>> Let's make a farm to fork connection to the foods on your dinner table.

We mentioned earlier in the show that rice consumption has more than tripled from a generation back.

Want another figure?

Americans are eating twice the amount of turkey than they did in 1970.

Now turkey is one of those foods you see on the shelf in the meat department, but may not consider except for holiday meals.

Well, our Sharon Profis has some suggestions on other options for serving up this very popular poultry.

♪♪ >> A lot of people think about turkey around Thanksgiving but I eat it about once a week, and I'm not talking about the whole bird, I'm talking about ground turkey.

It's easy to cook, it cooks fast, and it's really healthy, so if you're looking for an alternative to red meat, turkey is a really great option.

And what we're making today are my Mediterranean Style Turkey Burgers.

They're really filling because turkey is high in protein and low in fat.

And for this recipe I went with ground turkey that's 85 percent lean and 15 percent fat.

So that leanness comes from the breast and of course that 15 percent will come from the darker meat.

So we'll start with half an onion that I'm just going to get into a very small dice, later on we'll make a Green Goddess Dressing that you can use on these burgers and if you have extra, save for the rest of the week.

A half an onion goes in with the turkey, this is just about one pound of turkey, that'll give us 4 or 5 patties but you can easily double or triple this recipe.

Now let's brighten up the dish a bit.

I always put cilantro and parsley in my burgers, they add so much flavor and they give the burgers a really beautiful fresh color, so we'll call this about one quarter, third cup of each.

>> Smells amazing in here, and now we have to spice it up.

I have a table spoon of Sweet Paprika.

This is going to add color and a subtle peppery flavor.

I also have an ingredient that's getting a lot of attention now, it's called Za'atar, you can also find it under the name Hyssop.

Basically it's a Middle-Eastern Thyme, sometimes it's labeled as Oregano, but it has a really wonderful herby flavor that's unlike anything else.

And we'll add about half a table spoon of ground garlic, black pepper, and a tea spoon of salt, that's my general rule, one tea spoon of salt for one pound of ground meat, that you can adjust accordingly.

>> Now before we mix this all up I want to add just one more punch of freshness.

We're adding lemon zest, so we will zest about three quarters of this lemon right in here.

I'm going in here with my hands because you can't mix a burger with a spoon, so let's mix.

You don't want to over mix it and you also don't want to compress the meat too much.

>> Perfect.

The meat is mixed, so I'm going to wash my hands before we actually form the patties.

The secret to forming the patties so that you don't get a sticky mess all over your hands is to do it with wet hands.

This is a trick that my mom taught me, just run your hands under a little bit of water, and you're set, look at that, perfectly clean.

Remember the meat will shrink a little bit when we cook it so you want to make them a little bit bigger than your buns.

>> Next we're going to make the Green Goddess Dressing and in the meantime we'll put these in the fridge.

You can make these ahead of time in which case you can put them in the freezer and they freeze beautifully.

>> This dressing comes together so quickly because we're doing it all in the food-processor, so we already have about half a cup of Mayonnaise in here, I'm going to add to that just a bit of Feta Cheese, so I put Parsley, fresh Basil, I have three green onions in here and two cloves of fresh garlic, some lemon juice, and our final ingredient is Anchovies, I promise this dressing won't taste like them, it's just going to add another layer of flavor and umami that's going to make it stand out, so about four anchovies right in there.

Let's mix it up.

(Food Processor) >> Mmm..., that is perfect, it's going to go so great on our burgers and it doesn't even need salt because of the anchovies and that feta cheese, so let's cook the burgers.

>> If you're not going to grill these burgers on a barbeque, the next best thing a cast-iron pan.

I'm only going to cook two at a time so as to not crowd the pan.

If you put too many in at once, then it'll just start steaming and you'll never get that browned crispy crust that you want out of a burger, so about 3 or 4 minutes on each side until they're thoroughly cooked.

Let's check on these, Oh yeah, that is perfection.

>> These burgers look so good you would think we barbequed them, and now it's time for my favorite part, assembly.

So we have our Green Goddess Dressing, I put it in the fridge while we were cooking the burgers just to let it set a little bit, I also can't have a burger without a little avocado, tomato, and check out these burgers, they turned out so juicy.

Little bit of spring greens, and now you have a burger.

♪♪ >> Let's clear up a myth and give you one more word on turkeys.

The Franklin Institute says that Benjamin Franklin never proposed the turkey as a symbol for America, but he did praise the wild turkey as a much more respectable bird than the bald eagle.

♪♪