Mini Burgers

May was a particularly bad month for cooking...too many birthday meals out, too many late nights at work spent scarfing down microwaveables. Ugh.

Last night I had some company over and finally made a meal that wasn't a one-pot dish. Mini lamb burgers with a pear & goat cheese salad, along with shoestring fries and lemon garlic aioli dip.

For the mini burgers, I picked up some of Safeway's artisan dinner rolls and cut out the middle when slicing to remove extraneous bread. Ground lamb spiced with cumin (I love cumin), coriander, turmeric, salt and pepper. I was too cautious with the coriander this time; next time I'll be more generous with the spices. Oh, and breadcrumbs of course. Fried the mini-patties with olive oil, top with tomato, swiss cheese, baby lettuce, mustard. The side salads were boxed greens with buttery Packham pears, Saltspring Island truffled goat cheese, and a basic vinaigrette.

The fries were McCain's frozen "Xtracrispy" shoestring fries. Yes, I know! All my previous attempts at frying/roasting fries from scratch yielded mix results, so I figured this would save me some time and grief that night. Well shiver me timers, these were actually very good and very crispy. It was also the only frozen kind that I could find without any hydrogenated oils.

As for the lemon garlic aioli, it's one of those super easy dips that anyone can make in 5 minutes. Mayo, clove of garlic, chopped fresh parsley and a generous squeeze of lemon juice. I personally never use a garlic press; I have a little ceramic grater that I use for garlic and ginger. This dip is impossible to mess up, and it's so good I always tend to make extra so I can dip veggies and pita chips for snacking.