Hippie Loaf Fix Up

I mentioned in my last post that I had made the Gluten Free Hippie Loaf from Happy Herbivore on Monday. However, I haven’t been able to get mine to set up like Lindsey’s did. Part of it may be that I mashed the black beans and rice together and part of it maybe that I made a mistake in the recipe; I forgot the rice flour (actually any flour). So my loaf was rather soft and would have fallen apart if taken out of the loaf pan. What is a person to do at this point? Improvise. I cut slices off the loaf in the pan and then pressed and reshaped them so they would stick together a bit more. Then I fried them up in my non stick pan and had them as an open faced sandwich on bread, covered with either ketchup or BBQ sauce. This has been my lunch for the last few days and it is quite good and filling; especially on this chilly, rainy and dreary day in Florida.

I do really like the flavors of this loaf and am going to make it again, but change the recipe a bit. First of all, I plan on chopping up the veggies in the blender, just so they are in smaller pieces. I think that I will use amaranth instead of quinoa or rice, and won’t mind if it is sticky, since it will help the whole thing stay together. I will also use some vital wheat gluten to help it stick together a bit better (to keep it gluten free you could use some chickpea flour as a binder instead). And I may do this as either a veggie burger or as mini meatloaves in the toaster oven. This could actually get a lot of use when working next spring when I have a job for a few months.