Crispy Sesame Chickpea Cakes

Now I know I just said on my side bar there that I am on summer holidays until September and that is still technically true but I've been wanting to get this recipe up for a couple months now so thought I would squeeze it in amongst my crazy busy summer :-)

These are so good and easy to throw together. Chickpeas are processed with garlic, chilli, ginger, spring onions, lime, soy sauce and crunchy peanut butter. I've thrown in some breadcrumbs to help bind then they are coated in sesame seeds before frying, baking OR grilling - nice and versatile!

I was initially making these as a burger but they honestly just aren't as nice in a bun. I much prefer these on their own with a good drizzle of lemon-tahini sauce. I'm thinking they would also be nice with some sort of miso gravy but I haven't gotten around to trying that yet :-)

As mentioned above you can fry these in some peanut oil until nice and crispy (ideal) but they can also be baked with no oil at all - they don't get as golden and crispy that way but still taste great. Furthermore they can be grilled without oil.

Whichever way you make them they are perfect over a bed of brown basmati rice, some veg on the side - asparagus and green beans a good choice as I did here, and a drizzle of the lemon-tahini sauce for a great meal :-)

Crispy Sesame Chickpea Cakes:

(Makes 5-6 good size cakes)

1 x 400g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed (240g drained weight)

1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

4 spring onions, trimmed and finely chopped

1 Tbsp finely chopped ginger

grated zest 1 lime

75g fresh white breadcrumbs or panko (1 cup)

2 Tbsp soy sauce

1 Tbsp crunchy peanut butter 

•

3 Tbsp sesame seeds

peanut oil, for frying - optional

Tip the chickpeas into a food processor and processor until flaky looking. Add the rest of the ingredients and process until it all just comes together, it should have the texture of thick peanut butter. To shape the patties I press the mixture into either a 1/4 or 1/3 cup measure then scoop it out and shape with lightly greased hands. Repeat until all the mixture is used up. You will get 5 larger patties with 1/3 cup measure and 6 smaller ones with 1/4 cup measure. 

Spread the sesame seeds onto a plate and place a patty on pressing the seeds in lightly, repeat on the other side.  

Heat a little peanut oil in a frying pan and cook the patties for 3-4 mins each side until golden and heated through. You will lose some sesame seeds but as you can see from the pictures enough stay on!

Note: can be baked for 10 minutes a side at 200C/400F or grilled until golden and crispy both sides - keep an eye on them if grilling, sesame seeds can burn fast! 

Lemon-Tahini Sauce:

• 2 Tbsp tahini

• 2 scant Tbsp fresh lemon juice

• 1 Tbsp olive oil

• 2 small clove garlic, minced

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 1-2 Tbsp hot water

Whisk everything together except the hot water until smooth. Add 1 Tbsp of the hot water and whisk again until smooth, add the other Tbsp if needed.

Source: Heidi Swanson's Lemon-Tahini Sauce

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Nutritional Information: based on 1 cake out of 6 (prior to frying).

Calories: 115

Protein: 5.9g

Fat: 4.4g

Sat Fat: 0.7g

Fibre: 2.8g

Carbs: 13.4g

Sugar: 1.3g

Sodium: 351mg

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Lemon-Pepper
Cashew Cutlets

Spiced Quinoa & Sweet
Potato Cakes

Pan-Fried Vegan Cheeseburger Wrap

I made this up shortly after making my second batch of my vegan unprocessed cheese slices. It's amazing. Tasted just like I remember cheeseburgers tasting like but in a crispy fried wrap which just makes it even better. Damn. Vegan junk food at it's finest :-P

Obviously, you can put whatever you would normally like in a burger in this wrap. My favourite fast food burger "back in the day" was A&W's "teen burger" as it had, in my opinion, the holy trinity of burger ingredients in it: pickle, onion and mustard. Hence why I've gone for that here, and a few slices of vegan bacon wouldn't have gone amiss either ;-)

Pan-Fried Vegan Cheeseburger Wrap

Makes 1.

• 50g frozen soy mince (I use Tesco own label)

• 1 shallot, or a couple tablespoons finely chopped onion.

• 1 small clove garlic, finely chopped

• pinch of smoked sea salt

• 5 grinds of black pepper

• 1 tsp vegetable oil

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• 1 large white wrap

• 1 slice Vegan Unprocessed Cheese.

