Rustlers Burger Hacking Challenge

I think the abbreviation TGIF was invented for my family. Schoolday mornings are usually a painful affair. I get up first, plod to the kitchen to prepare breakfast for my guys, then it's time to wake them up, and oh boy, nobody is happy when I open the curtains in bedrooms.
Fridays are typically more cheerful, because there's a weekend ahead, and for Eddie, it's an extra special day as his best friend Peter is coming home with us after school.
The boys play and live Minecraft, so I leave them to it, offering snacks and drinks, and asking them to have a break from playing. They are days when they play chess, or some board games, but recently it's been Minecraft.
On Friday morning when we go to school, I ask Eddie what his friend and he would like to have for dinner. His choices are usually not very varied - pizza or burgers.

Last Friday I offered them a new burger - Rustlers Southern Chicken Burger. These burgers come with sachets of lightly peppered mayo.
Each chopped and shaped chicken burger is coated with a southern fried breadcrumb and comes in a sesame seeded bun.
Calorie wise it is 410kcal per burger.

If you read my blog even occasionally, you know that I enjoy cooking from scratch, but I also love shortcuts which allow me to have a break from cooking. With a special needs child who eats the same food on a daily basis, I tend to cook several different meals every day, to adapt to my family's needs and tastes (Sash and Eddie eats different meals, and now my husband decided to go vegetarian, so often it feels like I'm running a restaurant).
And there are days when I'm pretty knackered to do a restaurant shift.

Recently BritMums got in touch with parenting bloggers, asking to take part in Rustlers Burger Hacking Challenge. All participants received a £20 Tesco gift card to spend on products.

I confess that I haven't tried Rustlers before, I tend to buy fresh burgers which need cooking on grill or in the oven.
I was impressed to discover that Rustlers chicken burgers use only the finest quality chicken, fully traceable to the farm of origin. That is deserving commendation.
Twin packs offer smaller than average burgers (at just 140g each), so they are great for kids - handy to hold and easy to bite into.

Burgers out of packaging, before being cooked

Just pop them into a microwave for 90 seconds and add whichever toppings you fancy.
You don't necessarily need a microwave. We don't have one: I just heated up the burgers in the oven, and toasted the buns. I think buns should be toasted, even if you microwave the burgers.

Since both boys love pickles, I offered them a small dish of gherkins to go with burgers, plus a pink slaw (white and red cabbage, with carrot and red onion in cider vinegar) and a three bean salad with sweet corn and red pepper.
I am not going to take credit for either slaw or salad. The slaw was courtesy Tesco (and it's one of my favourites which I buy often), while the salad is from M&S.
Later they had a mango sorbet (which is Eddie's favourite ice cream).

What did we think of Rustlers?
They are handy to have in the fridge for quick and easy meals, either during the week or at the weekend.
You can be as creative as you like with all kinds of toppings and sides, be it fries, slaw or salad - for a balanced meal. The appeal of burgers, Rustlers or any other, is that you are able to personalise your meal to suit your tastes.
For example, our boys didn't fancy any peppered mayo. In fact, Eddie dislikes mayo with passion. But he loves ketchup, which works perfectly well with the burger.
The burgers disappeared very fast, and got thumbs up from both boys.

Eddie enjoyed his burger so much that we bought another pack on Sunday as a quick pre-cinema meal ( we went to see Early Man).

I used the leftover sachets of mayo to cook small sized Portobellini mushrooms - spread with peppered mayo and later topped with sliced smoked scamorza cheese, and cooked until the cheese melts.

How do you eat burgers? What are your favourite flavour combinations?

If you're looking for ideas on how to serve burgers, check out what some other family bloggers created for the Rustlers Burger Hacking Challenge:
Rustling up a manic midweek fakeaway (Madhouse Family Reviews)
Rustlers Burger Hacking Challenge (Dragons and Fairy Dust)

This post is an entry for BritMums "Rustlers Burger Hacking Challenge", sponsored by Rustlers.

Disclosure: Please do not be confused by the term "sponsored", this was not a paid for post. I received a £20 Tesco voucher to buy the burgers, which I still haven't had a chance to use two months later.