White Bean and Roasted Carrot Burgers

Veggie burgers: when they are terrible, they are really terrible. Dense, dry, and flavorless. I think they're hard to do well. Partly it's because people tend to think of them as mere meat replacements rather than allowing them to speak for themselves. 

Notes: There are plenty of things you can do ahead of time for this recipe. I made the carrots the day before. If you're putting sliced tomato or onion on your burgers, slice those up as early as the morning you plan to serve them. Just put them in separate plastic containers in the fridge.

If you have a grill pan, you can use that to cook the burgers. I wouldn't put them on the actual grill. They're soft, so they'll fall apart far too easily.

You could season these burgers a number of different ways. Some lemon zest and fresh oregano would be delicious, if you wanted a Greek-inspired flavor. You could also do a Moroccan-style combo with some ginger and some allspice. I think next time I make them I'll use some chipotle.

Have fun with your burger fixin's, too. I had some leftover sun-dried tomato pesto, so I made some pesto mayo. 

Ingredients:

2 15oz cans of cannelini beans (or Great Northern beans)

2 cups baby carrots (or "adult" carrots cut into 1-inch pieces)

1 cup bread crumbs (not Panko)

1 egg

2 tablespoons cumin

2 tablespoons chili powder

2 teaspoons onion powder

1/4 cup chopped fresh parlsey

2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

Hot sauce to taste

Salt & pepper

Olive oil

You favorite burger fixin's

Directions: Heat the oven to 400. Toss the baby carrots with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Roast them for about 40 minutes until they're brown and can be pierced easily with a fork. 

Let the carrots cool for a few minutes. Use an immersion blender or a food processor to buzz them into a paste. Set aside (or put in the fridge if you do this ahead of time). 

Drain (but don't rinse) the beans. In a large bowl, mash the beans with a potato masher (don't break them up completely, you want some whole beans for texture). Add in the carrots, egg, the spices, and hot sauce and combine. Season with salt and pepper. Add in the bread crumbs and herbs until everything is mixed together. Form the mixture into four patties and set aside. 

Heat olive oil in a large skillet on medium-high. When the oil is hot, add in your burger patties. Cook for about 7 minutes per side or until each side is crispy and brown. Put them on a plate lined with a paper towel to drain slightly. 

Dress up your burger buns with your favorite stuff and enjoy!

Eat Food, Save Money: Freezer Friendly Spicy Vegetable Soup

On this edition of "eat food, save money," we're goin' cold. Ice cold.

Homemade soups freeze very well. They are also heartier and more flavorful than the kind of pour out of a can. And when you make homemade soup, you get A LOT more soup for your money than you do when you use the canned version.

Frozen meals make for an easy weeknight dinner. After a rough day when you're tempted to just eat out, if you have a ready-made dinner waiting at home, it's much harder to justify a run through the drive-thru. So, the next time you have a lazy weekend afternoon, consider helping your future weeknight self by making some soup and then freezing it.

Notes: The easiest way to freeze meals (if you ask me) is to freeze individual serving sizes in small plastic freezable containers. Then you can just pull 1 or 2 containers out of the freezer depending on how many people are eating.

Let a frozen meal thaw in the fridge for at least 24 hours. If dinner time rolls around and your meal isn't completely thawed, you can always just heat it up in a pot on the stove.

I start this soup the same way I start my gumbo. It gives the soup a nice deep color and flavor. And since the soup is made with cajun seasoning it makes sense to treat it like gumbo.

You can use hot sauce or fresh chopped hot peppers in place of cajun seasoning.

Feel free to mix up the veggies and use your favorite. You can even use a selection of your favorite frozen vegetables to make the soup more pantry-friendly.

Need some protein? Add some canned beans when you add the frozen corn.

If you want to make this even easier, just skip the butter and flour and throw it all the slow cooker for 8 hours on low.

Ingredients:
1 quart chicken or veggie stock (or water)
4 tablespoons tomato paste
5-6 carrots
1 bunch celery
1/2 pound fresh green beans (or 1 cup frozen chopped)
1 cup frozen corn kernels
1 onion
1 tablespoon cajun seasoning
1 small bunch fresh rosemary
5-6 garlic cloves
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour

Directions: Dice the carrots, celery, and onion. Chop the green beans into small bite-sized pieces. Mince the garlic and rosemary.

In a large pot, melt the butter over medium-high heat. When the butter melts, add the flour and whisk to create a roux. Whisk until the roux is the color of milk chocolate. Remove the pot from heat and dump in chopped veggies, garlic, and rosemary. Stir until the sizzling stops.