• lettuce, preferably iceberg.

• dill pickle slices

• yellow mustard (French's)

• a little extra oil to fry, no more than a teaspoon.

Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the soy mince, shallot or onion and garlic. Fry over low heat until it starts to get dry then add about 50ml water. Cook until the water is fried off, soy mince is cooked and onions are soft.

Warm the wrap up briefly in a dry frying pan so it's pliable. In the centre add some lettuce leaves and the mince mixture. Top with a cheese slice cut in half diagonally then the pickles and some yellow mustard. 

Fold both ends over then roll up burrito style. Heat another bit of oil in a pan, I used the same pan I fried the mince in then add the wrap, pressing down to flatten slightly. Keep the heat high, you just want to crisp up the outside and melt the cheese, not wilt the lettuce. Flip over when golden and repeat, again pressing down with a spatula. Transfer to a chopping board and slice in half diagonally. Done.

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Nutritional Information: 

Calories: 409

Fat: 16.6g

Sat Fat: 2.9g

Carbs: 42.9g

Sugar: 4.2g

Fibre: 5.9g

Protein: 17.6g

Sodium: 828mg

Vegan Cheese Dog

...And in continuing in my quest to make more vegan junk food, the vegan cheese dog! I've taken this photo from the daily blog where I was thoroughly enjoying these daily until I ran out of cheese slices :-) 

Simply melt one unprocessed cheese slice onto a hot dog bun (I used the grill) and fill with your favourite vegan hot dog (I use Fry's) then top with a relish made with tangy dill pickles finely chopped with onion and lots of French's mustard. Delicious!

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Spiced Quinoa and Sweet Potato Cakes with Lemon Mint Yogurt and Black Bean Salad

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These turned out so well and made such a lovely healthy meal with the salad and sauce, some lightly steamed broccoli or asparagus on the side would be a nice addition too. I rarely cook with quinoa, in fact I think this is only my second post using it, but have to say a cake or patty is a great way to use it. I also don't normally have sweet potato about, buying it only at Thanksgiving for some reason but found myself with a large bag of sweet potatoes recently and thinking what to do with them.

Everyone seems to love sweet potato and black beans together and we have been having some really nice spicy sweet potato, black bean and kale stews lately but I wanted to try something else and came up with this. The cakes are quite simple and just spices, onion, sweet potato and quinoa, I was going to add the black beans to them but thought a simple black bean salad on the side would be nicer. I'm glad I did as I absolutely love that salad and will be making it again on it's own, another great addition to the salad repertoire!

The sauce is simply soy yogurt, lemon juice and zest and fresh mint and goes perfectly with the spiced cakes. The idea though was that it would be a coolant to what was supposed to be a spicy cake but in the end mine were quite mild. Next time I would double the amount of chilli flakes and cayenne but I will post the original recipe here as they were still delicious without the heat and you can adjust to your own tastes.

Spiced Quinoa and Sweet Potato Cakes - makes 4 large cakes

100g quinoa, dry weight

500ml water

1 stock cube, I used Kallo Organic Vegetable

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1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 sweet potatoes, peeled and grated - I had 200g once grated

1 large onion, diced fine - about 150g

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1/4 tsp red chilli flakes

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

1/8 tsp salt

fresh parsley, chopped

Rinse the quinoa really well and bring 500ml of water and the stock cube to a boil. Add the quinoa, stir, cover and reduce to a simmer for 20 - 25 minutes, or until the stock is almost all absorbed, you don't actually want to cook the quinoa 'properly' here, it's essential it's slightly overcooked and dare I say, mushy? Reason being it's this mushiness that helps the cakes bind, the second time I made this I did cook the quinoa properly, so that it was fluffy with separated grains and the cakes did NOT hold together like they did this time, bit of a nightmare flipping ;-)

Remove from heat and let stand for 10 minutes then stir with a fork. Transfer to a large bowl and set aside to cool, give it a stir now and again so it doesn't stick together.

Wash and peel the sweet potato then grate. I used a food processor with the grating attachment but you can do this with a hand grater. I then swapped the grater attachment for the blade and pulsed the sweet potato a few times just to chop up the strands, it makes it easier to make the cakes later if they are not so long, again, you can do this by hand with a knife. Finely chop the onion, mince the garlic and measure out your spices.

