Weekend Cooking; A little of this, A little of that...

(chickpea mixture)

It's been a crazy week here what with the book fair which meant two late conference nights at school.  I've survived though and did have the gift of Friday off to recover.  For two weeks I've worked on one recipe though which is pretty much too long of a turn around time for me.  When I ordered magazines this year for school I ordered two family friendly magazines; Family Fun and Kiwi.  Family Fun is more geared toward crafting and is quite popular with students.  Myself, I LOVE Kiwi magazine though but probably won't order it again for the library. It is really more of a serious organic parenting magazine; great for me, not so great for students as they don't need to read articles about best methods for breast feeding!  I had to cut that article out censoring myself.

(moist but no tails)

While browsing through the February/March Kiwi, before I defaced it, I found this article, a better burger by Caroline Shannon-Karasik with detailed directions on sprouting chickpeas to make a delicious veggie burger.  We've sprouted other seeds and nuts so I thought chickpeas would be no big deal.  That was two weeks ago.  I started them the night of Groovy Girl's sleepover when we made the snow ice cream and watched the Oscars.  I laid them out and kept them moist and those little garbanzos still took their sweet time.  At the beginning of this week we noticed tails sprouting out.  Hallelujah!

Here's the recipe:

Sprouted Chickpea vegetable burgers
adapted from Kiwi Feb/March issue

1 cup sprouted chickpeas
6-10 fresh basil leaves
1 large farm fresh egg
1 medium carrot, peeled and diced finely
1 stalk celery, diced finely
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 T flat leaf parsely, chopped
1/4 whole wheat breadcrumbs
1/2 tsp sea salt
Dash of ground black pepper
1 T olive oil
4 whole grain fresh buns
mayo, ketchup, lettuce, or any other burger toppings.
We had lettuce, tomato, and TJ's wasabi mayo.

Many of their recipes give hands-on directions for parents and children to do together.  Great idea but I'm going to simplify that for space and time. Just know this is a great recipe to have little hands to help.

Fill a steamer pot with an inch of water and steam sprouted peas for 10 minutes or until tender.  While the chickpeas steam carefully pull basil leaves off the stems and roughly chop the leaves.  Place cooled chickpeas into food processor with egg.  (after processing chickpea mixture I added another medium sized egg-it just seemed like it needed it for moisture).  Use a spatula to scrape the mixture into a medium bowl.  Add the basil, onion, garlic, carrot, celery, and parsley to the chickpea mixture.  Then add breadcrumbs, salt, and pepper.  Stir all ingredients until well-combined.

Take a palm-sized handful in your clean hands and work it into a flat, circular patty.  Place it on a plate and repeat to make 3 more burgers.  Pour olive oil (I used coconut oil) into skillet and place over medium heat.  Add the patties, cooking about 5-6 minutes on each side.  Carefully remove the patties and place on whole grain bun.

Sounds easy, right?  Hmm maybe, except my burgers didn't not stay together very well in my skillet.  It helped once they started cooking.  While I know there are added health benefits from eating sprouted beans that step made the recipe too difficult. Next time I would cook the chickpeas making them softer to work with and more paste-like.  And I would add sprouts to the table array of toppings.

What did my family think, you ask? Everyone liked them except Groovy Girl.  She thought they tasted sour.  She still wanted to eat the bun (carb girl) though but dad wouldn't let her; he ate her burger bun and all.  She ended up making herself a grilled cheese with sprouts on it in the toaster oven.  So she still ate something sprouted...win, win!  We don't usually let them eat something else but this seemed like a reasonable trade-off and she was willing to make it herself.

(Our chili)

I also made a meat-less version of Katie Workman's chili recipe; I did everything she did but I added soaked kidney beans and a large can of rinsed black beans to the pot.  We had it for dinner on Sunday night with homemade Angel Biscuits and again we had it on Wednesday with homemade cornbread-I just used the recipe on the side of the corn meal container as I was rushed for time.

I am headed down to my fancy basement yoga studio to get my Namaste on but then after that I am making these Smitten Kitchen brownies.  I also made these brownies with this frosting last Sunday to serve at our teacher look-see for the book fair.  I left a few at home for my treat-deprived kids and Teenage Boy had this to say after eating one; "While I was eating that brownie mom; I realized you found it, you really found it, the perfect brownie recipe!"  Why thank you, son!  What a great week.  How about you?

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads weekend cooking meme.  Click her link to find many other food-related posts with wonderful recipes.