Burger Cook Off - Trying Emily's

What kind of 'cook off' is it if we make different burgers? That's the thought that kept me up all night. Okay, that's not true - I slept well and did not have an alarm clock wake me up. Although our cats jumping on and off the bed and purring did! I had to find a quick meal to make for dinner tonight, before we take the dogs for their first 'agility class' (I am a little nervous!).
And I had most of the ingredients in the recipe that Emily made.
My substitutions - pinto beans instead of the kidney beans (I cooked a batch of pinto beans and froze them), white rice for brown rice (again - precooked in the fridge). I also added pecans and cilantro.
V complained about the pecans in the recipe (he does not like nuts in his food - he does not understand the need for texture and crunch). But, we both really loved the burgers. Yummy!!
Here is a photo of my open-faced burger sandwich!!

Noodle Stoup

Sorry I have been negligent in adding my recipes lately. Sometimes it gets a little crazy around here. Anyhow, I made this soup the other day and it ended up thickening more than I had planned so my daughter called it "Stoup" which I think is cute.

I based it on "Golden Vegetable Noodle Soup" from Vegan Bites (Beverly Lynn Bennett). This is a good cookbook since it is designed for "singles" and, therefore, makes manageable portions instead of giant vats of food. It is basically your all purpose carrots, celery onions mixed with broth (seasoned with bay leaf, garlic, thyme, parsley, turmeric, pepper, salt) and noodles. The secret ingredient in the stock is 2 TB nutritional yeast which you need as a vegan for your B12! I used whole wheat pasta which I usually hate but it was tolerable with all the other flavors.

It is basically a chicken soup without the chicken. I added some chick peas for some protein and I added a little spinach to mine just for nutrition's sake. My daughter said it tasted liked Mac N Cheese soup which perplexed me, but if she will eat it, I try not to argue!

The verdict

Yummy!! We did not have burger buns or any of the fixings - lettuce, tomatoes, pickles etc. So I had mine with soy cream cheese, ketchup and hot sauce. V had his with cheese, ketchup and mustard on toast. It tasted great, but was a little too crumbly!! Definitely will make it again, but have to figure out the issue with the crumbliness (is that a word?)

Burger Cook Off part 1 (Anu)

I have not yet tasted the burgers that I made - that will not happen till after I go for a run this afternoon. I plan on running outside. The weather is beautiful - blue skies dotted with white clouds, in the 50's (I would prefer it to be slightly warmer, but it's good for a run!). V is taking a practice MCAT exam, so he won't eat for a while either. It's about 12.45pm - time for lunch, but we are thinking of eating the burgers at 4pm! Weird!
But, I am excited about how good the 'raw' burgers tasted that I wanted to post the recipe. Before the internet was full of recipes, I discovered (Thanks to V's aunt and cousin V) 'Moosewood' cookbooks. It was always a dream of mine to drive to Ithaca to eat in the restaurant, but it never happened. I have not looked at a recipe in the book in a while, but remembered making a 'Tofu burger' from the book years ago that I really liked. So I took out my 'Moosewood Restaurant New Classics' and made the "Falafel Burgers". The most exciting part of cooking from a Moosewood recipe is that, usually, I make no substitutions. The recipes are perfect as they are described in the book. But, today, I adapted my burger recipe to match what I had at home and our changing tastes.
Here is the recipe I used (with a 'before' photo). I will add the 'after' photo later tonight or with my next post (which I hope will be vegan enchilladas that I am going to try to make!).

Falafel Burgers (Adapted from Moosewood Restaurant New Classics)

Ingredients:
1 cup diced onions
3 garlic cloves - chopped finely or minced
Olive Oil (1 T)
2 grated carrots
1/2 cup diced peppers (Mix of left over green, red and yellow!)
1t turmeric
1t cumin
Cayenne pepper (to taste)
1 cake firm tofu (15 oz) pressed and crumbled
2 cups cooked chickpeas
Juice from 1 lemon
1 T soy sauce
1 T sesame oil
1/4 cup Tahini
Herbs (I used dried oregano)- 1/4 cup
Salt, to taste
Breadcrumbs, as needed


Saute the garlic and onions in Olive Oil. When onions are golden, add pepper and grated carrot with cumin, cayenne and turmeric (The original recipe calls for coriander in place of cumin. I am sure you can change the spice mix around to your taste). Cook until vegetables are tender, stirring occasionally to prevent vegetables from sticking.

