Recipe: Bacon-Blue Cheese Stuffed Burgers

This recipe is neither healthy nor light, but is oh so good (funny how that seems to work...) If you like burgers and blue cheese, this is the next recipe for you. The link doesn't work unless you have a subscription to Taste of Home, so I'll copy it here.
Bacon-Blue Cheese Stuffed Burgers
(August Taste of Home magazine)

Ingredients:

• 1-1.5 pounds lean ground beef (90% lean)
• 3 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1/3 cup crumbled blue cheese
• 1/3 cup bacon bits
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1 pound sliced fresh mushrooms
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 Tbsp water
• 1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
• 4 whole wheat hamburger buns, split
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 4 romaine leaves
• 1 medium tomato, sliced

Directions:

• Shape beef into eight thin patties. Combine the cream cheese, blue cheese, and bacon bits; spoon onto the center of four patties. Top with remaining patties and press edges firmly to seal. Combine the salt, garlic powder, and pepper; sprinkle over patties.
• Grill burgers, covered, over medium heat or broil 4 in. from the heat for 5-7 minutes on each side or until a meat thermometer reads 160F and juices run clear.
• Meanwhile, in a large skillet, saute mushrooms in oil until tender. Stir in water and mustard.
• Serve burgers on buns with mayonnaise, romaine, tomato and mushroom mixture.
• Yield: 4 servings.
  

My notes: I used 95% lean ground beef and it was fantastic. I added the salt, garlic powder, & pepper into the beef mixture before shaping into patties to give them more flavor, rather than sprinkling it on top. ext time, I will probably use about 2/3 of the cheese mixture in each one - it was a lot of cheese. I didn't use the bacon bits (didn't have them). I also didn't make the mushroom topping, since I can't stand mushrooms, but I have to say I think it would have been amazing with it. Next time I may do an onion topping to try. We served this sans buns (and any of the other burger fixin's) - and this was great just by itself. I grilled 2 of these, and froze the other 2. Hopefully they keep! By the way, the grilled vegetable salad is a home run with blue cheese...