Heat the olive oil in a large wok and add the sweet potato and onion, fry over medium to low heat until the onions are soft and transparent and the sweet potato is soft and cooked, they should also change colour to a softer yellow, about 10 minutes. When they are cooked add the garlic and spices and fry gently for 2 minutes. If you find the mixture dry and you have some spices cooked on the wok, add a splash of water to deglaze. 

Add this to the quinoa with some chopped fresh parsley and give it good stir, the mixture should be thick but fairly wet, something you won't think you can make patties with but it's ok, we're doing the bake then fry method here ;-)

Preheat the oven to 180C and line a baking sheet with baking paper. Fill a 1/2 cup measure with the mixture, patting down slightly then invert onto the baking sheet. Using a fork gently press down on the mound to make a 1" thick large patty.  Repeat with the remaining mixture, you should get 4 large cakes out of this. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, remove and carefully flip over, they will still be soft at this stage but you should be able to flip them, albeit carefully. Bake for another 15 minutes for the other side.

**Note, this is the same bake and fry method I have used for the Gardenburger recipe and there are step by step photos in that post for it. I also used the same method for the Curried Carrot, Zucchini and Almond Feta Fritters. It's a great method to get egg-less burgers to hold their shape and be fried :-)**

Now that they can hold their shape you can fry them, of course you can eat them now but they both taste and look better fried. Heat 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil in a non-stick frying pan and simply fry on both sides until crisp and golden. They are already hot and cooked, you just want to crisp up the outside.

That's it! We loved these with the lemon mint yogurt sauce and the black bean salad but I also had a leftover cake, gently reheated on a dry non stick pan, sliced in half and placed in a wholewheat pitta with the yogurt sauce and baby spinach and rocket - delicious!! (They would be nice in a wrap too but would be too soft for a burger bun.)

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Black Bean Salad - serves 2 or 3

150 - 200g drained and rinsed tinned black beans (for me it's one 400g tin)
1/2 onion, diced fine
1 clove garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
1 whole clove
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp lime or lemon juice
little lime or lemon zest
freshly ground black pepper

In a small bowl add the olive oil then slowly add the vinegar, whisking all the while until it is emulsified, add the lemon or lime juice and whisk well, then add the salt and zest and mix well.

In a frying pan heat up a little olive oil, about a teaspoon and add the onion, bay leaf, clove and a grinding of black pepper until the onion is soft and transparent. Add the ground cumin and garlic and gently fry for another minute. Remove the bay leaf and whole clove.

Transfer to a bowl and add the black beans, give the dressing another whisk then pour over, toss well then leave to marinade and cool down in the fridge for a couple of hours.

**Edit: I just made this salad again with lime zest and juice instead of the lemon and a shallot instead of onion, all fantastic changes and stuffed the salad into a warm wholewheat pitta with some baby spinach - beautiful!**

Lemon-Mint Yogurt Sauce

130g plain soy yogurt, about 1/2 cup
2 tsp lemon juice
bit of lemon zest
1/8 tsp salt
1 Tbsp chopped fresh mint

Simply whisk all together.

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You know, recipe development isn't always straightforward!

~Click to Enlarge~

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Nutritional Information: 

Spiced Quinoa and Sweet Potato Cake - based on 1 cake prior to frying as it will vary depending on                               how much oil you use.

Calories: 192

Protein: 4.8g

Fat: 5.1g

Sat Fat: 0.7g

Carbs: 30.4g

Sugars: 3.7g

Fibre: 3.8g

Sodium: 478mg (depending on stock cube used)

Calcium: 37.8mg

Black Bean Salad - whole recipe

Calories: 270

Protein: 9.7g

Fat: 14.6g

Sat Fat: 2g

Carbs: 32.1g

Sugars: 3.5g

Fibre: 8.8g

Sodium: 1102mg

Calcium: 81.7mg

Lemon Mint Yogurt - this will pretty much just be the nutritional information on your brand of soy yogurt.

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Breakfast Sausage and Hash-brown Burger

"Butter" grilled bun, Fry's burger patty top with slow fried onions, a hash-brown and ketchup.

