Leftover Burgers and Pasta Salad

Dinner 6/15 by Rachel



• Leftover Burgers

• Leftover Pita

• Pasta Salad

• Steamed Broccoli

• Pecan Sauce

• Sautéed Garlic Scapes

• Salad with Radishes and Green Onions

Friday nights, Dancing Rabbit has dinner in the Common House. It's not a potluck, each person/co-op brings their own meal, but we all eat together and reconnect after the busy week. Tonight was especially special because the CH had the tables pre-set with tablecloths, dishes, a cup with a scoop of fruit salad (courtesy of a package of fruit sent by a previous visitor -- Thanks Sky!), and two jelly beans. Some of the tables had pretty flower arrangements and the whole room had a wonderful ambiance.

Tonight's dinner was the perfect summer picnic meal. Leftover burgers are a way of using up all of the odds and ends not eaten up in previous days. It can work with almost any foods -- just throw the leftovers in the food processor with some flour and blend up. If it's still too runny to make into patties, add more flour. You can also add in salt and herbs if you'd like. Then, form some patties and fry 'em up! Delicious with fried onions, our homemade ketchup, sliced pickles and sauerkraut. And it was great use of the leftover pitas as well.

I loved the pasta salad with it's beautiful colors. It was whole wheat pasta, broccoli, onions, dilly beans (pickled green beans) and I think pepper relish (which was canned last year from onions and hot peppers). I'm also not sure of what exactly was in the pecan sauce (maybe tahini? I'll have to check with Rachel), but it was creamy and went perfectly with the steamed broccoli. And the scapes had excellent flavor. They were sautéed in a little oil with soy sauce and they caramelized a little bit. I always love the scapes.

The salad was the bought from Ironweed, market gardeners here at DR. They put some delicious dill from their garden in it and Rachel added radishes and green onions. The dressing is from a bottle *GASP*, but there is a good reason for this. A few weeks ago, DR got a donation of dressings and sauces that were slightly out of date. Folks here went through the boxes and picked their favorites. Juan, knowing that I love French dressing, pulled the bottle for me. I think it's great that these products got a second chance when they were all donated to us rather than just thrown into the trash. Besides, I've been loving it on salads and keep telling myself it's helping me get my daily requirement of xantham gum. :)