Black Bean "Burger" with Beet and Sweet Potato Roasted Fries

I finally found the time to spend a few hours in the kitchen, taking my time, making some good good food.  Last evening as a Spring rainstorm, that's been happening off and on all week, stormed on, I cooked up a storm in my happy kitchen.

Shout-out to my husband for helping me clean up the colossal mess that came with dinner.

I modified a black bean/quinoa burger I've made a few times before and here's the recipe I ended up using:

ingredients:

1/2 Cup uncooked quinoa

roughly chopped vegetables:
     2 carrots
     1/2 red onion
     1/4 of a small purple cabbage

2 cloves garlic

spice blend:
     1.5 tsp. paprika
     1.5 tsp cumin
     1 tsp Italian seasoning blend
     1/2 tsp. cayenne

1 can black beans, drained

2 Tbsp. tomato paste
1 tsp. soy sauce
2 tsp. sriracha

1/2-1 cup breadcrumbs

olive oil
salt and pepper

cook quinoa with water or vegetable broth.
meanwhile, wash and roughly chop the vegetables.
heat olive oil in a pan and cook vegetables until they begin to soften.
add cooked vegetables, spice mixture and beans to a food processor and begin to mash them together.  (the length of time you process the mixture depends on how chunky you'd like your burger.)

next, mix the tomato paste, soy and sriracha. then add to the bean and vegetable mixture in the food processor until combined.
transfer mixture to a large bowl.

the quiona should be finished by now.  add quinoa and mix everything together with your hands.  slowly add breadcrumbs until the mixture starts to hold together if you ball it up, and loses most of its moisture.  it will be slightly sticky.  make into round patty shapes and set in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

while the burgers were chilling and settling in the fridge I made beet and sweet potato roasted fries.

ingredients:
one beet & one sweet potato, both peeled and sliced into thin rounds

salt, pepper, olive oil

optional:  spices such as rosemary, cumin, cayenne...

I saw a recipe for beet chips with rosemary, salt and cayenne here, which I tried.

mix up a small amount of olive oil, a pinch of rosemary, cayenne and salt.
let the beets sit in this mixture for about 10 minutes.

I kept the sweet potatoes plain except for a small amount of salt, pepper and olive oil.

roast at 375 for about 20-25 minutes, turning the veggies over halfway.

Before I cooked the burgers in a pan on the stove, I chopped up some more purple cabbage, red onion and a half of an avocado to top the burgers with.  I also chopped up one adobo pepper (great fridge item to have on hand)... the kind that come in little cans that can be found in the Hispanic section of the grocery store and mixed it with mayonnaise.

Then, I heated some olive oil in the pan and cooked each burger for about 3-5 minutes per side.  The ingredients are all pretty much cooked, the mixture just needs to heat through.

Get that burger on a bun with some toppings and dinner is served!