Sunday, April 11, 2010

Roasted Butter Nut Squash salad with thai spices


Mmm.... I can't believe that I have not blogged about this dish before. I read it on 101cookbooks.com more than a year ago and since then it has been one of my more favorite salads to make or things to do with Butternut Squash. So very good. And so very easy!!

I don't make too many modifications to the original recipe (it's not called the same thing - she calls it the Maranui Surf Club Salad, but I don't have the same story to go with it, so my name is different!). I add a little sugar to the Butternut squash before roasting.

Happy Spring :)

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Black bean burger

Happy Easter to those who celebrate. To the rest of us, happy Sunday!! I had a relaxing weekend and ended it with a bunch of cooking. The food is still waiting to be eaten and in the meantime, I decided it was time to add a new recipe. I mentioned in my last post that I am trying to find ways to add flax seeds to our meals and that V does not like nuts in our food. And with time, I am starting to dislike the taste of flax seeds in my food too. So, I ground some of the roasted and salted flax seeds from Trader Joe's and am trying to find foods to add it too. Of course, it's a great egg substitute.


I was inspired by other burger recipes that we blogged about last year. The photo does not look good - and this was the best that I could find :)
I mixed the following ingredients for this version

Black beans, cooked or canned - 3 cups
Salsa, prepared - 1 cup
Corn meal - 2 T
Ground flax seeds - 2 T
Chipotle chiles in Adobo sauce - 1 t
Adobo seasoning (or Fajita seasoning) - 2 t
Olive oil - 1 T
Salt - to taste (depends on how much salt is in the seasoning you are using and the salsa)

Puree these ingredients together. I made it very smooth and would have preferred that a few of the beans were not completely pureed.
Then, I added

Frozen corn - 1 cup
Cilantro - 1/2 cup

t would have been great to add grated carrot, peas or finely diced red peppers too (for color and taste), but I had neither.

I cooked it on a pan. But, the burgers came out better when I made the burgers very thin, rather than a thick juicy burger. The thicker ones tended to not stay whole.

As the burger was getting cooked, I added Vegan sour cream and salsa on top.
I froze some and it made for a good meal on a busy evening!!