Ok, just an uncharacteristic non-recipe 'simple idea' post for you today. Mostly to prove I don't make semi-complicated meals all the time and enjoy some almost ready made food as much as the next person :-) This was, of course, delicious and I dare say would make a great hangover breakfast. Actually, I can confirm that.

For the patty there I used a Fry's burger patty which works perfectly here. I absolutely love them but I don't think they taste like burger patties. To me they taste like a perfect sausage patty and therefore work really well here. This was just whipped up one morning but if I really wanted to go for it I would make the English Muffins from Vegan Brunch and "butter" grill one of those for the ultimate Vegan Sausage McMuffin, screw the egg!

Breakfast Sausage and Hash-brown Burger:

1 x Burger Bun
1 x Fry's Burger Patty
1 x Large Hash-brown, cooked
Onion
Vegetable Oil, I used 1 tsp
Ketchup
Vegan Butter

Simply spread 'butter' on both sides of a bun or English Muffin and  place on a grill pan toasting until nice and grilled. Press down on it while cooking to help get the lines, doens't matter if it gets squished as it's a pretty high burger in the end anyway!

In a fry pan fry the onion nice and slow in the oil until very soft, golden and a bit crispy on some edges, remove. Now in the same pan fry the burger patty for 8 - 10 minutes until golden on both sides, add more oil if need be. Add the onion to the pan at the end to re-heat slightly.

Now simply top the bun with the patty, onion, cooked hash-brown and lots of ketchup. Enjoy!

Nutritional Information: approx, depending on bun used, how much ketchup etc..

Calories: 385

Fat: 13.5

Sat Fat: 2.7g

Fibre: 2.1g

Protein: 18.4g

Carbs: 50.5g

Sugar: 11.5g

Sodium: 1027mg

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Gardenburger Original Patty - Veganized! (aka - super delicious mushroom burger)

With a homemade burger bun!

The flavour in this patty is so good I like to keep it simple with vegan mayo, lettuce, tomato and onion.

I think I say this whenever I blog a new burger, but, I have a new favourite burger!! What can I say? I love my burgers and truthfully I love them all on the blog here but this is a most welcome new addition ;-) Back in Canada in my vegetarian days I LOVED the Original Gardenburger patty, or "Money's Mushroom Burger" I think it was called at first. I had quite a few of them in my day and you couldn't buy them in England so was happy to find a copycat recipe online. 

I was still vegetarian at the time so had a go making them - I could see the taste was there but they were an absolute disaster! The mixture was very wet which you were to go about frying and they stuck to the pan like glue! I put the recipe away and never went back to it. Then, I was rifling through some old recipe printouts the other day and came across it. 

Now, what possessed me to not only try it again but veganize it too boot I'll never know but man am I glad I did. This tastes just like I remember the Gardenburger tasting like, so delicious and I got around the whole sticking to the pan thing! These cook up beautifully and while they are a little effort they freeze and reheat really well. So get in there and make up a huge bunch! Whether you know the original Gardenburger or not you'll be glad you did :-)

Gardenburger Patties  - makes 6 large patties or more if you want them smaller

1 Tbsp olive oil

450g mushrooms (1 pound)

120g diced onion (1 cup)

1/4 tsp salt

freshly ground black pepper

2 Tbsp bulgar wheat

50g oats (1/2 cup)

50g brown basmati rice, raw weight (2/3 cup cooked)

80g shredded mozza cheezly, super melting (3/4 cup)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp garlic powder

4 Tbsp cornstarch
vegetable oil to fry

First cook the brown basmati rice. Bring a pan of salted water to the boil and stir in the rice. Cover and simmer over medium heat for 25 minutes. Check if tender then drain and rinse under hot water.

Place the bulgar in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Cover with cling film and let sit 5 minutes. Stir with a fork, check if tender then drain well.

Place the oats in a bowl with 100ml cold water and leave to soften for 10 minutes. Then place in a sieve and press the water out with the back of a spoon.

