Southwest Green Chili Burgers and Portabella Fries

Isn't it amazing how quickly time flies?  Yes, here I am back again to teach you how to cook amazing things!  Love Dishes is back baby!

Hopefully for good this time.  

Updates will be sporadic for a while, but at the end of the post here, I'll let you know exactly how you can help us become a regular addition to your weekly blog reading!

In the mean time, why don't I go ahead and teach you how to make a delicious meal... one that I never thought I would like but just the thought of it is making my mouth water and making me seriously consider a trip to the grocery store to purchase the ingredients.  

You see, these pictures were taken about 2 years ago before Love Dishes went on hiatus for the time that it did.  But I never got around to posting them.  In fact, the kitchen you see in these pictures is a kitchen in a house that we aren't even living in any more!  But man, this recipe is one that I could make over and over again no lie.  And I never even thought I liked most of the things that go into it!

So without further ado... Green Chili Burgers and Portabella Fries!

Go ahead and get all your ingredients together like I did here.  Now I do definitely recommend bakery buns for this.  Why?  Well, personally I like the way the bakery buns are airy and squishy.  Definitely not something you can get in a normal hamburger bun.  

The nice part about this recipe is that you can also kind of make it your own.  You can use full fat or low fat ingredients.  We were on a major low fat kick at the time, so I used lean ground beef and low fat cheese.

Let's get the mushroom fries prepped first, since they take the longest time to do!

You're going to want to go ahead and get them out, I use presliced ones just to eliminate that extra step of cutting a full mushroom into pieces.

Then you're going to go ahead and cut off the stems and pieces and try to get as close as you can, that way you're not leaving a ton of good mushroom to waste.

That's going to leave you with just the tops of each mushroom.  And they're pretty thin width wise too but that's okay, that's how we want them!

Go ahead and do that to all of the mushrooms you have and them set them aside for now. 

Now it's time to work on the topping for our burgers!  It needs to sit for a few minutes so definitely go ahead and do this before breading your mushrooms for the oven.  You're going to need your shredded lettuce, the tortilla strips and some ranch dressing.

Go ahead and put your lettuce in a bowl...

Followed by your tortilla strips...

And finally top it all off with the ranch dressing...

And mix it all together until it looks like a weird shredded lettuce salad!  You'll want to stick this in the fridge until it's time to use it though, cause nothing is weirder than wilted lettuce on a burger.

Now, back to our portabella fries!  You're going to take 2 eggs, or do what I do and use egg substitute and place it in a bowl.  And yes, it is okay if you use just the egg whites.  That will definitely be much healthier for you in the long run!

Then mix it up until well combined.  If you're using just the egg whites you'll see it become nice and frothy.

Take some italian seasoned breadcrumbs, or just plain breadcrumbs with some oregano and parsley tossed in there... whatever you have in your cupboard.

Now add some Parmesan cheese to the breadcrumbs...

And mix the heck out of it until you can't tell what's cheese and what's a bread crumb!

Now go ahead and dip a mushroom in your egg mixture and make sure it gets completely covered in the egg.

Then dip it completely in the bread crumb mixture.  Yes, you will likely get hulk fingers if you don't use two hands like me.  I swear it looked like I was breading my fingers for oven baking by the end!

Then go ahead and place each mushroom on a well sprayed cookie sheet.

Once you have the cookie sheet completely full of breaded mushroom fries, go ahead and drizzle olive oil over all the fries.  That will help both sides to get nice and crisp in the oven!  

After placing the fries in the oven it's time to begin to cook those burgers.  I'm only doing two in the pan since we're not allowed to have a grill on our balcony, but you can either pan fry or grill your burgers.  I recommend pan frying though, simply because of later steps.

Make sure they are nearly done, to how you like your burgers.  I'm a medium rare kind of girl while the husband is much more of a medium well kind of guy.  When making burgers like this we tend to meet in the middle.

Now go ahead and top your burgers with the drained green chiles, seeds and all!

Then place a piece of provolone cheese over top of the burgers, allowing the cheese to melt entirely.

Oh yeah, doesn't that look good??  It looks like melty goodness that's what it looks like.

Now remember that lettuce mixture you stuck in the fridge?  It's time to get it out!  Plop down a generous helping on top of the melty cheese...

Then top it all off with the bun.  Oh my that looks delicious, it makes me want to eat one right now!

Yeah... I can totally still taste the melty, peppery, ranchy goodness of this burger.  It tastes like heaven on a bun!

Go ahead and serve with the Portabella fries, and you've got one delicious southwestern and yet surprisingly healthy meal!  Here's the recipe for you:

Southwest Green Chili Burgers:

Ingredients

1 1/2 lb ground chuck beef
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
4 teaspoons canned chopped green chiles, drained
4 slices havarti cheese (about 3 oz)
1 (4.2-oz) Southwest ranch salad kit
1 (8-oz) bag shredded lettuce
4 potato hamburger buns

Preheat grill pan on medium-high (or preheat grill).

Divide meat and form into 4 patties.

Season meat with salt and pepper. Place in grill pan (or on grill); grill 3–4 minutes on each side or until 160°F. During last minute of cook time, top each patty with 1 teaspoon chiles and 1 cheese slice.

Combine salad dressing and chips (from salad kit) with lettuce shreds. Place patties on bottom halves of buns. Top burgers with lettuce mixture and top halves of buns. Serve.

Portabella Fries: 

Ingredients

3 tablespoons canola oil, divided
12 oz sliced portabella mushrooms
2 eggs (or 1/2 cup egg substitute)
1 1/4 cups Italian-style bread crumbs
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Large zip-top bag, optional

Preheat oven to 425°F. Drizzle 1 tablespoon oil evenly over baking sheet.

Discard stems and gills (dark brown layers) from mushrooms.

Whisk eggs until frothy; place in shallow bowl. Combine bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese in large zip-top bag (or shallow bowl).

Place 3–4 mushrooms into eggs, turning to coat both sides. Dip or toss mushrooms with bread crumbs until evenly coated; place in single layer on baking sheet. Repeat with remaining mushrooms. Drizzle with 2 tablespoons oil. Bake 10 minutes.

Turn mushrooms; bake 5–7 more minutes or until mushrooms are tender and golden. May be served with ranch or your favorite dipping sauce.

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Now I bet your wondering about what I spoke of earlier in this post.  In other words, how can you be involved in helping Love Dishes stay around for a long time?

Well, here's the answer.  Kickstarter.  In fact Love Dishes has it's own Kickstarter project going as we speak!  If we are able to get funded Love Dishes will be moving to a new website, with better pictures, weekly updates and best of all it's own cookbook!!  Yes, we are going to be publishing a cookbook!  There's rewards for donations, so go ahead and check it out!

The Love Dishes Project