June 05, 2012 June 05, 2012/ Morgan Eccleston
These burgers are so easy, so cheap and so tasty it will blow your mind. It blew mine. Can’t you tell from my disjointed post? They cost me about 20 cents each to make and we loved them. You most certainly can eat it on a whole wheat bun like I should have but they were leftover from the barbeque last week … After the photo I tossed the top half to someone else and ate it open faced. They are also good in a tortilla or on a lettuce wrap! (Oh how I love lettuce wraps – I get all the burger goodness and don’t really care about the loss of bread.) Next time we’ll add a ton of vegetables to it!
Veggie Burgers!
Ingredients:
1 & 1/2 cups cooked beans (pinto, red, black, white, etc)
3 cups cooked brown rice
1/2 cup whole wheat bread crumbs (or you can use rolled oats)
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
2 Tablespoons ground flaxseed
1/4 medium sized onion, chopped fine
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 Tablespoon ground cumin
several dashes of your favorite hot sauce, optional (I guess!)
Throw your beans into a bowl and mash up with a fork. Mix everything else in a work together until the consistancy is moist but not totally sticky. You may have to add more bread crumbs (depending on the beans you use.)
Place a nonstick pan over medium high heat.
Shape into bun sized patties and cook (2-3 at a time depending on your pan size) for about 4 minutes on each side. You want them to be nice and toasty brown. Flip over and toast the other side.
Now take your burgers and put them on a cookie sheet to let them cool. They will firm up while they cool (like magic.) When you reheat them they will retain their firmness. I could even put mine out on the grill for a bit of charred goodness flavor. Put them on a bun with your favorite condiments and don’t forget the veggies! We put tomato, avocado, pickles and arugula on them.
Oh and I even crumbled one up and had it in a wrap with some hummus and arugula. Divine!
You can store them in a plastic bag in the fridge for several days or if you want to freeze them keep them on the cookie sheet and pop them into the freezer. When they are completely frozen take them off the cookie sheet, bag em, tag em and eat them in a couple of months, okay?
June 05, 2012/ Morgan Eccleston/ 
I have been craving hummus for days! I had to go get more chickpeas today to make some though because I used my last few cans on the Creamy Sesame Noodles. I was not disappointed with that though so it was well worth the walk to the store.
Do you love garlic? How about roasted creamy melt in your mouth garlic? Yeah and some smokey roasted spicy jalapenos? Put it all together now in your imagination (and later in your food processor) and what you’ve got is a fantastic hummus that you just can’t stop eating. Which may well be a bad thing if you don’t want to eat a ton of food all of the time. Nah, its hummus. Go for it!
Roasted Jalapeno Garlic Hummus
Ingredients
2 cans garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained
2 limes
1/4 cup tahini (2014 note: I would leave out the tahini entirely now!)
1/4 cup water
2 jalapenos
1 whole bulb of garlic
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
2 Tablespoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Fresh ground pepper
Directions:
Turn your oven on to 400 degrees.
Take your garlic bulb and cut it in half like this:
Put your garlic cut side up on a small sheet of foil. Add a tablespoon or so of water. Close the foil up around the garlic and throw in the oven.
Its going to be in there for about an hour so if you have anything else to bake throw it in too! (I baked some sweet potatoes and russet potatoes.)
Take it out in about an hour. But check it out in 45 minutes. If it looks all toasted, gooey and oozey then take it out.
Now turn the oven onto broil and get your peppers ready. Throw them on a sheet pan and maybe throw open the window (in case of lots of smoke like we had! Ha!) Also put your top rack as high as it goes.
Now put in your peppers and check them every 4 minutes or so. You want them to be charred all over so rotate them.
Throw your peppers in a paper bag and let it steam for a few minutes so that the skin will peel off easily.
Peel off the skin and then open up the peppers. Now open them up and peel out the seeds and membranes.
Get out your food processor (or blender) now.
Squeeze the garlic out of its paper into the processor.
Add in the peppers, garbanzo beans, tahini, lime juice, paprika, cumin and salt.
Blend it all up. Check the consistency. You can add in up to 1/4 cup of water to loosen it up as you like.
EAT! With veggies, whole wheat pitas, on a sandwich, or with your finger.
May 03, 2012/ Morgan Eccleston/
Last night I bought some chickpeas (garbanzo beans!) and tahini to whip up a batch of hummus. I still need to do that today but last night dinner was suddenly staring me in the face and I needed to get something made up fast. I threw open the fridge and just started pulling out anything that could go together. I love when I do this and it turns out to be a favorite dish! Its a cold noodle salad with fresh raw veggies and a TON of flavor. It also has a TON of chickpeas in it…. we can’t get enough of them but if you want to, you can cut the amount of beans by HALF and still be good. The creaminess comes from the tahini (sesame seed paste) so it also happens to be a quick vegan dish!
My kiddo also happened to love it but I don’t know if she’s a good meter because she is an AMAZING eater as of right now and loves fruits, veggies, whole grains and sriracha.
