First Post! Foodie Friday: Burgers!

Hi!

This blog is about my 2 favorite things - cooking and DIY projects.
 I love cooking. But I don't generally follow recipes. I will see something somewhere and get a general idea of what I want and then do my own thing with it. So be forwarned that my cooking can be random and somewhat nontraditional.

I have enjoyed DIY projects ever since I was little. I remember making cards and necklaces from things I found around the house and asking for yarn, beads, paper, or things to paint for my birthdays instead of toys.

The element that will tie all of these blog posts together is creativity as well as frugality. My husband I are paying off student loans so money is tight. Meals aren't usually elaborate and projects are practical.

PS. Apologies for the not so great photo quality.

So here goes!

This blog is a few months coming and I thought long and hard about what recipe to do first. So I decided to do something that most everyone loves.

BURGERS!

But I wanted to do something a little different. So in this blog post I am doing burgers 2 ways - a more traditional meat based recipe as well as a meatless black bean burger.

Not that there is anything wrong with it, but I am in no way a person who would go on a meatless diet. I admit I like my meat. But in my recent endeavor to loose 30lbs by eating healthier and exercising more, I have found that I do better when I eat less meat but never really thought I would enjoy a meatless burger. But I was watching PBS one day and one of the cooking shows did a meatless burger that actually looked good to me. So I paid close attention and decided to try it, with my own spin of course. ;)


Ingredients:

1 can black beans (or equivalant dried)
1/2 Green bell pepper
 medium sized mild white onion
1 large egg white
1/3 to 1/2 cup Chili bread crumbs (directions below)
garlic powder
hot sauce
Chili powder
Salt & Pepper

Rinse black beans well. Set aside. Chop onion and bell pepper. Place in pan. Add approx. 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon each of garlic powder, salt, chili powder, and pepper (fresh ground is best). Add a dash of hot sauce (more or less depending on how much spice you like) I know hot sauce might seem weird but even just a little bit adds a lot of flavor with out much heat. Onions should be almost translucent. Add beans and cook til well heated. Take off heat and allow to cool a bit.
After cooled slightly, pour from pan into food processor. Pulse a few times. You want to slightly break up the beans and just bring everything together but NOT puree. You do not want goop. (picture below) Transfer mixture to mixing bowl. Make sure mixture is completely cool and then add the egg white and crumbs. If the mixture is not cool the egg white will start cooking before it is mixed in.
Form into 4 patties. they will still be crumbly but should hold together fairly well.
Heat frying pan or griddle to medium heat. Place patties on pan and cook about 3-4 min on each side. Unlike regular burgers you DO want to press down on these with the back of a spatula to get a lot of color and crisp on each side.

Peppers and Onions with fresh ground pepper

beans!

All mixed up! Ready to cool!

I over pulsed just a bit but they were still fine. 

Doesn't look that yummy but trust me it is. 

Cooking (pardon the grease in the corner. I cooked one of the regular burgers on the griddle)

I finished it off as an open faced. I topped it with a bit of shredded cheddar cheese and some salsa! Yum!

Super Easy Chili Bread Crumbs

 bread (I like whole wheat best)

Chili powder
salt

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Spread bread on cookie sheet. Sprinkle with generously with chili powder and lightly with salt.
place in over for 30 - 45 min
break into pieces and put in food processor. pulse until crumbly. (lol)


Simple BBQ burgers

1 lb ground beef
1/2 cup Chili bread crumbs
1/2 mild med. white onion,
chili powder (I did about a teaspoon)
Salt
Pepper

Chop onion (or mince if you have a husband who doesn't care for onion). Combine all ingredients. Form into 4 large patties. Cook either in the oven (350 degrees for 45 min to an hour ) or on the stove top.
Helpful hint: if you make this the night before, cover and let sit in the fridge. (or even for a few hours) the meat gets a lot more of that flavor.

I threw the onions for this one in the food processor cause hubby doesnt care for onions. butthead..... 

Raw meat.... blech.

Chili bread crumbs before the food processor. 

Patties!

Cooked in the oven. They are not burnt even though the picture kind looks darker.

A slice of Cheese, some bbq sauce, and a side of frozen seasoned fries i found on sale for $2 for a big bag. Hubby was more than happy. Even though he found out there was onion in them.... 

Both of these recipes were fairly simple. There will be more burger recipes to come but simple is always good. Simple is also generally cheaper.

So there it is. My first recipe post. Whats your favorite burger recipe? If you try these let me know what you think!

Some things to come:

14 days of valentines
Lemonade!
Balsamic dressing
And More!