Add in tomato paste and cajun seasoning and stir. Return to heat and stir in stock. Add corn kernels. Bring the soup to a boil. Cover and reduce the heat to a simmer. Allow the soup to simmer for between 1-2 hours.

When the time is up, remove the soup from heat and allow it to cool. Divide it in to single servings in freezable containers. You can defrost the number of servings you need for 24 hours in the fridge and then heat the soup in the microwave before you serve it. You can also just put the frozen soup straight into a pot and heat it on the stove.

Enjoy your frozen and frugal meal!

Snack Dinner with Homemade Salsa and Guacamole

Scott and I have developed a new fun and easy weeknight meal: we call it snack dinner.

Snack dinner came about because of a long-standing guilty pleasure of mine. Occasionally when we go out to a pub, I order nachos as my meal. I love nachos, but I never order them as an appetizer because I can't ever finish them and my main dish. So, I eat them as my main dish.

When I make soups and stews, I sometimes end up with more carrots or celery than I can use. We had some extra one night and I was thinking about a way to use them up. Scott suggested we make some guacamole and dip the leftover veggies in it. And snack dinner was born.

Snack dinner has many advantages, not the least of which is its flexibility. Here is basically all you need:
1. Some grouping of cut raw veggies (carrots, celery, green beans, zucchini, bell peppers, broccoli)
2. Some form of dip (salsa, guacamole, hummus, bean dip)
3. Some kind of chips or crackers (baked pita chips, tortilla chips, wheat crackers, regular ol' potato chips)
4. Some kind of fruit (orange slices, apple slices, grapes, a mixed fruit bowl)

Viola! Snack dinner. It's fun, it requires minimal preparation, it's pretty healthy (veggies, fruit, small portions), and it helps you to accommodate all the eaters in your house because it's so customizable.

Best of all you can eat it from the comfort of your couch!

Notes: Both my guacamole and salsa are pepper-free because Scott doesn't like peppers. So I get the heat from hot sauce. You can add whatever peppers you like.

Snack dinner can easily be made in advance. If you're using carrots and celery for another dish earlier in the week, go ahead and cut up the rest for snack dinner later. I think the salsa is better if you let it sit in the fridge for a couple of days so the flavors have time to meld.

For snack dinner, you can use as much store-bought stuff as you want to make things easier.

Homemade Guacamole Ingredients:
2 ripe avocados
2 limes
1 small bunch of cilantro
Hot sauce
Salt
Pepper

Directions: Slice the avocados open and remove the pit. Scoop the innards into a bowl and mash with a fork. Mince the cilantro and add it to the avocado. Cut the limes in half and squeeze the juice over the mixture. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and hot sauce. Stir to combine.

Homemade Salsa Ingredients:
4 roma tomatoes
1 small bunch of cilantro
1/2 a shallot
2-3 garlic cloves
Salt
Hot sauce

Directions: Cut the tomatoes and the shallot into a small dice. Mince the garlic and cilantro. Mix together. If you have the time, let this mixture sit for 24 hours in the fridge. Before you serve, add in salt and hot sauce to taste.

Enjoy a snacking good time!

Sausage Gumbo

Scott and I have been very lucky to live may different places. We often play a game that you might call "Dream Town." Our "Dream Town" would be made up of all of our favorite businesses and restaurants from all the places we've lived. For example, Dream Town would have our vet from Louisiana, it would have our favorite breakfast joint (The Courier) from Illinois, and it would have the pizza parlor (Hillside Pizza) from Massachusetts.

One place that would definitely be on that list is Nina P's from Lake Charles. One of the reasons it would be on that list is because of the gumbo on their menu. Their gumbo was probably one of the most comforting foods I've ever had--it made you feel better on a chilly gray day in the bayou.

Since Mardi Gras is coming up, Scott and I are missing our favorite things from Louisiana, so I decided to make some gumbo this weekend. And since it's going to snow on Monday (again), I can't think of a better way to stay warm.

Notes: I have Tony Chachere's cookbook. It doesn't contain a recipe for sausage gumbo, so I read through all the different gumbo recipes and constructed a kind of hybrid from all of them.

It's likely that my roux was not dark enough. I was afraid of burning it. The gumbo we used to get in Lake Charles was much darker than mine. Also, I substituted carrots for the more traditional bell pepper because Scott isn't crazy about peppers. It still tasted great even though it's not 100% correct.

This is not a quick meal, but boy is it worth it. Make it on a chilly weekend and you'll have plenty of leftovers for the week!

