a rare culinary breakthrough. But usually not.

During an especially harried week last month, we had planned an evening of fairly ho-hum turkey burgers. At the grocery, they were out of the ground bark and twig whole wheat buns my wife prefers. They did however, have whole wheat "slider" buns. This is the point at which that (usually unfortunate) "ding" of culinary inspiration went off in my head: Wine and beer are often offered in "flights"; small mixed samples of different tastes. Why not burgers? Long story somewhat short, I ended up making us each 4 different gourmet sliders, served as a flight.

Which were, of course, cooked later on. This was just the artsiest shot I had from the whole process.

 I started by seasoning each of the four varieties, then adding separate toppings, which made for a mad dash of preparation with up to 8 things cooking at the same time. 

First came the BBQ burgers....patty infused with BBQ sauce, topped with granny smith apple slices, cheddar cheese, more BBQ sauce and grilled onions. This ended up being our favorite. 

Next up were the sauteed mushroom and swiss burgers, seasoned with pepper sauce.

Third, the garden burgers, seasoned with green goddess dressing, topped with fresh avocado, lettuce and tomato. 

Lastly, greek burgers stuffed with feta, and topped with feta and roasted red peppers. 

Given that I did not plan the varieties ahead of time, and used just what we already had in the fridge, I was pretty proud of the results. My wife whipped up a corn/avacado/tomato salad, and we were in business. 

BBQ/apple/grilled onion burger with salad