Category Archives: Uncategorized

Bean burgers

Back to my plan of cooking through my clipped recipe file! I have been cooking, just not updating. So anyway, I remembered about the idea when looking through the old posts, and although a bit late today, I will jump right in. With tonight’s dinner, bean burgers.

These were printed off the internet, with no quantities to the ingredients. And I just changed what I did see to round it out more. They smell great, and I can’t wait to cook them and eat them! Trying to serve with polenta and a green salad and some sauteed cauliflower (it’s in the fridge).

Polenta is in the Instant Pot. I have been making a lot of polenta lately because I accidentally bought an extra package of cornmeal and am trying to eat through it. The Instant Pot makes polenta simple and hands off, so now I am making polenta all the time. 🙂

Here’s the recipe for the polenta, barley, and salt potatoes. 🙂

And an IP is here. I recommend it, if you like beans. [amazon_link asins=’B00FLYWNYQ’ template=’ProductCarousel’ store=’002′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’227c125e-ad77-11e8-81ea-b56f006ec6a3′]

I chopped up some celery, cauliflower and tomato to cook fast in some butter. The lemon and scallion is to finish it off the heat.

So tasty! I made these a few hours ago, and put them in the fridge as is. They held together well and flipped nicely. There is an egg in them so it’s not vegan. I bet aquafaba would work, but I went with the egg.

Oil is ready to cook in when it thinks out and shimmers. You want to leave space for the burgers to cook and not steam.

Those will go for 5min and then be flipped. Five more and then dressed on the plate.

That’s the spiced mayonnaise, and pickled cukes that go on top. It was a hit, although DH suggested the cucumber be chopped like a relish to make it easier to eat with the burgers. Or croquettes— coquettes are breaded and have a crispy outside nad a creamy inside. That’s way more what these are like than a ‘burger’.

And the recipe:

3 cloves garlic

1 cup cilantro leaves whir in processor (or chop?)

I used 3 cups of leftover beans from the Make Your Own Beans I posted earlier.

1 T soy sauce

1 T rice vinegar

1T dark sesame oil

1 teaspoon brown sugar

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp siracha

pinch salt

whir together until mixed but still chunky. add

1 egg (or 3 T bean juice) and whir until mixed. You do NOT want a paste.

put into a bowl and mix in ~ 3/4 cups of bread crumbs (until it holds together) Let sit while making the condiments. Then make into patties (I made 7), and bread with a mix of

1/3 cup breadcrumbs

3 T sesame seeds

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cayenne powder

Refrigerate several hours. Heat oil in a pan on medium heat, add burgers, and fry on each side about 5 minutes, turning once until golden brown.

Serve topped with a dollop of mayo and spoonful of relish.

Relish:
1/2 diced cucumber (1/2 a medium sized one) with seeds removed

1 T rice vinegar

1/2 tsp brown sugar

a bit of lemon zest

pinch salt

let sit to cure

Mayonnaise

1/3 cup mayonaise

3 T cilantro, minced

1/2 tsp sesame oil

1/3 tsp siracha

mix well.

And for lunch today, a cold crumbled burger on green salad. Still good!

The Eleventh Day of Christmas: Eleven Pipers Piping

 

Finally the musicians have arrived at the party! And it ought to be a great party, with twice as many musicians as dancers.

While thinking about writing these meditations, I found this article and video about seals in a hospital in Cornwall being ‘treated’ with music to calm them. By a ‘piper’, no less.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLZoW75i4pI

The idea is that by listening to the music, the seals would relax and heal faster, without the stress of being confined in a strange area and not feeling well adding to their damage. The experiment worked, and the seals were much happier. I can’t tell, myself, and am trusting their staff when they say that. I do know that as humans, we feel better and energized and more relaxed when listening to music we enjoy as well.

So for this day, I will remember the healing power of music, and to try to include it on my daily life. There are so many times we opt not to listen to music or to merely listen to ‘whatever is on’ without carefully curating it to help us into a better place. We live in an age with so many tools to allow us to find appropriate music to help us, that there is really no excuse not to have a few songs or styles set up for us to turn to when stressed or sick or nostalgic or in need of a lift. Right now for me that’s holiday music we’ve been collecting over the years, and that I will be saying goodbye to very soon.

As much as I love audiobooks and Netflix, I will try to remember that sometimes, old reliable music can be the best to soothe a heart.

 

Back to introduction.
Forward to Twelve.

The Fifth Day of Christmas: Five Golden Rings

Eddie Izzard jokes that at any Christmas party, when people hear this part of this carol, they run into the room to sing it.

An additional funny thing is that it’s so out of place. The first few days are gifts of birds, here’s a sensible if overkill gift of the only jewelry in the song, and then we are back to two more birds. I had a personal a-ha! Moment when I learned that ‘gold rings’ could be a variation on ‘gold spinks’ (an old name for goldfinch). While the first printed version of the song we have has five finger rings in the illustration, that doesn’t mean that the mistake didn’t date to 1780. Logically, it doesn’t fit to have the rings in the middle of the birds, to me. So, for the fifth day of Christmas, I will be thinking about change and mistakes.

It’s easy to be scared of change and mistakes. It leads to the unknown and out of our comfort zones, and it’s frightening to be somewhere we don’t know well. Even if the place we’re used to is miserable. But change can lead to growth and a chance to move forward and into a better and happier comfort zone. And mistakes are a chance to refine and move forward. I try to remember that mistakes are proof of risk, and without risk there is no chance of reward.

In our house, we have a wonderful desk my husband make over 20 years ago. It has a drop down leaf, so we’d always have clean desk space, no matter how messy the desk got.  The first time he cut the leaf, he cut it just a bit too small. Since then, the mistake he had made has been used to create larger table space for parties, a top to the rabbit hutch and it’s currently a support for our Christmas tree. We still call it ‘the mistake’ and agree it’s been an incredibly useful mistake over the years.

So, on this fifth day of Christmas, I will remember that mistakes aren’t bad by definition, only when you allow them to be so.

Back to introduction.
Forward to Six.