I am using ground turkey more and more in my cooking, but I’ll be honest: I have to be fairly creative about it. Mr. Meat and Potatoes and his progeny are getting better at knowing when I’ve sneakily subbed turkey for their precious ground beef. The best applications for us are ones wherein the turkey has lots of other flavors to help it along. We don’t need all the juicy fat of hamburger if we have lots of other flavors to perk up the lean turkey.

I meant to make sloppy joes recently, but realized too late that I didn’t have the proper seasonings, so instead I turned the project into a taco burger, which is something my family is totally into. I felt pretty good about the whole thing, because I stuffed them full of summer vegetables grown in my back yard of the back yards of my friends.

http://www.lawrence.com/users/photos/2014/aug/28/278179/

Summer Turkey Taco Burgers

2 lbs lean ground turkey
1 small summer squash
1 red bell pepper
1/2 cup diced onion
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 can chili beans (whatever level of heat you prefer)
1 can tomato sauce
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
dash hot sauce

Chop the bell pepper, summer squash, and onion into small pieces and saute in the olive oil until just beginning to soften. Meanwhile, brown your ground turkey.

Transfer the vegetables to the same pan with the turkey after you’ve drained any fat the turkey produced, which won’t be much.

Add the can of beans and the tomato sauce. It might not take the entire can – just keep adding until you get the right consistency of saucy but not runny; you want your mixture to hang together. Add in the spices.

Stir together, serve on a toasted bun. Then pat yourself on the back for having gotten your kids to eat squash.