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!

The Annual Fall Squash Soup Experiment

Yes, it's finally a little chilly in the air and Fall is showing its signs.  That means, of course, squash soup.  I bought a kind of squash at the farmer's market that I'd never cooked with before:

what kind of squash is this?

The soup was delicious, warm, spicy not spicy hot but spicy from the garam masala and smooth! Serve with a side of roasted beet salad!

Here's how I made it!

1 squash -- (Honestly, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with my squash when I started cutting it up.  I decided to roast it, and cut it into long slices.  This was a mistake, it was really hard to get the squash flesh off the blazing hot squash rind and into the pot!  If you are going to roast your squash, just cut it in half, then roast, then scoop.  Or, you can peel it prior, cube it, then roast it. Or!  Just peel it, cube it and skip roasting. Add it to the pot with the potato, carrot and onion)

I roasted my squash at 425 degrees for about 30 minutes, with about 2T garam masala, salt and pepper and olive oil.

1 potato, diced.
1 carrot, diced.
1 onion, diced.

1 T olive oil
1 T butter

4-6 C vegetable broth, depending how thick you like your soup!
1 T curry powder
1 T ground ginger (I didn't have real ginger, but I'd rather use the real thing!!)
1 t cayenne
2 cloves garlic, roasted if you're already roasting, minced otherwise.

heat oil and butter in large pot.  add potato, carrot, and onion. sautee on medium heat, stirring often.  veggies should soften and become deliciously fragrant and caramelized a little.

while the veggies are working, prepare squash  then add squash (in my case, this involved me cutting the rind off and adding it to the pot, if I could go back, I'd just scoop the roasted squash out of the rind into the pot).
add garlic and seasonings.
add broth.
stir.

let simmer for 20 minutes, then blend with immersion blender.  slowly add more broth if you like it soupier, remember you can always add more, but you can't easily take it out!

garnish with cilantro, and sour cream!

Easy Weeknight Dinner...

As an Iowan, I grew up eating pork chops.  Pork is one of the meat products I still eat.  It can be made very easily on a weeknight with minimal ingredients.  There are so  many gimmicky food products out there being advertised as quick and easy meals for busy families (so often I just want to throw something at the TV when I see them) that just don't look or sound like real food.  I'm really busy, but I still manage to cook real food with names I can pronounce.  Here's what I did with just a few ingredients and minimal prep... I didn't time myself, but dinner was on the table in about 30-40 minutes.

Pork Chop Ingredients:
pork chops (we had 4)
1 small shallot
fresh rosemary
2 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon olive oil

First, I chopped 1 sprig rosemary, 2 cloves garlic and 1 small shallot, then combined them in a small bowl with about a teaspoon of olive oil.
Then I dusted each side of the pork chops with salt and pepper and seared them lightly on each side, then placed them on a baking sheet and sprinkled the rosemary, garlic and shallot mixture on and popped them into a 425 oven.  I let them stay there until the meat thermometer beeped.  We have one that you can set an alarm to beep when your food reaches the desired temperature.


Roasted Brussel Sprouts Ingredients:
1/2 pound brussel sprouts, washed and cut in half, if desired (TIP! call your partner on the way home and have him or her cut and wash them for you to save time!)
olive oil
salt and pepper

Roast, shaking/turning occasionally at 425 degrees for about 20-25 minutes.  How do you know when they are done?  When they are tender enough for your liking.  There will be some delightful little crispy pieces that fall off the round sprout. Be sure to eat them up, ASAP! 

I put the sprouts in the oven about 10 minutes ahead of the meat. So  when the meat was securely placed in the oven, I checked the brussel sprouts, and  gave them a quick shake. When the meat thermometer beeped about 10 minutes later, I took everything out of the oven and let it rest for a few minutes.  Then, dinner.

Cooking the Cover

The cover of the January issue of bon Appetit has been beckoning me for over a month.  When I turned to the recipe and saw that it required pastry I got scared.  Then there was something about the inclusion of eggs that didn't challenge me enough though... I already make frittatas on a regular basis so why try this?  I just decided I didn't want to make it.  But I kept looking at it and I finally sat down and read the damn recipe.  There were a ton of roasted vegetables (hooray!) and I was really craving that, so I just realized that no matter that I was scared of the pastry really did want to make it... and finally, this week, I did!  By the way, since I have a food processor, making pasty isn't that difficult, I just need to build my confidence. 

I didn't use eggplant but used zucchini instead.  I used half and half instead of heavy cream.  It took about two hours to make it.  IT WAS GOOD!

There are two lesons here friends:  1.  Don't be afraid of the recipe just because it calls for a technique that you aren't quite comfortable with.  Use is as an opportunity to practice!
2.  When you don't like an ingredient in a recipe... substitute!

It looks pretty good, huh?

Weekly Menu

Last week's Indian food was great, and we had plenty of leftovers so we just got to those fish tacos last night.  Let me tell you... they are tasty! What makes it for me, is the sauce!! This is a recipe we go to time and time again.  Try it.

This week's menu includes a lot of veggies. I haven't done a lot of veggie roasting lately and that really sounded good to me as I made the menu.  Perhaps because it finally feels like winter now that we got a decent snowfall this weekend.

Homemade Pizza!! I have seen a lot of people posting about homemade pizza lately on facebook. This makes me happy! I love homemade pizza. It makes so much more sense than delivery or frozen pizza... you can choose your toppings, it's less greasy and it costs far less.

Pasta with Roasted Vegetables inspired by Rosemary Pappardelle with Roasted Winter Vegetable and Red wine Ragout from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison 
I plan to use whole wheat linguini, roast some vegetables and go from there...

Tandoori Style Chicken from Martha Stewart with quinoa and chickpeas.  This marinade leaves the chicken very juicy and tangy. I try to get it done so it can marinate overnight and all day while I'm at work.


Roasted Vegetable Tart from the cover of the January 2012 Bon Appetit.  Again, this will be "inspired" by this recipe, as I did'nt want to get all the ingredients here (I don't like eggplant) but really like the premise of the dish.  This will, however be my first time cooking with fennel!

Thanks to all the readers out there for your feedback and comments.  I love writing this blog and sharing it with all of you... it's great to know that people find it useful. 
What are you making this week?