If you wanted to make a vegetarian version, you could use red kidney beans or sliced fresh mushrooms in place of sausage. Just add them to the broth about 30-40 minutes before the 2 hours is up. If you add them at the beginning, they'll just fall apart.

Ingredients:
1 pound kielbasa
5-6 carrots
5-6 celery stalks
1 onion
1 small bunch parsley
2-3 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 heaping tablespoons of Tony's Original
1 quart of water plus 3 cups
1 stick of butter
4 tablespoons of flour
3 cups minute rice

Directions:

Start by prepping all your veggies. Peel and dice the carrots. Dice the celery and onion. Mince the parley and garlic. Slice the kielbasa

Melt the butter in a large stock pot over medium-high heat. Whisk in the flour. Let the roux cook until it's the color of milk chocolate (not dark chocolate). Remove the pot from the heat. Stir in the veggies until they stop sizzling. Season with Tony's. Return the pot to the heat and add 1 quart of water.

Stir in the garlic, sausage, and parsley. Bring everything to a boil and then turn the heat back to a simmer. Allow the gumbo to simmer for 2 hours.

When the gumbo is almost done, bring 3 cups of water to a boil in a smaller pot. Stir in the minute rice, turn off the heat, cover, and let sit for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork when it's done.

To serve, put the gumbo into a wide-mouthed bowl. Use an ice cream scoop to make ball of rice and plop it right in the middle. Top with parsley or serve with file (if you can find it in your grocery store!)

Bon appetit, mais cher!

Carrot Apple Ginger Soup with Spinach Gruyere Toast

Given the whole viral colitis incident, I've been feeling very picky about what I eat. While I was sick, all I wanted was carbs: bread, pasta, pretzels, and that was about it. Now that I'm feeling better, it's time for fruit and veggies to come back. One of the blogs I subscribe to had a link to this soup. It's apparently good for stomach upset. I do know it was tasty.

Notes: This meal is not only healthy and delicious, it's cheap! If you just made plain toast, you could probably get out of the grocery store under $10. That's budget-friendly!

I got a new toy: an immersion blender! I have been wanting one for a long time because I love creamy blended soups. Hopefully it will become a cornerstone of my kitchen. You'll need some sort of blender for this recipe.

You could easily double this recipe if you needed to feed a crowd. This easily yields 4 servings. 

Ingredients:
For soup:
1 lb of carrots
4-5 apples
1 piece of fresh ginger (approx. 2 inches)
2 cups of water
Salt
Butter or olive oil for sauteing 

For toasts:
2 slices of sourdough bread
3/4 cup baby spinach leaves
1/2 - 3/4 cup of grated Gruyere cheese

Directions:

Dice your carrots and apples and mince the ginger. Melt the butter in a soup pot over medium-high. Add the apples, carrots, and ginger and saute until just tender. Season with salt. Add the water and bring to a boil. Turn the heat to simmer and simmer for 30 minutes.

Right before the soup is done, heat the oven to 350. Place two slices of bread on a baking sheet. Put spinach leaves on top of the bread and top with grated cheese. Bake for 5-7 minutes.

While the toast is baking, blend the soup with an immersion blender or regular blender. Taste and add more salt if needed.

Serve and enjoy!

Carrot Fries

I am on a constant quest for non-standard ways of cooking vegetables. Roasting is by far my favorite method, but I like the idea of making fries and chips out of vegetables. I had some eggplant fries not long ago. They were so good, I wanted to try my own.

At the co-op today, I found a giant carrot. It was the size of a small yam. Even the cashier noticed it: "Wow! That's a huge carrot!" I decided to make my mutant carrot into carrot fries.

Notes: These are the consistency of sweet potato fries. They were good, but I longed for them to be really crispy like shoestring fries. I think the only way I'm going to manage that is if I actually fry them rather than bake them. I'll probably try baking them on a cooling rack next time to see if I can get them a little crispier. I'll let you know how it turns out. But if you like sweet potato fries, you'll like these just as well!

Ingredients:
1 giant carrot or 2-3 normal sized carrots, peeled.
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon of cumin
1 teaspoon of chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Directions: Preheat the oven to 425.

Cut your carrots into thick matchsticks. I slice the carrot in half and then half each piece lengthwise. Slice each of those pieces into thick slabs and then slice each slab lengthwise to get french fry pieces.

Toss the carrots with the olive oil and spices. Lay them out on a foil-lined baking sheet in a single layer. Bake for 30 minutes until browned. Enjoy!