On account of this being my blog, and given that in Zen, every action is an opportunity to put into practice your beliefs, I have decided to begin posting recipes on occasion, as do one or two other blogs I read with regularity. It's not high theory, and I'm no master chef, but I enjoy cooking and I enjoy experimenting, and as a vegetarian, I'm always looking to see what new things I can try to come up with in the kitchen. So, for my first offering, here's something I made about a week ago: golden leek veggie burgers. Here is what you need to make them:
2 cups textured vegetable protein
2/3 cup red lentils
2 eggs or egg substitutes
2-3 leeks, trimmed
3-4 handfuls of fresh spinach
bread crumbs or panka
soy sauce
minced garlic
whole wheat flour
tumeric, cayenne pepper, salt
If those ingredients interest you, read on.
You've got three things that need to happen, so first wash those red lentils, throw them in around 2 cups of water, add some sea salt, and bring them to a boil. After they reach boiling, put a lid on the pot with just a little room to vent and simmer them. You'll simmer them down until there's no excess water and they've lost pretty much all structural coherence.
Second, toss some oil (I prefer non-virgin olive oil) into a pan and heat it, dice the leeks and saute them just like you would an onion, and throw in the minced garlic, tumeric, and a bit of cayenne pepper. The tumeric is for coloring, the cayenne is for kick, so season as you like. Meanwhile, chop up that spinach and toss it in after the leeks have started to turn yellow-translucent. Immediately after adding the spinach, add around 3 tablespoons of soy sauce, and cook the whole thing down so there's little excess soy sauce by the time you're done. It's ok for things to be overly soft - we're not wanting crunchy burger innards anyway.
Third combine some hot water with the TVP - for 2 cups dry TVP you need about 1 and 3/4 cups hot water - stir, and let it sit. So far, so good. This might be a good time to warm up the oven to a friendly 400 degrees.
Now, get out a large mixing bowl and add in your tvp, your lentils, and your vegetables. Stir. Add 2 whole eggs or 2 eggs worth of egg substitute and stir to distribute and coat. Now start adding your bread crumbs and flour. How much you add is up to you, though you'll want the mixture to coagulate nicely and for that you'll need a decent amount of flour to bond with the egg. When it gets particularly tiring to keep stirring, you know you're there. Now coat a baking lipped baking sheet (anything with upward edges) with some more olive oil and spread it around with a spatula or your fingers until you feel confident that the pan is covered. Don't drown the pan, but don't skimp either - you don't want the burgers coming apart because they stuck to the baking sheet.
Now with clean hands, grab handfuls of the mixture and mold into burger patties. You should be able to make six or seven generously sized patties. When the oven has reached 400 degrees, put the burgers on the baking sheet and put the sheet into the oven for 10-12 minutes (depending on size of oven), then flip the burgers and keep in for another 8 minutes. When you get down to 2-3 minutes left in the total cooking time, warm some wheat buns. Serve with preferred condiments and enjoy. You get a relatively low fat, high protein, high taste burger.
Variations: if you like more kick in your burger, add some chili powder. If you want the burger to be greener, kill a leek and add another 2-3 handfuls of fresh, chopped spinach.
If you have any recommendations or feedback on this, I would very much appreciate it - like I said I'm always looking for ways to improve my cooking.