Creamy Sesame Noodles with Chickpeas
Ingredients
8 oz whole wheat spaghetti noodles
2 cans chickpeas (garbanzo beans) drained
1/4 cup soy sauce (lower salt or
Bragg’s Aminos
)
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
2 Tablespoons tahini
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon
sriracha
hot sauce (more or less to taste)
3 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 Tablespoon of fresh ginger, grated (I used my microplane. My favorite tool EVER.)
3 green onions sliced finely
1 carrot, shredded
5 radishes, shredded
1/2 seedless cucumber, shredded
1/2 cup thinly sliced snow peas
3 Tablespoons cilantro, chopped
*You can add and substitute other vegetables that you like in this dish. Shredded zucchini or bell peppers would be awesome. Also some chopped up spinach, some baby kale or bean sprouts would taste great as well. Just play around with it!
Directions
Place a pot of salted water over high heat and bring to a boil. Add your pasta and cook to al dente (It should have the time it will take on the package. Mine took 5 minutes.)
While the water is boiling and your pasta is cooking you can shred and chop your vegetables into a really large bowl.
Strain your pasta and rinse with cold water until the noodles have completely cooled down. Set aside.
Now you pretty much just throw ALL of the ingredients except the pasta in the bowl and toss. Look good?
Alright add in the pasta and toss it all together now. Its done!
You can eat it with chopsticks but if you’re not good at using them and you are really hungry I recommend a fork.
If you’re lucky, you have leftovers because they taste even better the next day!
April 30, 2012/ Morgan Eccleston/
Yeah, I said it. PAR-TAY! And TEM-PAY! (Ahem, tempeh..) It goes together in my mind, alright?
I feel like anytime you grill something its a party. In our little apartment complex the neighbors all come out and join in when we start up the grill. We start a fire in the fire-pit and turn up the tunes. I live in a really amazing little place, actually!
So if you don’t know tempeh, haven’t tried tempeh or think you hate it I triple dog dare you to try this recipe out. I shoved it on my friends the other night and they enjoyed it. You can find it at natural grocery stores or even by the other soy products (tofu) in regular grocery stores. I live in a really big hippie-fied town so I don’t really know how lucky I am to have it at every single dang grocery store until I go out of town.
Party in Yo Mouth BBQ Tempeh
Ingredients:
1/2 cup soy sauce (lower salt preferred here, or braggs ammino works too!)
1/4 cup rice vinegar
2 Tablespoons honey
1-3 teaspoons hot sauce (to taste!)
3 cloves garlic finely chopped
1 Tablespoon grated ginger
1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
12 oz tempeh (
Surata
makes awesome tempeh here in my town. Who makes yours?! BTW, it’s presteamed so if yours isn’t, follow the directions on the package to steam it.)
Directions:
Cut your tempeh up into cubes. 1 inch or so works. Throw them into a plastic bag with all of the other stuff. Marinate for at least an hour but up to 24. Stick it on a skewer and grill over a medium-high fire until nice and charred. I added some red onion, zucchini and mushrooms to my skewers. (If you don’t think you like veggies THINK AGAIN! Grilled veggies are amazing.) You can also broil them. And even skip cutting it into cubes and just do thick slices! This recipe is simple-sauce so don’t sweat it, baby.
Eat, love and repeat.
The hot sauce I used. It is OUT OF CONTROL HOT. I am scared of this stuff.
Marinating in the bag.
Go forth, my friends, and conquer the tempeh!
April 27, 2012/ Morgan Eccleston/
I love anything with nutritional yeast in it. For some reason that stuff is completely addictive to me. I adore it on popcorn (try it!) And I knew I loved yum sauce for reason… nutritional yeast! The problem is that the stuff has nuts in it! Come on now… So I had to try to make something like it. Now I make no claims to this being perfect. Its damn good though. Try it on rice and beans, on a burrito, a salad, as a dip for vegetables (or french fries!!) or whatever else you can think of! (If you have a great thing to put it on let us know in the comments!)
Ingredients:
1/2 cup sunflower seed butter
juice from 1/2 lemon
1/4 cup nutritional yeast (Not active dry or brewers yeast!!! This stuff is yellow and flakey. You can get it in the bulk sections of any health food store.)
1 cup water
2 large cloves of garlic, smashed
1 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp mild curry powder
1/2 tsp oregano
1 Tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
Optional: To make a spicy “smokey” version add 1/4-1/2 tsp chipotle powder
Put everything into your food processor or blender and give it a good whirl. 30 seconds or so should be good. Scrape down the sides and blend it again for 30 seconds.
Put into a jar and stick in the fridge for at least 12 hours but preferably 24 so all of the flavors can mingle and do their thing. I promise it is worth the wait, the flavor does change. Keep it refrigerated and it should last a week or so.
Nutritional Information:
Serving Size
: 2 Tablespoons
PointsPlus per serving
: 1
Yields about 16 servings.
Calories: 40 Total Fat: 3.3 grams Total Carbohydrates: 1.7 grams Fiber: .8 grams Protein: 1.6 grams
February 19, 2012/ Morgan Eccleston/