Thyme Focaccia Spinach Burgers

These "burgers" look complicated but are actually very easy to make and they are definitely a nice break from all that meat. 

One will fill you up for hours, so don't think that just because it's green it's something less (my meat-eating family upon seeing them: "eh, we have some beef burgers in the freezer, should we add it in the bun?" --> after eating one half of the bun: "thank goodness you forbade us to defrost those burgers, we are stuffed!").

Ingredients:

Focaccia

• 42g yeast (I use the cube, not the dry one)
• 500ml warm water
• 500g flour (I had mercy and used plain)
• 4 table spoons dry thyme 
• olive oil to smear the buns with
• sea salt to sprinkle it with

Pesto

• 150g fresh chives
• 50g parmesan 
• 50g sunflower seeds
• 100 ml olive oil
• salt, pepper

Burger

• 400g spinach leaves
• 200g ricotta
• 150g mozzarella 
• 3 eggs
• salt, pepper
• oil for frying

1) Let's make the buns first. Mix the yeast with water and when the yeast dissolves into it, start adding the flour and thyme. Incorporate well and let it sit in some dark warm spot for about an hour.

2) When the dough is ready, wash your hands so that the water is still on them and divide your dough in four parts, make them look as closely to buns as possible and put them on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Smear the buns with olive oil and sprinkle some salt on top. Bake at 250°C till they are nice golden-brown. Or you can use the toothpick technique here. 

3) For the pesto you will need to roast the seeds first - take your frying pan, heat it up and roast the seeds on it (no oil needed!) or put it on a baking tray and put it in the oven for a while if you are still baking your buns at this point. When the seeds start to get brown from both sides, take them out and let them cool down a little. 

4) Add the seeds to the rest of the ingredients for the pesto and either pulse it in the blender or use your hand blender to make it. It's kinda curd-y but all should be blended - no big pieces of anything allowed!

5) The last thing to do is the burger. Take the leaves, put them in hot salty water till they shrink. Then get rid of the water (wait for it to cool down and squeeze them). 

6) Chop mozzarella to small pieces and mix all the burger ingredients together. Divide into four portions and put them in your frying pan with a little bit of oil. Fry from both sides to get brownish tint and then put them in the oven for next 10 minutes to bake them through. 

7) When everything has cooled down, you can assembly the stuff- cut the focaccia in half, smear it with a thin layer of pesto, put in the burger and some veggies and you are done!