Pecan & Parmesan Encrusted Hamburger Steaks topped with Warm Marinara

Over the last few weeks, I have been playing a cooking game with myself. As dinnertime approaches, I begin taking inventory of my fridge, freezer, pantry & garden. Then I ask myself “What can I make in 1.5 hours without buying any additional ingredients and without making my kiddos gag and cry?” — It’s a really fun game, you should try it some time.

Here are the ingredients I came up with:

Every once in a while, I create a recipe winner. This was one of the winners! ((YAY)) It is almost like the TV show ‘Chopped’. I even feel pressure as I am pulling the meal together, just like the contestants on the show…Well, my pressure comes from hearing questions like “Are we eating that?”, “What’s in that?”, “Do I have to eat that?” & “What’s that stinky smell?”. I guess it’s not quite the same.

For this meal, here is the list of mystery ingredients in my ‘chopped basket’:

• 8 fresh, pre-made hamburger patties
• 3/4 c Santa Fe pecans*
• 3/4 c hand-shredded parmesan
• 3/4 c panko
• 2/3 a of jar of my favorite marinara
• 1 egg

I also cleared out some leftovers & served them as sides…

• leftover green beans from KFC
• 1 leftover oven-roasted sweet potato 
• 2 c leftover ((instant)) mashed potatoes — a story for another time, trust me – it’s a good story

*I have to pause for a minute & tell you about Santa Fe pecans. Santa Fe pecans come from my mom & dad’s land located off of Santa Fe Ave. We have 7 huge trees and every few years, they produce a bounty of nuts. They are sweet, large and absolutely perfect. By far, the best nut I have ever tasted. Because of this, I have an infinite supply of pecans. It is great! I think I love using them in savory recipes even more than sweet treats.

In order to get the infinite supply, they must be gathered, shelled & cleaned. The gathering part is my favorite of the process. One year, we all gathered on SF ((Santa Fe)) and had a pecan-picking contest to see who could accumulate the most pecans in one afternoon. After four hours of crouched waddling as I gathered while dragging my 5-gallon bucket beside me – I won! My grand total was a whopping 1,119 pecans. (Everyone else gave up several hours before and began playing – but my competitive side took over & I was obsessed, not to mention SO sore the next day!)

Back to this meal, I used a combination of finely chopped pecans, hand-grated parm & panko as a crust for each hamburger patty. I only had one egg, so rather than dipping each patty into the egg, I used a basting brush & brushed the egg onto each patty before pressing in into the pecan coating.

The basting brush technique worked marvelously! After coating all sides of 8 patties, I had about half of the egg left! The coating adhered perfectly too. I will be using this trick from now on.

Halfway through baking, I flipped each burger over – the crunchy crust remained intact and was beautiful. These aroma floating out of the oven was heavenly! During the final minutes of cooking, I warmed my favorite jarred marinara & shaved 8 thin slices of parm. I removed the patties from the oven, topped each with a shaving of parm & 1-2 T of marinara and put them back in the oven until the parm is melted.

Yummy, easy & tear-free, my favorite kind of dinner. Bonus: this is a very inexpensive meal to make! This one needs to go on repeat status.