A Kitchen Success & a Flop

After waking up early (for me—hey, it’s Saturday and I’m a teenager!), getting a quick shower and drinking a big green smoothie (water, lots of spinach, 2 smallish bananas, and flax) I went to the library for story hour—not for me; I’m a little old for that : ) but to sub while the lady who usually does it was out of town. After that I came home and made two recipes that I had been dying to try out…

Inspired by Angela’s recent post for Spelt Veggie Burgers, I decided to attempt recreating them. I loved this recipe because it sounded so simple—and for someone who’s never made veggie burgers before, simple is good! Since the OSG recipe was a modified version of one at Diets, Dessert & Dogs (which in turn is adapted from the Complete Candida Yeast Guidebook—my, this is getting confusing!), I took a look over there and came up with my own hybrid veggie burger version, using mostly Angela’s modifications:



Homemade Garden Burgers

Ingredients:

• 1 cup cooked chickpeas (or beans of your choice—I used canned chickpeas)
• 1 small carrot, peeled and chopped into large pieces
• 1/4 cup of diced onion
• 1 celery stalk, chopped into large pieces
• 1/4 cup halved cherry tomatoes
• 1/4 cup spinach, washed
• 1/2 t dill (dried or fresh- I used dried)
• 1/2 t dried basil
• 1/4 t fine grain sea salt (I left this out because the canned beans were salty enough)
• tiny dash of cayenne (I just used several hefty “twists” of fresh ground black pepper)
• about 2 T of dried red bell pepper (it will absorb the moisture)
• 1 clove minced garlic
• 1/4 cup sunflower seed
• 1 T pumpkin seeds (pepita)
• 1 T chia seeds
• 1/2 - 3/4 cup whole grain spelt flour (or flour of your choice)

Directions: Preheat oven to 375F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper (or spray with oil). Place all ingredients except the seeds and flour into a food processor. Process until mixture is blended well, stopping to scrape sides if necessary. Remove mixture and place into a large bowl. Add seeds and stir well. Now add the spelt flour (or flour of your choice) in 1/4 cup increments, stirring well until blended. Shape patties and bake for 15 minutes at 375F, flip and bake for another 10 minutes.
Makes 8 small patties.

Recipe adapted from Oh She Glows.

These taste very similar to the Gardenburgers that you buy at the  store (thus the name I gave them)…except that they are even better (the Gardenburgers I have tried tasted too salty and kind of greasy). These were—as I had hoped—easy and DELICIOUS! I love that you can substitute whatever veggies you have on-hand (see DD&D recipe) and the seasonings (basil, garlic, dill, fresh ground pepper) were so tasty! I think this recipe could also easily be served unbaked as a pate or just a more ‘juicy’ burger. I had some before it was cooked and it tasted really yummy (you may want to eliminate the flour if you do this, however).

 
Here they are before being baked.
 
And a close-up. I love the flecks of spinach. That was a brilliant addition.
After being baked. Yum! I love the texture. If you want them less chunky, though, just blend the seeds with the veggies.

I was even able to make these in my mini food processor. I just did it in two batches—worked beautifully. I love my little KitchenAid; isn’t it so cute? My favorite thing about it is that it is so easy to clean compared to a blender.

Am I a weird for thinking a food processor is cute? ; )

Okay, now for the flop. To be fair, it wasn’t a complete flop but this isn’t exactly how I envisioned my spelt tortillas:
 
More like spelt chips. They are still pretty tasty, but I just can’t figure out where I went wrong. I followed the recipe exactly. I think my trouble with came with the rolling them out part…
 
I couldn’t get them thin enough, and it didn’t seem like my little balls of sectioned-out dough were big enough to get a good size tortilla.

Then when I tried to transfer them to the pan they stuck…despite my best attempts with cornmeal. So I got lots of thick little pieces, like so:

And my nice round ‘tortillas’ (okay, they were never nice and round) ended up looking like crabs. Doesn't it, though?
 
Here they are all packaged up.

Ah, well. They tasted fairly good. It’s just the texture and thickness that are off. Some are crispy like chips and some are more doughy like pita bread. She made it look so easy, too! : ) At least it was a fun endeavor, and I even ate some with my lunch:

 
Homemade veggie burger, fresh guacamole (avocado, cherry tomatoes, lemon juice, parsley, garlic powder, black pepper) and chard.

Same as above except wrapped up in a chard leaf. This was my first time trying the “green wrap” thing and I loved it!

Speaking of chard, look how huge this leaf is:
This picture doesn’t even do it justice. It’s massive—almost too big to make a wrap out of, so I saved it for something else.

We are having a very sunny Saturday here in the Midwest. It is very snowy, though.

The load of snow on that table reminds me of thick frosting. So pretty!

‘See’ y’all tomorrow!