Avocado-Lime Cheeseburger [Recipe]

I’m bored with my usual birthday posts. More often than not, I end up making promises for this blog—and to myself—that I’ll most likely never keep. So, since it is a Thursday, I think today would be the perfect day for the next installment of my randomly recurring “Taste Bud Thursday” series instead. And since, for many of you, tomorrow marks the official start of the Memorial Day weekend and the start of grill season, I thought I’d share my recipe for avocado-lime burgers.

To be honest, I don’t remember exactly what inspired me to concoct this recipe. If I had to guess, I would say that I probably ordered something similar at a restaurant and figured I could make them at home. I’ve spent years experimenting on this recipe, years of pulling my hair out trying to keep my patties from falling apart. The avocado is excellent at keeping the patties juicy and plump. However, it’s best feature was also my worst enemy. I’ve tried adding bread crumbs and oatmeal, and I’ve tried using less avocado. My burgers fell apart all the same. Finally, after some research, I found a link that led me to an advice page for celebrity chef Rachel Ray’s website. In it she recommends refrigerating or freezing the patties for at least an hour before grilling. She goes on to point out that the patties should only be flipped once in cooking process. Excessive flipping contributes to breakage. Other websites recommend forgoing the bread crumbs and oatmeal all together. I gave Rachel Ray's suggestions a try and sure enough, it worked!

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter you will know that I actually I posted the above picture two weeks ago. I had teased this recipe and had hoped to post it that Thursday but—oh well! Here it is now. I hope you enjoy. Please, comment with your feedback below. I’d love to hear your thoughts. And happy summer!

INGREDIENTS & INSTRUCTIONS

Makes 4 servings

Burger Patties

• Half of a California (Hass) avocado, cubed
• Juice from half a lime
• 1 Tbsp cilantro, coarsely chopped
• 1 lb Extra lean ground beef
• 1/4 tsp black pepper 
• 1/2 Tbsp onion powder 
• 1/2 Tbsp garlic powder
• 1 tbsp French’s Worcestershire Sauce, Reduced Sodium 
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1 whole California (Hass) avocado, halved and sliced into strips
• 4 slices Pepper jack cheese

Optional Ingredient

• 4 roll Arnold Sandwich Thins, Pre-Sliced, 100% Whole Grain 
• Uncooked red onion(s)
• Mixed greens
• Alfalfa sprouts (not pictured)

Steps

1. In a large mixing bowl, lightly mash cubed avocado with lime juice and cilantro and mix well. (I personally like to leave this mixture on the chunky side.) 
2. Add ground beef, onion and garlic powders, and worcestershire sauce. Mix well. 
3. Divide into 4 quarter pound patties and lay out on paper lined tray. Patties will be VERY moist and fragile. 
4. Refrigerate or freeze for at least an hour or until firm. 
5. When ready to grill, lightly salt each side of the patties before putting on the grill.
6. On a lightly sprayed grill, cook first side for 4–6 minutes, then flip. 
7. Layer avocado and cheese on top of burgers and cook for an additional 4–6 minutes. 
8. Serve with sweet potato fries and your favorite cold beer.

On a side note, I calculated the Weight Watcher’s points for this recipe. The patties are 8 PointsPlus each with avocado slices and a slice of pepper jack on top. I prefer to use Arnold Sandwich Thins (3 PointsPlus) for my bread. I serve this with some 3 PointsPlus sweet potato fries and wash it all down with about a hundred points in beer.

Thirty-Two

It is midnight as I write this and I am now thirty-two years old. Just a few years ago, I was twenty-three: lost and bitter, meandering through life, making mistakes that I should have been old enough not to be making any more. I still make some of those mistakes today from time to time. I like to think I have the maturity now to appreciate them, to see them as guides towards being a better person…or at the very least, a somewhat entertaining one.

Some of my favorite moments in life were some of my most epic fails...and usually involved a girl. Like the time during my junior year of high school when I enlisted in the U.S. Army through their "split-option program" to impress Tabitha Thrash, a petite redhead who had been one of my closest friends. She was in the class above me and had just enlisted herself in hopes of becoming a military police officer. I remember the freckles on her face and how they surrounded her green, determined eyes. I remember not knowing what to do with my life after graduation and whether I could even get into college and how I'd pay for it if I did. So I enlisted. I remember making out with her in the recruiting office parking lot and talking about whether we would see each other after we got back. I saw Tabitha maybe once or twice after that day, then we shipped out to our respective training facilities. I heard some years later that she met someone while at Basic and married him during a weekend pass. Such is life.

The take away: believe only about 50% of what your Army recruiter tells you. Do your own research. To this day I wish I made a better career of the military. Maybe asked for deployment to Europe or picked a military specialty that had a $30k signing bonus attached.

