Spiced Bean and Bulgur burgers with Silverbeet Stem Chips



Do you love my trashy stubbie holder as much as I do? Hahahaha

I made these the other night partly as a way to use up a heap of crap I have had lying around in my 'pantry' (I don't have an actual pantry so space is valuable) for too long, and partly because I haven't had a good vege burger for absolutely ages. The silverbeet on the side is a variation of a recipe I found in the Silverbeet chapter in the Kitchen Garden Companion (such an inspiring book!). It is truly an excellent way to use up those stems that always get left behind in the fridge to go soft! You CAN eat them, and they taste like the leaves, only subtler.

Anyway, to the recipe:

Spiced Bean and Bulgur burgers with Silverbeet Stem Chips
Makes 8 burger patties

Ingredients
For the Burgers -
2 1/2 cups cooked beans (I used a mix of white beans and black eye peas)
1/2 cup raw cashew nuts
1/2 cup bulgur/cracked wheat, soaked in 1 cup of boiling water until soft. Drain any excess.
1/2 cup mashed sweet potato
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tsp garam masala
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 large garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 tsp curry powder, chilli powder, and ground coriander seed
1/2 cup whole meal flour
black pepper

For the silverbeet chips -
Enough silverbeet stems to serve who you are feeding (I used the stems of 1 bunch for two of us)
A few tbsp chickpea flour
Dried herb of choice
Juice of half a lemon
Oil for shallow frying

Method

In a food processor, combine the beans, cashew nuts and sweet potato. Blend until smooth (or if you like chunks, leave some chunks). Transfer to a large bowl and stir in the rest of the ingredients until well combined.

Shape into 8 flat patties and put in the fridge to firm up.

Meanwhile, slice the silverbeet stems into sticks. Bring a pot of water and the lemon juice to a boil. Boil the stems for 5 - 10 minutes. Drain and run under cold water to stop cooking and dry with a paper towel.

Put the dried stems in a bowl and toss with the chickpea flour and dried herbs.

Heat some oil in a frying pan and fry the stems in batches until crispy. Place on a paper towel lined plate in a warm oven.

You can either fry or grill these burger patties. They are good either way :) I fried mine in the oil left over from the chips, until brown on both sides. For lunch the next day I grilled them for 10 minutes on one side, 5 minutes on the other.

Serve on bread rolls with salad and sauce of choice :) tahini-mustard-sweet chilli sauce was pretty good :)

I made my bread rolls myself - I used the exact same recipe as the bread I make, but divided it after it's first rising into 6 balls before rising again. I think I cooked them for 25 minutes at 200 degrees, but check them after 15 just in case. They were pretty damn good!
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All these ingredients I found lying around my kitchen. The potato was in the freezer begging to be used, I always have beans in the freezer, cashew nuts and bulgur were the last of their packets...Any nut could be used instead of cashews, cous cous, quinoa, buckwheat or rice would be a good replacement for the bulgur wheat. (I have had the bulgur in a jar for over...2 years now. Shame! I can't remember why I had it in the first place.)

I am definately cooking my silverbeet stems this way again next time I have them. I usually just chuck them into a curry or stir fry, but this way of cooking  them preserves their flavour a bit more.

Cheap cheap produce

Because I now have a job (woe! jk) that usually involves working Sundays (good thing = extra pay) I don't get to go to the farmer's market as often. I suppose I could go before I start work (market 6am, work 9am...) but I usually don't have the energy. So I go on my sundays off :) (Though I will probably start going before work starts. I need to get off my lazy ass.)

Anyway! Last Sunday I went, and I got a little excited about this bunch of beetroot.

This thing weighs a freaking ton and is about as big as two of my head. I was struggling to hold it up for the photo!

It cost me $3! 3!!! That's amazing. Loose beetroot (ie: without the tops, sold singly) usually costs from $4-$5 a kilo. I always bought those in the past because I was unaware that you could eat the tops (headsmack) and thus thought it would be a waste.

Except, now I don't know what to do with them. I was intending to juice most of it with carrots (yummm) but it's literally been pissing down with rain for a week and it's really not juice weather.

So now there are giant beetroots in my fridge waiting for me to use them. I am sure I will think of something :)

Also at the markets I went a bit crazy with the leafy greens. I bought a kohl rabi that had huge leaves, the beetroot greens of course, also a silverbeet and a bunch of kale (a different kind that I hadn't tried before - I prefer the curly leaved variety but it's still good). AND some dandelion greens because I like them. My fridge is full to bursting - luckily I can chuck it all in pretty much anything I cook because it all wilts down to pretty much nothing. I've been eating whole wheat pasta with sauteed random greens for lunches lately. It tastes good to me, and that's what matters.

The nicest thing about this market is that everything is organic - and works out to be so damn cheap! I literally filled an empty fridge for $23. That's one hour's work on a Sunday for me.

Go to your local farmer's market (they are everywhere - even in the middle of the city) to buy your fresh fruit and vegetables - it costs so much less than going to a supermarket, and the people probably picked it that morning or the day before - it hasn't been in cold storage for months before ending up in your fridge and on your plate.

A take on Tuscan Beans and Tomatoes

Every single radish seed I planted sprouted! Very exciting. Soon I'll be able to prick them out (I put two in each hole just in case). And then have radishes! I'll have to protect them from birds.

I got some very nice looking rainbow silverbeet (chard) at the Farmer's market this Sunday. Funny how I can drag myself out of bed at 6am on a Sunday but struggle to wake up to go to school? It wasn't on my list, but the bright colours made me buy it! Rainbow silverbeet is very very awkward to carry while riding a bike. I ended up putting it in my front basket on top of potatoes and beetroot and tying it down with the chain lock! It didn't come out nor was it damaged in any way :)

Tonight for dinner I made a sort of beans and tomatoes thing from Vegan Italiano. I was originally going to follow the recipe exactly but this morning we were hung over (lots of gin last night! date day!) so we decided to buy some vegan sausages and have a fry up. So I put the leftover sausage in dinner tonight so they didn't go to waste.

Italian style beans and tomatoes with polenta

Serves 4

Ingredients

About 1 1/2  cups of dried white beans, cannellini beans, cooked

3-4 cloves garlic, chopped

3 vegan sausages of choice, sliced thinly

3 cups cooked tomatoes (about 1 800g can)

1 cup weak chicken stock (I use Massel Chicken Style)

3 large leaves and stems of silverbeet, stems sliced thinly and leaves torn

1 tbsp ground dried sage

Salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup polenta*

1L water/weak stock

1 tsp vegan margarine

pinch nutritional yeast

Method:

Fry garlic, silverbeet stem slices and sausage slices in a bit of oil until sausage is browned on both sides.

Add beans, tomatoes, stock and sage. Stir to combine. Let cook for a while.

When it's near to serving time, bring a medium saucepan with 1L of water/stock in it to boil. Slowly whisk in polenta until it's thick and creamy looking. When cooked stir in margarine and nutritional yeast.

Add the silverbeet leaves and cook until wilted.

Serve!

This was quite delicious. And would have been cheap if I didn't use sausages!

*1 cup of polenta to 4 cups water works better. I just didn't have enough left and tried to make it stretch - it turned out quite thin so it was soupy. Which is OK if that's what you want :) Also it only made enough polenta for 3.