Black & White Burger

In my pursuit of all things delicious, I am yearning for a solid veggie burger recipe. I have done black bean burgers before with minor success. They have all tasted great, but consistency wise fall below where I would like. Perusing the internet for some inspiration, I came across these from namelymarly.com. I find it quite nice that there is a never ending source of vegetarian/tasty/pretty/yummy/healthy blogs out there. I could literally spend all my time searching for new things to make!

I'd give these a good thumbs up, although I need to probably try them sticking exactly to the recipe. I still have problems with measuring, I'm a guesstimater you see. And frankly, I'm okay with it....it just proves difficult when trying to then reproduce my dishes on paper. Another fun fact about me: I will use the least amount of dishes and utensils possible when cooking and baking. So for this, when it called to put grind up some of the beans in a food processor, I wasn't exactly feelin' it. The parts were still in my dish rack from being used and washed earlier in the day. So I nixed that step. It may be the missing link between my pretty good patties with okay consistency and awesome patties with consistency that melts your face off. All in all, these had great flavor. They have already been eaten as left overs in the form of a wrap with veggies and simply heated up with a little sour cream on top(I wasn't feeling so hot yesterday but knew I could use a little protein).

FYI, this burger went on homemade ciabatta rolls. Yeah, that's right. I went there. A little time consuming but sooooooo worth it. And way cheaper than you would buy them for. I'll get that posted today too.

INGREDIENTS:
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1 small onion, chopped
1 cup cooked brown rice
3 tbls flour
1 tbls lemon juice
1 teas salt
1 tbls chili powder
1/2 cup cornmeal
olive oil
salt and pepper

*Place half the beans and onion in food processor, pulse until coarse ground.
*Mash the rest of the beans in a bowl. Add back in the other beans, rice, flour, lemon juice, chili powder, and salt. Stir to combine. Add cornmeal and stir again. Let it sit for about 10 minutes. If its still to wet, add in some more cornmeal.
*Shape dough into 6 patties.
*Heat a splash of olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. When hot, place in patties and cook about 5 minutes on each side. Keep patties hot in a 250 degree oven for about 10-20 minutes, while the rest of the patties cook.
*Enjoy!

Veggie & Garbanzo Bean Curry

Tonights dinner, well lets just say it was kind of a last minute change of plans. All day I kept thinking it was Friday-not sure why. But my thought process when cooking on Friday is not like that of Sunday-Thursday. See, on those days, I'm always keeping Al in mind. Leftovers for lunch that is. So I changed it up and made this tonight instead of tomorrow. And tonights dish(its a doosey)will be made tomorrow.

This is yet another inspiration from the vegan stoner blog. Al is mad in love with curry. The boy could eat it, like always. When he came home from work he was hungry, which is totally the norm. Usually we eat dinner around 5:30, depending on the day. But this was going to take a bit longer. Mainly because my motivation for making it didn't start until later and also because I decided to make naan. For the first time. Ever. Not that it turned out to be terribly difficult, just a little more time consuming. I'll toss out the naan recipe some time in the not so distant future. Back to the curry. It was made, it was consumed, it was good. Wish I would have had some more yogurt, could have been a little more saucy. Next time! So I'm doubling what I used as far as yogurt goes.

INGREDIENTS:
olive oil
2 green bell peppers, chopped
3 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
12 oz plain greek yogurt
4 tbls curry powder
1 teas garlic powder
prepared brown rice

*Heat olive oil in a medium pot, add carrots and peppers. Cook for a few minutes and then add in beans, yogurt, curry, and garlic powder.
*Mix and cook until veggies are soft.
*Serve with brown rice.

Six Veggie Stir-Fry

Lets just say, I'm writing this with remnants of this meal in my mouth and I'm contemplating not brushing my teeth for a couple days. I make stir-fry type dishes about once a week. Its fun to experiment with the basic concept of a stir-fry and make it different each time. Broccoli is a must. Peppers...always. The rest really depends on what looked tasty when I got the groceries last. Also, I finally remembered to get some chinese five spice seasoning...and I'm glad I did. Its a simple mix of a few spices...five, go figure. But the levels of flavor are complex and satisfying. Worth a purchase if you plan on making chinese food regularly. Anyways, here's my latest meal...hope it's inspiring you to try something new perhaps!

