Black Chickpean Burger Cakes.

I'm not staying very committed to my blog here now, am I? I think my problem is that I'm over-thinking it and feeling "tied" to it - totally not my original intent when I started it! I need to let it be fun and non-judgmental again. ;-)

With that having been said (i so love ablative absolutes!), I hereby BREAK my commitment to my blog and engage to only have some fun! :-D

Now, for some fun - well, I kind of had fun doing it! I decided to attempt to be creative in the kitchen tonight. I didn't have anything thawed and I was just preparing a meal for myself, so I didn't want anything that was too much work, either.

Without using any sort of recipe, rather utilizing things I've learned in cooking other things, I decided to try my hand at creating bean/veggie burger things. I'm not exactly sure what these might be called - perhaps black chickpean burgercakes?

I started with 2 cans of beans: 1 can of Black Beans (from Aldi) and 1 can of Chickpeas (on sale at Price Chopper).

I drained them, rinsed them and threw them in the food processor. The draining and rinsing was good, but I don't think I should have put them in the food processor - they ended up looking like this:

Total Mush. (the color was because I used my phone to take the picture - I was charging the batteries for the camera) Next time, I'll probably just lightly smoosh the beans - cos I'm not going for refried bean texture here.

To my mush, I added:

• 2 egg whites & 1 whole egg (I had the whites leftover from another dish)
• a handful of chopped fresh spinach
• 4 white mushrooms, finely chopped
• probably about 1 cup of breadcrumbs, give or take. (I didn't measure)
• 1 whole green onion, finely chopped
• about 1 Tbsp of prepared horseradish
• garlic salt - liberal dose
• ground black pepper
• Italian Seasoning blend

I then formed them into patties and started to grill them with some organic EVOO.

I was kind of afraid of them not being cooked through, so I put a couple on a cookie sheet and threw them in the oven with the Rosemary-Garlic potatoes was I was roasting. 

About ten minutes later, I deemed the potatoes and the cake done and plated them up.

that ugly pinkish stuff in the little bowl is a mixture of horseradish, Smart Balance Omega 3, and ketchup. I slathered it on the patty.

Overall, this was OK. I think had I actually eaten it like a burger, it could've been pretty good. I'm going to freeze the rest of them individually, so I can make quick meals for myself in the future.

P.S. (from the future) I ate one like a burger for dinner Monday night, and the texture was awful. hopefully it was the fault of not having been cooked well. I have a few more to experiment with...