Meatless Monday: Red Lentil Burgers

Since completing grad school a month ago, I've been wanting to get back to blogging recipes, but haven't made anything lately that I thought was blogworthy...Until today. As you can see, it's Monday. Yeah. That's right. Meatless Monday. One of my favorite days of the week! And as I've mentioned before, one of my favorite things to make on Meatless Monday is some variation of a veggie burger.

I bought a bag of red lentils a few months ago from my beloved farmer's market, and knew I wanted to do something epic with it. And we all know that nothing is more epic than a burger.



Red Lentil Burgers


Ingredients

1.5  C         cooked red lentils
3     tsp       curry powder
1     tsp       cumin
1     tsp       chili powder
1/2  tsp       ground coriander
salt and pepper to taste
1                small onion, chopped
1                large carrot, finely chopped
3                cloves of garlic, finely chopped
olive oil
1/2   C       parsley, chopped
1                handful breadcrumbs
juice of 1/2 a lemon

Loverly chopped veggies and lemons

1. Drain cooked lentils to get rid of excess liquid. Transfer to medium bowl.
2. Combine curry, cumin, chili powder, coriander, and salt and pepper in small bowl.

Hey spices. How ya doin'? 

3. Heat 1-2 teaspoons of olive oil in frying pan over medium fire.
4. Add onion, carrot, and garlic to pan. Sautee until soft, about 3 minutes.
5. Add half of spices to pan, and mix to coat vegetables with spice mixture. Sautee for an additional 2 minutes, constantly stirring.

6. Add sauteed vegetables to bowl of cooked lentils. Add remainder of spices, juice of lemon, and parsley. Mix well to combine ingredients.

You can use panko breadcrumbs. I didn't have any so I opted for regular ol' seasoned bread crumbs.

7. Add breadcrumb to lentil mixture, and mix well.
8. Use 1/2 C measuring cup to scoop out lentil mixture to form 4 burger patties.
9. Place patties on a baking sheet, and let firm in fridge for approx 1 hour.

Look at these beauties!

10. Bake or pan fry.

I served mine with 1 slice of whole grain toast, arugula, garlic aioli, tomato, and avocado. I found these to be the perfect accompaniments for this burger. The bite of the arugula coupled well with the texture of the lentil burger, and the garlic aioli gave it just the right amount of acidity. Nomnomnom!!

Garlic Aioli: 2 cloves of garlic, 1 tablespoon of mayo, juice of half a lemon. Mix well.

Side Dish Alert!! Garlic Roasted Broccoli

I tend to focus on main dishes on here, but last night as I was making one of my faaaaave side dishes, it hit me: why the heck haven't I posted this on my blog??? Perhaps I find it "too easy" to be blog-worthy. Maybe I make it so much that I've completely overlooked it as being something people would be interested in reading about. But, I decided, let me give this thing the "15 minutes" it deserves, because it's definitely my favorite way to eat broccoli. Since my sister-in-law showed me how to do this a while ago, I actually don't think I've made broccoli any other way! It's crazy easy, delicious, and healthy. There really is no going wrong here.


Garlic Roasted Broccoli


Ingredients:

2         crowns of broccoli, chopped into florets
3 - 5    cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 - 2    tablespoons of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

If you don't have a garlic press, get one! 

Broccoli cut into florets. Nomnomnom... I love broccoli!

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix salt, pepper, olive oil and minced garlic in a small bowl.

2. Put broccoli in a foil-lined baking sheet (I only use the foil for easy clean-up).

3. Pour oil, salt & pepper, and garlic mixture over broccoli. Massage mixture into broccoli florets, making sure you get those yummy garlic pieces in between the "branches" and the "canopies" (lol).

See the garlic on the branches? Don't let any of the garlicky goodness just sit in the baking dish.

4. Spread broccoli out on baking sheet. Pop in oven for approximately 30 minutes.

I love the edges a little crispy.

Are you wondering why the broccoli looks more scant than in the first photo??? Well, when I asked my husband to take the broccoli out of the oven, he decided to eat a quarter of the broccoli straight off the baking sheet. I guess that's a good thing??? Lol

Kale Chips! My Beloved!!

       Soooo.....I attempted to make kale chips earlier in the week. All of the recipes I read involved baking them for 10 minutes or so at around 300 to 350 degrees. Pssshhh! That sounded so easy! Well, I tried that method, and it tasted like the inside of a forest fire. Needless to say, I wasn't impressed with these kale chips everyone keeps raving about. But, I bought a gigantic 3 to 4 lb bag of kale this week that was on sale for $2 (Seriously, would you walk away from that?), so I had to make SOMETHING of it! I wanted to try to make the chips again.. But I wanted to do it right. So back to Google I went.

     After some intensive Google research, I deduced (<---college education right there) that the best method of making these chips was by dehydration. I don't have a dehydrator so back to the Google I go. You can totally use your oven to dehydrate things! Jerky! Fruit! Chips! The possibilities are endless!

     One of the really cool things about kale chips is that you can essentially season it with any flavors you love. I decided to roll with parmesan and garlic.


Parmesan Garlic Kale Chips

Here's what you'll need:

Kale          I'm not sure how much. I probably used a pound.
2 Tbs         Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1-2 Tsp      Garlic powder
2-3 Tbs      Parmesan cheese
                 Salt and Pepper to taste

1. Put oven on "Warm" setting. This setting is less than 200 degrees, so that the food isn't baked, but we're creating a "dehydrator-like" setting. Let warm up for at least 10 minutes.

2. In the meantime, clean the kale. I mean REALLY clean it. I used curly kale, which has very curly leaves that dirt often gets trapped in. I filled my sink with water, soaked the batch of kale, and individually rubbed each leaf. I know it's tedious, but I didn't want to take any chances crunching down on sand that was stuck in the curly leaves.

3. Once properly cleaned, wrap the bunch of kale in a towel and squeeze/pat dry. Remove stems from each kale leaf, and tear leaves into "chip-sized" pieces. Place into a large bowl.

4. In a small bowl, mix together garlic powder, parmesan cheese, and salt and pepper. Add olive oil to mixture, and mix well until incorporated.

5. Add dressing to kale chips, and massage it into leaves, making sure each chip gets a little bit of love. Trust me, this will be worth it in the end. Each chip will be coated with awesomeness.

6. Arrange chips on a baking sheet, making sure they don't overlap each other. I had to use 2 baking sheets for this.

7. Place into oven. LEAVE OVEN SLIGHTLY CRACKED. This is imperative in making the oven act as a dehydrator. While the oven door is ajar, the moisture that leaves the kale leaf will exit the oven. The kale leaves will stay beautifully green, but get very crispy and crunchy.

8. Leave in oven for 40 minutes to 1 hour, occasionally checking it's readiness by sneaking a chip or two out of the batch for a "taste test". The chips will get a little more crispy once you remove them from the oven.

9. Enjoy your delicious healthy snack!!

See how they maintained their gorgeous green color?

I was actually surprised at how insanely delicious these are. Play around with more flavors. I know I will!