INGREDIENTS:
sesame oil
1/2 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbls crushed red pepper
8 stalks of asparagus, chopped
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
1 large head of broccoli, chopped
1 tbls chinese five spice
3 tbls lite soy sauce
2 tbls hoisin sauce
3 cups of spinach

*In a skillet, heat up oil over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, and crushed red pepper. Cook for 3 mins.  Then add in veggies, except for the spinach, and work in, getting all the veggies covered in a bit of oil. cook for about 5 mins.
*Put in the five spice, soy sauce, and hoisin. Make sure all veggies are again, covered in the sauce. Cook for another couple minutes. When veggies reach desired tenderness, throw in the spinach. Stir until it wilts. Serve with brown rice.

Spicy Vegetable Fried Rice

Bam! Double post day!

Plain and simple, we love asian inspired food. Not that this is terribly traditional...but it is easy and delectable. Its another one of those "whatever you have" kind of meals. Throw in whatever veggies you have or like. I always put bell peppers and broccoli in. Al is a big fan of mushrooms, I am not...so we don't have mushrooms. Ha! I've added carrots before or you could toss in some edamame. And if you weren't trying to go vegan like us, scramble a couple eggs and toss those in there too.

Short post tonight, but I'm being crafty and must get back to my crafts!

INGREDIENTS:
prepared brown rice
2 tbls sesame oil
1/2 an onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teas crushed red pepper
1 head of broccoli, chopped
2 bell peppers, chopped
1 cup pea pods
2 tbls low-sodium soy sauce

*Heat oil in a wok or large pan over medium-high heat. Add in the onion, garlic and crushed red pepper. Allow those to cook until they're fragrent, 1-2 minutes.
*Add in the vegetables and toss periodically for 2 minutes to coat and cook. Add in the rice, stir and cook for another minute. Then pour in the soy sauce, stir and serve.

Asparagus Stir-Fry

Day 1! Pretty sure I wont be counting everyday off like this, but the first day is kind of exciting, I gotta admit. Most of these posts will be dinner meals, with the occasional snack and dessert mixed in. Well, I guess I take it back, I put no parameters or limitations on this food blog. But for today, it was dinner. And it was smashing!!! I adore asian style food and this fit in the category of stir-fry for sure. I got the inspiration from here, and made a few minor changes based on what I had in my kitchen. Not to mention bumping up the recipe so that it would suffice for the needs of our family....aka dinner for myself and Al with leftovers for Al's lunch the next day, at least. I made some basic brown rice to go along with this dish. I am honestly considering it as one of my top five meals that ever cooked. It had so many levels of flavor and great textures. Al was also a fan. There was only enough left overs for one, and I am graciously giving it to him for his lunch...he should honestly give me a really good foot rub or do the dishes for that kind of treatment. This was a wicked awesome meal, will for sure make again.

INGREDIENTS:

3(or so) tbls sesame oil

1 14oz pack of extra firm tofu, cut into pieces

2 shallots, chopped

1 inch of ginger, finely chopped

1 teas crushed red pepper

1 bunch of asparagus, cut into 1 inch pieces

pinch of salt

3 cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 cup toasted cashews

2 cups spinach

zest and juice from a lime

3 tbls hoisin sauce

mint

basil

*Heat the oil in a skillet or wok over med-high. When oil is hot drop in the tofu and cook until golden brown on both sides. Remove tofu and set aside. 

*Add some more oil into the pan and once its hot add shallots, ginger, red pepper, asparagus, and salt. Cook for 2 minutes and then add the garlic, cashews and spinach. Once the spinach wilts, add the tofu back in. Then zest the lime and add its juice. After that stir in the hoisin sauce and let it all come together for a couple minutes.

*Take off the heat and add in the mint and basil to your liking. Stir & serve.