Category Archives: pulses

Food, pulses, Uncategorized

Bean burgers

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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!

Eggs, Food, health, pulses, weight loss, weight loss

Make Your Own Beans or Ful Medames

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This morning I stepped on the scale and the number had gone up instead of down or staying in place. I had had nothing planned for dinner tonight (late on menu planning) so I have decided to make what our son lovingly called ‘make your own beans’ when he was a toddler. It’s basically an ancient recipe and possibly one if the oldest street foods, so I have been told. All it is is beans, cooked, served with seasonings- traditionally salt, olive oil, garlic and pepper.

Variations include cooking eggs in their shells with the beans and adding onion skins or coffee to the cooking liquor. We’ve decided that coffee makes the best ful for us, so that’s what I now use. 🙂 I also prefer darker beans for this recipe, as it’s dependent on the beans for flavor.

So I am going to start with three cups of these dark red beans (about a pound) in the pressure cooker. This would feed four people, if they like beans.

Then I nestle six eggs in the beans.

And then I add about a cup of brewed coffee and a quart of water. If I were using anything other than my Instant Pot, I would add more water and watch it more. I have made this in the slow cooker, on the range and in the oven. I have not yet tried it in the ashes of a campfire, but I really want to. 🙂

And that is it. Cool until the beans are done. I have all day and the pot will take under an hour. Other cooking versions take different times. The next step will come at serving, so by the magic of the internet…

Here are the beans, done and able to be crushed by the back of a spoon.

They will sit like that until serving time. Which is now. 🙂 We have sourdough bread, salt, oil, pepper and fresh garlic.

You can mash it together and serve like hummus. Make it into a wrap. Serve as a side dish. Skip the egg. Add tomato, chili, parsley, any seasoning you want. It’s a simple, healthy, filling meal that should be on rotation in any home that loves pulses.

Food, pulses

Are pulses toxic?

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Well, if you are looking for a reason to avoid pulses, I am sure this will do. Beans are certainly, surprisingly, toxic. They are also surprisingly easy to make safe.

First, it’s mostly kidney and Lima beans that are toxic. Second, the toxins will make you moderately ill, at worst, unless you are eating your weight in beans. Third, it is laughably easy to make these beans safe.

Lima beans (also called butter beans when fresh) have linamarin in them, a compound that could potentially make you ill because of it’s similarity to cyanide. This toxin is broken up by cooking the beans, so the rule is to never eat raw Lima beans.

A different toxin, phytohaemagglutinin, a lectin, is also present in many beans. Red kidney beans are the worst culprit, however, and care should be given when making them. Again, cooking them will destroy the toxin. A hard boil for 10 minutes is enough to make the beans safe, but the FDA says 30 minutes just to be sure. The problem comes in slow cookers, which may not heat the beans high enough with low cooking temps. Pressure cookers, the range, and some slow cookers will be fine.

Again, these toxins are not fatal, and are easy to get rid of. And even if you do get sick, odds are it will last only a few hours. However, if you want to follow a ‘raw’ diet, pulses may not be your food of choice.

In addition, a small percentage of the population will potentially die from fava (broad) beans. These will only hurt you if you have a medical illness, but it is yet another way this incredibly healthy food can kill us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-gvnQfbrIA

So, if you really want to be a bummer at events and avoid eating beans at all costs, there you go. For the rest of us, let’s forge on!

(Lima beans are capitalized because they are named after Lima, Peru, where they have been cultivated for 6000+ years)