Place the rice, oats and bulgar into a large bowl:

Now heat the olive oil in a large frying pan and add the mushrooms and onion. Sprinkle over 1/4 tsp of salt and some freshly ground black pepper. Fry until the liquid that comes out is reabsorbed, you want this mixture quite dry and the onion and mushrooms and cooked and slightly golden: (if it's starting to stick to the pan, that's good)

Tip mushroom mixture in with the grains and add the shredded cheezly, garlic powder and salt:

Give it all a good stir until well mixed and the cheezly melts from the heat of the mushroom mixture:

Now transfer the mixture to a food processor and pulse it about 8 - 10 times until it is all finely chopped but not pureed, you want a coarse texture here:

Tip it all back into a large bowl and stir in the cornflour:

and stir it up well, the mixture will be quite wet:

Now, this is where I changed the instructions. Original recipe had you frying these first then baking them but whenever I tried that the really wet mixture just stuck to the pan like glue no matter how much oil I used. I then thought- of course, bake them first then fry once they can hold their shape. D'oh! facepalm. Should have thought of that first!! Works perfectly.

Preheat the oven to 150C (fan if you have it) that's about 300F, quite a low tempurature. Line a baking sheet with baking paper and lightly grease it. Take a 1/2 cup scoop, or 1/3 if you want smaller burgers and fill up the scoop:

Scrape the mixture out of the scoop onto the baking sheet then with a fork shape into a burger patty:

Repeat until all the mixture is used up: (I'm doing a half recipe here, so just 3)

Place in the preheated oven and cook for 15 minutes, they will now be firm enough to hold their shape and be able to flip:

Place back in the oven and cook the other side for another 15 minutes. Then that's it, they are cooked. But yeah, they don't look great do they? Pale and aneamic looking isn't the most appetizing. Take a non-stick frying pan and add some oil. I fried these individually and used 1 tsp vegetable oil per burger. Fry on high heat just until golden and crispy on both sides. They are already cooked, you just want to colour and crisp them up:

That's it! Super yummy vegan mushroom burgers just waiting for a nice homemade bun maybe?

Note: If you are going to freeze these, and they freeze really well, after frying place them on a cooling rack lined with baking paper. Leave to cool for not more than an hour then wrap in cling film and freeze. You can reheat these various ways: fry from frozen, oven grill from frozen, microwave a couple minutes a side, or you can defrost first in the fridge then fry/grill/microwave. Just ensure they are piping hot throughout.

Nutritional Information: per large patty (making 6) after frying
Calories: 213
Fat: 11.4g
Sat Fat: 3.0g
Protein: 5.8g
Fibre: 3.0g
Carbs: 24g
Sugar: 2.4g
Sodium: 402 mg

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Burger Buns

I do love my burgers and usually just go for store bought burger buns. However when you go to all the trouble to make your own burgers sometimes it is nice to go all the way and make the buns too. I've had great success with this recipe although I should let you know those are way too big! I got greedy and made 4 out of  a recipe that should have made 8 :-) That's the great thing about making your own though, you can make them any size you like, just like the burger patties themselves.

315g strong white bread flour, plus 20g more

15g or 1 Tbsp caster sugar

3/4 tsp salt

50g vegan margarine

1 sachet easy blend yeast, that's 7g

200ml dairy free milk, I used rice

cornflour, water and sesame seeds

In a saucepan add the milk, sugar and margarine, bring to heat until the butter and sugar melts, when the butter melts the sugar will have too. Transfer to a bowl and let cool to 45C, I used a cooking thermometer here, if you don't have one you want it to be quite warm but not hot. You should be able to leave your finger in it comfortably. In the bowl of your mixing machine or a regular large bowl mix the flour, salt and yeast. Stir in the lukewarm liquid and using the dough attachment on your mixer knead for 5 minutes. Alternatively, stir in the liquid then transfer to a flour dusted surface and knead for 10 minutes. With the machine running add the extra 20g flour if it seems sticky, same if you are doing it by hand. I use the machine and when the 5 min is up I like to still transfer it to a floured surface and give it a few kneads, just to shape it up and get a feel of it. It should be smooth and elastic now. Oil a large clean bowl, place the circle of dough in it, oil the surface and cover the bowl with cling film. Place in a warm place to double in size, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Mine took 1 1/2 but I do have a "dough proving" feature on my oven. God I love my oven. 