I am thirty-two today and I am as scared of the days to come as I was at sixteen. At least, I am finally a college student. At twenty-nine, I found the courage (read: motivation) to go back to school because of a girl, a brunette this time—although when I met her a few years earlier she had red hair. After years of gentle prodding and out right nagging, I decided to take the plunge—quite randomly actually. I was bored during a slow day at work and since I've been promising for years at this point to do so, I decided to apply for school. It was a whim. I expected that I had missed out on the semester deadlines and thought I'd just get the formalities out of the way in time for the next. I was surprised when I got the invitation to enroll in classes in time for them to begin two weeks hence.

Today, I am thirty-two. A week and a half from today, summer semester begins. It will be my second to last semester at Georgia Perimeter College. If all goes well between now and December, I'll have an Associate's degree and will be deciding on where to transfer to finish my Bachelor's. I feel like I'm sixteen again, scared shitless of what's next, whether I can hack it in my next school and in the real world, and whether I will continue to make my wife proud. Although, I downplay my reaction every time she tells me how proud she is or whenever she brags about my grades to people, I get butterflies every time I see her beaming with pride. I think of the doors that will finally open because of a degree, how my family will benefit from it. I think about how grown up I feel when I think beyond just myself and when I think about my family. Sixteen year old me would probably never understand. The warm and fuzzy feelings spread from my chest and blankets me. And things aren't as scary.

I am thirty-two now and I have a penchant for introspection on my birthdays. Let me tell you a secret. A few hours before my twenty-first birthday, I had a panic attack. I thought I would die before I turned twenty-one, most likely in my sleep. I got it in my mind that I would die just before May 22. And every year after that I would get all squirrelly. I didn't have panic attacks anymore, I was just convinced that some divine being was trying to kill me. I was sure of it. I had proof: an illness that wrecked my body and caused enough pain that I contemplated ending it, a deer jumping through the driver side window of my car and head-butting me as I drove 55 mile an hour on a busy road days before my birthday, several other near misses on the interstate, having to clear a drainage ditch of debris during a lightning storm or risk water damage to my house on several occasions on or near my birthday, a May hail storm or two. They were just some of the evidence that supported my irrational belief that I would not see my next birthday. So now I stay up past midnight every May 21, just to make sure I make it. I don't even get those feelings anymore. They stopped around my thirtieth birthday—probably because I started forgetting that my birthday was just around the corner. I actually kept forgetting that it was coming up this year. A co-worker reminded me again yesterday afternoon. In hindsight, that probably explains why I was clearing a drainage ditch of debris in the middle of a lightning storm this past Saturday.

But as traditions stand, I'm once again awake past midnight and one year older. I am thirty-two years old, I'm babbling in a blog post at an ungodly hour past my bedtime. You'd think I'm drunk right now, but all I've had was root beer. I'll sign off for now. Goodnight, friends and followers. As  a gift to you, I present to you photo proof of my adulthood.

Me, about age 3

My costume for Dragon*con 2012

30 Going On Four

In a few short hours, I will be 31.

With that said, I've been doing some looking back on my life. Boy! Has my life been boring!

Well!—that's somewhat of a lie. It's been MOSTLY boring. Monotonous, to say the least, and for only the past year or so. I'm not complaining. Sometimes, an uneventful life is good in case I ever get background-checked. But I must admit, I am sometimes envious of my little sister and her husband who seem to have time for adventure. I have to remind myself that, although life these past 18 months has been uneventful, years one thru 29 were pretty adventurous.

I've traveled (some). I've experienced some life changing events. Made lots of bad decisions; made a few good ones, too.

I met my wonderful wife-to-be, who has been my constant companion and guiding light these past eight years. We've driven headlong into planning our wedding, which is quickly approaching. I look forward to that leg of our never ending journey.

I've even survived a deer jumping through my driver-side window and head-butting me as I drove 55-mph through a main thoroughfare.

But, like I said, these past 18 months were pretty uneventful and since I feel like I wasted year 30, I am determined to have a better 365 days this time around.

So here's the plan:

To help me on the way, I am taking a page from Jonathan Harris. When Harris turned 30 he took a photograph every day for over a year and posted a story to go with it. So, I will do the same: One photo a day. I will start with one week and as the habit forms and days add up to months, we will see my progress as I try to liven up a year in my life. I really think this will force me to find some adventure since I am certain I live a boring life.

I will post photos with short blurbs at Cowbird (another Jonathan Harris project, coincidentally) for now, since I feel like they are the best place for this project. I will continue to post my usual stuff here at Wibbly-wobbly and I will occasionally syndicate significant events from this project here as well. I hope you all follow me on this little experiment—well! actually—us, since I plan to bring Brooke along for some of it.

I am now accepting recommendations, by the way. Post in the comments field below or on my Facebook page or on Twitter. I need ideas.

So, please, join me. Who knows maybe we'll even bump into each other.