Chicken Burgers

A basil-garlic chicken burger, topped with chimichurri and avocado. Side of sweet potato steak fries and green beans. Lovely Monday night dinner. 

I've had some issues about spending an obscene amount of money on our everyday food. It comes from being in the grocery store and saying to myself "What's the absolute best-tasting thing I could make tonight?" and answering something along the lines of "roast lamb! duck breasts!" then buying whatever I want (plus a decent bottle of wine) then arriving home to my similarly hedonistic fiance who's like "this IS delicious! Money-schmuney! Feed me! Fuck finances!"
And yet. Some nagging voice  is like "spend LESS than your mortgage on food" so I have been trying to nix the aged rib-eyes with stuff I perceive as cheap: chicken, carrots, potatoes, blocks of cheddar, generic bacon, etc.
So chicken burgers! These came out GREAT and I made an important discovery: you can grind meat in a food processor! I made a chimichurri sauce go on top, sweet potato steak fries, and some steamed green beans.
I wanted to grind the chicken myself because I find the pre-ground stuff in the package take like cardboard erasers. It's too lean.

Gross

Throw about 3 pounds of chicken thighs into the food processor. Add four cloves of garlic and the juice of one lemon, plus a teaspoon of salt and another of pepper.

Pulse several times. Transfer to another bowl.

Chop up a package of basil leaves, then add them to the mix.

Form into burgers and bake at 450 for about 20 minutes. 

Before baking.

Cover with chimichurri, avocado slices, and Swiss cheese and serve on toasted buns. 

Also: sweet potato fries. Slice whole sweet potatoes into thick wedges. Toss in a few TB of olive oil, sprinkle with salt, and bake on a cookie sheet at 450 for 25 min. 

This was a delicious weeknight meal!