Take it out, give it a punch, knead a couple times then cut out how many shapes you like, the maximum amount of rolls you'll get out of this recipe is 8, any more and they will be mini buns! Knead each cut piece a few times and shape in to a ball, flatten slightly and place on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. When all done grease a sheet of cling film and place over the top, return to a warm place and preheat your oven to 200C

When the oven is ready take the sheet and remove the cling film. Now to make the sesame seeds stick I like to make a 'glue' out of cornflour and water, till it's fairly thick, brush it over the top and sprinkle the seeds on, give them a gentle press in as well. The ones you see in the photo here I didn't do this, I thought I would try a new method of just spraying the tops with cooking spray and sprinkling the seeds on. Doesn't work. ALL of those fell off! So next time I will stick to my regular cornflour glue method :-)

Now pop them in the oven and bake for 10 - 15 minutes. It will depend on what size you made the buns and your oven but they will have risen again and be golden. Remove and let cool. 

Nutritional Information: based on 8 rolls

Calories: 192

Protein: 5.6g

Fat: 4.5g

Sat Fat: 0.9g

Fibre: 2.1g

Calcium: 30.7g (depending on milk used)

Carbs: 32.4g

Sugar: 3.1g

Sodium: 284 mg

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Carrot and Sesame Burger

Served with a lemon tahini soy yogurt sauce, avocado, watercress, shallots and lashings of Thai sweet chilli sauce :-)

Oh I do love a good burger, and a good burger these certainly are!! Recipe comes from BBC Good Food, was featured on their front page awhile back and I knew I had to make them right away. The recipe did call for an egg but I just replaced that with my egg replacer of choice lately - yup, the xanthan gum one, and they turned out perfect! In the comments section a lot of people said they crumbled and fell apart, well, the egg-less vegan ones don't that's for sure (vegan win!!!) Although, I didn't try bbq'ing these, just shallow fried, but I don't see why they couldn't be oven baked for an even healthier burger. **Edit - I just made these by popping them under a hot pre-heated grill for about 5 minutes a side and they came out perfect. You can brush a little olive oil on them before and when flipping if you like but there is no need. Nice healthier way to cook them!**

Anyway, they taste wonderful - the recipe served these with a lemon and tahini yoghurt sauce, avocado, rocket and thai sweet chilli sauce. Whenever I try a new recipe I like to follow it to a 'T' then make any changes I see fit. This time I wouldn't make any. While I didn't find the yogurt sauce that interesting on it's own it went lovely with this burger and everything else, as did the avocado. I used watercress instead of rocket due to personal preference and loved that....and the Thai sweet chilli sauce is essential!! It really made the burger and I have to say I used lashings of it!! So yummy, definitely another burger that will be on the regular dinner rotation :-)

Recipe is on their website but I'll post what I did here, mainly replacing the egg, I added 3/4 tsp salt (they just said to 'season') and their recipe said you get 6 burgers out of it, I halved it and got 5 very good sized ones out of it. Lately I've also been replacing the lemon zest with lime and do prefer that - lime and cumin and carrot all going so beautifully together!

Oh, and we had these with a side salad and a big old glass of Pimms - lovely!! :-)

Carrot and Sesame Burgers: 

375g carrots (weight before prepping), peeled and grated

1/2 can chickpeas (120g drained and rinsed)

1/2 small onion, chopped

1 Tbsp tahini

1/2 tsp ground cumin

50g breadcrumbs

1 1/2 Tbsp sesame seeds

3/4 tsp fine sea salt

zest of 1 lime or 1/2 a lemon (lime my preference, but both good)

1 Tbsp olive oil

---1 egg----

1/2 Tbsp cornstarch

1/2 Tbsp potato starch

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/16 tsp xanthan gum

1 tsp veg oil

50ml water

To Serve:

burger buns

avocado

watercress or rocket

shallots or red onion slices (or any mild onion)

lemon tahini soy yogurt sauce

Thai sweet chilli sauce

Whisk everything up for your egg until thick and a little frothy. Set aside. Put a third of the grated carrots into a food processor with the chickpeas, onion, tahini, cumin and 'egg'. Whizz until you have a thick paste, then scrape into a large bowl. Heat the olive oil in a large wok, tip in the remaining carrot and cook for about 8 minutes until the carrot is softened, they will become more golden as they cook. Add this cooked carrot to the paste with the breadcrumbs, lemon zest, salt and sesame seeds. Mix together well.

