I love food. There is no secrets there. Food is my favorite thing… well, when you don’t include the humans that make my life magical. So, back to food… I love it. I love pairing flavors and trying new eats and tasting new treats.
I have communicated on this here blog recently that I am trying to eat clean moving forward. And that is still my focus, but I realized focusing on eating clean has turned me into someone I am not. Someone nearly too focused on food and if food is healthy or not. My goal, to eat healthy and clean more often than not. Bottom line… I am not going to sacrifice that which I love in order to “diet”, but I can focus my lifestyle so that I can eat more healthy more often and prepare better food for people I love.
In learning the principals of eating clean I have had the ability to modify and map out meals healthy for me and yet fully flavored. Wednesday my Mr came home early from a business trip, so why not cook up a yummy welcome home treat. I made my post work, evening trip to the grocery for the essentials… Dog Food, Honey, Milk, Watermelon, Margarita Mix, Cabernet, Butter, Spinach, Green Beans, Goat Cheese, Blue Cheese & Bison Meat. The only reason for the trip was the dog food, but you know, a hungry girl in a grocery store is a shopping girl. Again, in knowing the principals of clean eating, I was aware that bison was an approved meat and chose to forgo the turkey in the fridge for a little more flavor. My Mr loves a good bison burger and I love my Mr.
Dinner was incredible. And not just because I made it. It was incredible because I made it for sure… I enjoyed the preparation stage of this meal much more than most. Felt a little June Cleaver even. But, it was also the melding of flavors. The spices patted into the bison, the butter coating the spinach, the creamy blue cheese crumbles melting into the burger and spinach alike and the dousing of hot sauce (some use it in limited dashes, I douse). The watermelon was juicy and fresh and there is nothing wrong with a margarita. Candles were lit and we chatted, we laughed, we smiled… It was a good meal…
On to the secrets…
Ingredients:
- 1 lb Bison
- 1 package frozen spinach (if you prefer to wilt fresh spinach I respect you a whole lot)
- Your favorite burger cheese
- Watermelon
- Margarita mix (we enjoy 1800)
- Seasonings you love
Preparation:
- In a mixing bowl place Bison and any burger seasoning you would like to add to your meet for flavoring. I used salt, pepper & cayenne. Mix gently (Bison meet is filled with moisture and I pretend it is more tender than other meet). Separate meet mixture into two patties.
- I chose to cook ours on the stove top, coating my mini skillet with PAM, I placed the two patties in the pan and covered on medium heat. I choose to cover the skillet to create an oven effect. I flipped the burger every 5 minutes, reducing the heat at 15 minutes to low and letting sit on stove until dinner was complete.
- In a microwave safe bowl I prepared the spinach as instructed and allowed olive oil spread to melt over the prepared spinach.
- The watermelon was pre cut and ready to serve, I just transferred it to a nice serving dish.
- Upon completion of each component I laid a bed of spinach on our plates, then I placed the Bison burger on top of the spinach heap. Topping the dish off with a tablespoon of blue cheese (I add more because I love cheese). I then doused my entire entree with some Frank’s Red Hot sauce.
- Poured our margarita mix into our glasses and served!
So simple and so basic. So delicious and so pleasing to my tummy. Nothing about this dish is complicated… but somehow all of these flavors melding together was magical. And, aside from the blue cheese, I can confirm this was a clean meal, a healthy meal…
Bon Appetite!