Monday, July 16, 2012

Yummy Black Bean Burgers & Weekend Bits

One of the things I love about summer is the smell of grilling that wafts through the air on any given night. I also happen to live above a restaurant so there are delicious foods smells coming through my windows on the regular. Coupled together, these two things made me fiend for a burger on Saturday.

There's just one problem - I don't really eat beef. The reason being that I don't think beef is produced properly in this country. I won't get preachy, but watch Food, Inc. and you'll understand where I'm coming from. That said, if you put a big juicy grass-fed free range organic steak in front of me, I will eat it like a caveman. Until then there are other options for burgers!

I love black beans and I love black bean burgers so I used my handy dandy Whole Foods Recipes app and got a recipe.


1 15 ounce can of black beans, rinsed and drained
1 egg
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
1 cup whole wheat bread crumbs
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp garlic powder
Hot sauce to taste
Olive or canola oil

This is the original recipe, but I had some issues with it. Onwards.

The first thing you need to do is mash the beans. Rinse them really well in a colander and put them in a large bowl. You could use a fork, but I just went for a good old potato masher. It's bigger and you'll get the job done a lot faster.

Add the egg, onion, bread crumbs, oregano, basil, garlic powder, hot sauce, and salt and pepper to taste.

You could mix this with a spoon, but the best way to get everything incorporated is to use your hands. So mush it all up and make sure everything is evenly distributed.

The recipe above makes for a pretty dry mixture and I wasn't happy with it at this point. It was too late to take out any bread crumbs and I didn't want to add water. Lucky for me I had a 15 ounce can of refried black beans hanging out in my cupboard so I added about 3/4s of the can to my mixture.

I will toot my own horn for this one, because it turned out to be a genius addition. Not only were the refried beans already mashed, but they were seasoned too and I didn't have to adjust anything. Score.

This recipe makes 6 regular sized burgers. Since I was (and usually am) just cooking for myself I made two and popped the rest in the freezer for future munching.

I grilled them for about 5 minutes on each side. I like things to be more on the well done side, but I think you could get away with 4 or so minutes a side.

Since I'm following the Bob Harper rule of 'no carbs after dinner' I just topped these with some Dijon mustard and a tomato slice, made a salad, and called it dinner. Just for the record - the no carbs rule is not in effect when I go out or if the carbs are in the form of an adult beverage. It's no fun to follow all of the rules all of the time! When I make these again I'll definitely reduce the bread crumbs because even with the refried beans they were a little dry. 

A super mega-delicious blueberry frozen yogurt shake from B. Good; a new hat ($4.99 at Urban Outfitters) & lip gloss; and an awesome Gorgonzola & prosciutto pizza from Grafton Street Pub last night
I had a very low key weekend since I'm saving pennies to buy new furniture. I did have a regularly scheduled hair cut yesterday and I found out that my stylist is moving at the end of the year. Cue panic! I've been with him for over 5 years and I have no idea what I'll do! I'm a weirdo about my hair and it takes me a while to trust someone with it. Any advice on this matter will be much appreciated!

4 comments:

  1. Shag in South Boston is good and decently priced! I see Mozel (sp?) when I can't make it to my regular hair dresser down in Hingham.

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    1. I go to an Aveda salon now and I want to try to stick with it because I love the products so much and I love their points system. If I can't find someone good then I'll move on. I'm going to be a basket case over it... which is pathetic!

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  2. I kept meaning to comment on this - those sound a lot like the burgers I made a while back too. They were noms. Top with some avocado for some more healthy fats in the meal. Also, I tried to freeze mine and when I thawed them they were super mushy. I did not like that.

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