Lightly grease your hands with some olive oil then shape into patties whatever size you like. Wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for at least half an hour. When ready to cook, heat up some vegetable oil in a large frying pan (I shallow fried so added quite a bit) and fry the burgers about 5 minutes a side, or until golden brown on both sides. Alternatively you can grill them by simply popping them under a hot preheated grill for about 5 minutes a side or until lightly golden with charred edges. Lightly toast the buns and serve with the yogurt sauce, avocado, watercress, shallots and Thai sweet chilli sauce.

Lemon Tahini Soy Yogurt Sauce:

150ml plain soy yogurt

1 tsp fresh lemon juice

1 tsp tahini

Simply mix it all together and chill in the fridge for at least an hour. Note - this makes a lot!

EDIT - works really nice in a wrap too! Same components but shape the burger into a large sausage shape and fry. Very good!

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Nutritional Information: based on 1 patty out of five -not fried.

Calories: 173

Protein: 4.6g

Carbs: 22.7g

Sugar: 4.5g

Fibre: 4.1g

Fat: 7.7g

Sat Fat: 1.1g

Sodium: 347mg

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The Best Spicy Beanburger Wrap!!

Oh my this was so good!!! I have already blogged this burger, it's our standard beanburger recipe and hands down my favourite. I felt it needed another post however in it's recent incarnation as a wrap as it's that good! I kept the pineapple like last time as it just goes so well with the soy and worcester sauce flavours in the burger. But, have since discovered that adding Levi Root's "Reggae, Reggae Sauce" (labelled vegan!) to this takes it to a whole new level!! Seriously, all you need is a wrap, the burger, a pineapple ring and the sauce.

I do apologise for another blog post calling for a UK specific ingredient. A good replacement is HP sauce which basically tastes just like the reggae sauce but without the spice, although, I think that is regional specific too! I suppose any type of spicy barbeque sauce would work here. One more thing that made this even better this time around was the smoked paprika I used. My last jar must have been quite anaemic as my new one, tesco's own label, packs quite the punch - nice and spicy. A note on the vegan Worcestershire sauce - my favourite is Geo Organic Worcester Sauce but it seems hard to find these days. I used Tiger, Tiger brand from Sainsbury's this time around and found it quite good. Just try and steer clear from that Life Free From one made with that LoSalt crap - yuck!.... Ahem...sorry for the retail bossiness there ;)

Makes 2 burgers for wraps:
50g onion, finely chopped
1 small clove garlic, pureed
2 tsp vegetable oil
1 x 210g tin red kidney beans, 130g drained and rinsed
50g finely grated carrot
40g rolled oats
2 tsp vegan Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp soy sauce
1/8 tsp smoked sea salt (or regular)
1/4 tsp smoked paprika, hot is good here
1-2 Tbsp potato or cornstarch - optional

Wraps, I used white but wholewheat would be nice too
Pineapple rings
Very good with "Reggae, Reggae" or HP Sauce!

Place beans in a large bowl and mash well. Add grated carrot, oatmeal, sauces, salt and paprika. Stir well. Fry the onion in half the oil until soft, stir in the garlic. Add this to the mixture and mix well. Now, like the burgers before if you are using burger buns you might want to add the cornflour to help bind these together as the mixture is soft. If you are using a wrap or a pita this really isn't necessary though as it won't matter if they fall apart a bit. You also may have to add some cornflour depending on how wet your carrots were, they can vary tremendously. Just eyeball it, if it seems so wet that you can't shape it, then add some cornflour. The ones in the photos here I didn't add any and they were quite wet, still turned out well. Now lightly grease your hands and shape into a long log type shape that will fit your wraps. Preheat the grill to the highest setting and brush a baking sheet with oil.

Place patties on then brush the tops with more oil. Grill 5 minutes one side, carefully flip, brush with oil and grill the other side for 5 minutes.

Place the halved pineapple rings over the top and pop back under the grill for a couple of minutes. I'm sure just chopping the pineapple and adding on top of the burger before wrapping would be fine too, I like it warm and slightly grilled though :)

♥

Nutritional Analysis: (for 1 burger - just the patty)

Calories: 250

Protein: 8.4g

Carbs: 32.2g

Sugars: 13.5g

Fibre: 7.5g

Fat: 4.5g

Saturated Fat: 0.4g

Sodium: 522mg

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