Berry Berry Cherry Bleu Burgers

While we were in Buffalo, we visited what was quite possibly the very best fruit picking farm in the whole country. Okay, fine, I haven't been to very many fruit picking farms, but the one we went to was really great. If anyone is ever in Western New York, check out Brown's Berry Farm. While there we picked vast quantities of sweet cherries, blueberries, and raspberries.

We ate them plain, I threw them in breakfasts, desserts, you name it. But in the back of my head, I'm still pretty intrigued by the meat/fruit combo I mentioned the other day. So as I was searching around for berry recipes, I was immediately captured by a few recipes that mentioned adding blueberries to burgers.

Okay, I'm game. But I wanted to use all the fruit we picked. And there was some bleu cheese left in the cheese drawer. I love bleu cheese and fruit. I love bleu cheese on burgers. Hmmmm...

I think it's time to create Berry Berry Cherry Bleu Burgers!

Here's what I did:

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef (I think I had more like 1.25 lbs)
1/3 cup blueberries
1/3 cup raspberries
1/3 cup pitted cherries
Crumbled bleu cheese

Directions:

In a large bowl, use a potato masher to coarsely mash the blueberries and raspberries. Finely chop the pitted cherries and add to the bowl.

Add the ground beef to the bowl and mix. I used my hands to really get it mixed up.

Form a very thin, flat patty. Add a generous amount of blue cheese in the center. Top with another thin, flat patty and mush the sides together until it's sealed.

I made 3 regular sized burgers and 2 mini-burgers for my kids. Your mileage my vary depending on how large you like your burgers to be.

Grill to taste, then top with additional cheese if desired.

Here's what it looked like before we cooked them. You can really see the berries mixed in!


And here's what it looked like after we were done cooking.


It just looks like a regular burger, doesn't it? I really loved the berries mixed in. It added a little sweetness and a lot of juiciness. The burgers weren't dry at all. I thought it was a definite improvement over a plain burger. But TK wasn't quite as convinced. He didn't dislike it, but said he'd prefer a normal burger in the future. Oh well, you can't please them all. Or in this case, anyone but me as the boys didn't even try it.