Black Bean Burgers

Tonight’s omni friendly dinner is courtesy of VCON, the Black Bean Burgers on page 98. I figured that you can’t go wrong with a veggie burger made of beans. And I was right. They got a very acceptable, which is about as good a review as my TeddyBear gives for anything. I only made a few minor changes to the recipe. Used smoked paprika for the chili powder and since I was out of onion, just used ½ teaspoon of onion powder. Don’t think that affected the taste. Now you will notice that we don’t use hamburger buns. We just have no space to keep them in the apartment and don’t use them very much, so we don’t buy them. The TeddyBear likes using bread anyway. I wanted to make mine easier to eat with one hand (since I eat with my plate in one hand and the computer on my lap in slate mode), so I cut my patty in half and just put each half on a slice of bread with some BBQ sauce. It worked out really well, and will have to remember that for the future. However, I don’t understand how Isa says that you get 6 1½ inch patties out of the recipe. I could only get four, but they don’t seem to thick and did get done as they should be. I think the next time I will actually measure out 2 cups of black beans instead of just using a 15 oz. can of them, the measurement may not have been right.

On the side we had steamed baby carrots and broccoli kinpira from Just Bento. It isn’t really how she does it, since I cheated and used broccoli slaw mix and then just cooked that up with the soy sauce, sesame oil, hot pepper flakes and sesame seeds. If you know of someone who doesn’t like broccoli, suggest they try it this way. It really doesn’t taste anything like you would expect broccoli to taste like. And if you have never checked out either Just Bento or its companion blog Just Hungry and are interested in Japanese or fusion cooking, please go take a look. Not everything is vegan, but Maki does have some interesting items and on some things she will tell you have to make a dish vegan. She is also doing a bento lunch challenge to loose weight in January on Just Bento, so if you are interested in bento lunches and also want to loose some weight, see if you can still get involved.

The tutorials for both versions of the Burmese Tofu are up and links from the sidebar to them. I also put in a link to all the associated pictures in my Flickr account. Hope they help you if you have any problems.

P.S. Sorry the picture is blurry. I must have jiggled the camera and didn't realize it.