Bacon Salsa Burger with Grilled Veggies

I guess I can see how it must have looked. I breezed into the paint store, glanced at the paint chips for less than a minute and pulled one out. Nodding, I headed to the counter and asked for three gallons in eggshell.

Another customer, who had dozens of paint chips scattered in front of her, looked at me in awe. “I wish I could be that decisive.”

I busted out laughing. “Oh my gosh,” I confided in her. “This is my third trip here this week. I have tested  four different shades of white on my walls and I literally just spent the last two hours on home blogs trying to figure out which white is the most popular with designers.” (And I didn’t even tell her I had spent the 45 minutes before that standing in the living room staring at the four white options on the wall. I even asked Matt and Tour their opinions at one point.)

“Oh good,” she smiled and relaxed.  “I have been here for an hour!” We launched into a conversation about the challenges of picking paint colors.

Isn’t it funny sometimes to think how wrong first impressions can be?

I was also moving quickly in the paint store because I was hungry and wanted to get home to make this meal, which turned out delightful. Dressing up the meat and grilling the toppings made a burger feel more gourmet. Matt and I ate this for lunch outside, away from the paint blotched walls.

Bacon Salsa Burger with Grilled Veggies

Bacon, 8 oz (about 8 slices)

Ground beef, 1 pound

Salsa, ½ cup (plus extra for serving, if desired)

Onion, 1

Tomato, 1 (For best flavor, use the freshest tomato you can get your hands on.)

Coconut oil, 2-3 tablespoon

Avocado, 1

Salt and pepper, to taste

  1. Cook bacon in a skillet over high heat until done, about 8-10 minutes. Then cut or crumble slices into smaller bits.
  2. In a bowl, mix together ground beef, salsa and bacon crumbles. If you have time, let the mixture sit for a few hours. This will help it firm up a little and absorb the favors. Then form meat into 4 patties.
  3. Remove stem from tomato and slice into 4 thick slices. Brush with coconut oil.
  4. Peel onion. Place onion on its side and slice onion into rounds, about 1 cm thick.  (You want to end up with concentric circles of onion.) Brush with coconut oil.
  5. Sprinkle burgers, tomato and onion with salt and pepper.
  6. Now you are ready to grill! Basically, you just need to grill everything until done, flipping about halfway through. I would suggest about 6-8 minutes per side for the burgers, depending on how you liked them cooked and how hot your grill is.  The onions will take about the same amount of time to soften and mellow.  Allow 2-3 minutes per side for the tomatoes.
  7. Stack ingredients. Top with avocado. Serve with salsa.