As vegetables cook, add tofu, chickpeas, sesame oil, lemon juice and soy sauce into a food processor and pulse. I started with a hand blender, but used my hands to mash the ingredients together (the chick peas were freshly looked and were very soft). A potato masher will also work well. The mix should be combined, but not a paste.

Add vegetables, herbs, tahini and salt (to taste) and mix together with your hands or a masher. Don't use the blender/food processor. If the paste is too sticky, add breadcrumbs. I added about 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs at this stage.




Make into 8 burger patties and place on an oiled baking pan. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until golden brown.


Verdict - in a few hours. These are the uncooked patties. I think it would be more colorful with all red bell peppers in the recipe (which is what the original recipe included).
Can you tell my spring break has started - a long post!!

Cupcake recipe!!

Emily, you were right about the cupcakes - they were from a website and based on 'Vegan cupcakes take over the world' by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero.
Here are the links -


Basic Vegan Cupcake

Vegan Buttercream Frosting

Thanks for the deliciousness, Claudia and Kadie!!

Cupcakes

I don't have a recipe with this post - I will add it in a couple of days.
But, I wanted to share this photo with everyone - here is a picture of the vegan cupcakes that my colleague's sister baked for my birthday. Who knew that Oreos were vegan!!
I also had a cake that another friend baked (vegan, again) yesterday. But, we ate it all at work yesterday and I have no pictures to share. But, hopefully, I will have both recipes soon and I can post them!!
Enjoy!!

Burger Cook-Off Episode 1

Well, it looks like I am having a cook off against myself since Anu is too busy (or too popular!) to cook this week. This burger competition may go on indefinitely as we try to find the best homemade vegan burgers. I have a few that I have wanted to try so this has given me the incentive. I assume that the ones I make will have a bit of a Southwestern flair since that is what we seem to enjoy. This weekend, I made Red Bean Chipotle Burgers from www.blog.fatfreevegan.com. This is a fabulous blog by the way-check it out! I have picked up quite a few tips from this blog. This time, I learned to toss the entire can of chipotles in adobo into the food processor and then just scoop out what you need for recipes or freeze the extra. I often chop up one chipotle and then forget about the rest of the can as it rots in my fridge.

(By the way, my husband is home now and taught me how to create a link rather than writing out the entire address for some of the recipes I have tried. I realize that it is pathetic that I am just learning these things at my age. I went back and tried to fix some of my older posts. Hopefully they work!)

The Red Bean Chipotle Burgers were great. They remind me of the Amy's burgers a bit in terms of the texture. I like my burgers to have some texture and not be too soft. These really fit the bill! I used regular red kidney bean since I don't think we have light red kidney beans around here unless I have just never noticed them. They use oatmeal as a binder which I thought would be odd but it was great. There is also some brown rice mixed in. I forgot to add the rice while processing so I just stirred it in after and I think I prefer it this way. I froze a few and threw them in the micromave for 1 minute today. They made a great lunch.




The picture really does not do them justice. I took it very quickly so I could eat my burger. We had them with a caesar salad (I used a vegan dressing made from tofu that was in this month's Clean Living Magazine. I had to doctor it a bit for our tastes, but it was good enough) and some roasted baby russet potatoes with a little sprinkle of rosemary, garlic powder and olive oil.

I give these a thumbs up and plan to make them again. M thought they were good but a little gritty.

On a different not, I realize I will need to get some more attractive plates if I am going to be taking so many pictures of food! My dull brown ones look so boring on here!)