Sweet Southern Belle

There is much debate in the world of nutrition as to the definition of healthy food. Some believe a low-fat diet is best, some believe a low-carb diet is best, some believe a meat-free diet is best and so on and on it goes. I have tried all of the diets at different points in my life and certainly pass no judgment on what others choose as “healthy” for themselves but my family has been recently making changes towards what we believe is healthy eating. It’s not low-fat, low-carb or meat-free it’s simply “whole” foods. We are trying to cut out as much processed foods as possible. I buy mostly organic food but when I indulge with something processed organic is a must for us. As a part of this we are eating a lot less meat, partly to help even out the cost difference between organic and conventional food costs. There are other reasons we are cutting back on our meat consumption but I’ll save those for another post on another day.

 

I’m certainly no expert on whole foods or cooking from scratch. I’m learning as I go so I thought as a way to keep myself accountable I’ll try to blog as often as I can with menus, pictures and recipes of what we are eating. Some days I may choose to blog about what I made for breakfast while others it may be lunch or dinner.

 

Tonight’s dinner was Black Bean Burgers on Whole Wheat buns with homemade French fries. This was an incredibly delicious and filling meal. Even my dear husband who looked at me strangely when I told him we were having veggie burgers instead of the venison burgers he was hoping for enjoyed the meal a great deal. My dinner preparation started in the morning when I made the yummy whole wheat buns for the night’s meal. I got the recipe off of another blog. This was a very easy recipe and the buns tasted 100 times better than store bought buns.

 

 

A little closer to dinner I made up the black bean burgers and cut up the fries. All three recipes were a first for me. The black bean burger recipe was one I pieced together after reading several veggie burger recipes and not finding exactly what I was looking for. Here’s a picture of the finished product.

 

The fries were organic Idaho potatoes cut up with salt, pepper and garlic. I baked them on 450 for 30 mins.

 

Black Bean Burgers

 

16 ounces of cooked ( and cooled) black beans, drained and rinsed

1/3 cup mushrooms

½ onion

3 gloves of garlic

1 egg

1 tablespoon chili powder

1 tablespoon cumin

1 teaspoon of hot sauce

1 cup of bread crumbs ( I used the homemade wheat loaf I had on hand)

 

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and lightly oil a cookie sheet.
2. In a bowl, mash black beans with a fork until thick and pasty.
3. In a food processor, finely chop mushrooms, garlic and onion. Then stir into black beans
4. In another bowl stir together egg, chili powder, cumin, and hot sauce.
5. Stir the egg mixture into the mashed bean mixture. Then stir in bread crumbs until the mixture is sticky and holds together.
6. Divide into 5 patties
7. Place on cookie sheet and bake for about 10 mins on each side

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 at 10:12 pm and is filed under Food, Green Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.