The other day, this blog just suddenly decided to go on vacation to lala land and was nowhere to be found. I couldn’t access my account or the control panels, and so after googling the problem for several hours to try an figure it out myself, I ended up calling the GoDaddy tech support since they host this site, and after being on hold for what seemed like forever, the guy finally figured it out and got it up and running again. Yay!! I’m seriously hoping the blog doesn’t decide to spaz out on me again, like whenever it wants to… The thing is, he couldn’t find the source of the initial problem, so there’s a good chance it could happen again. Oh well, fingers crossed for now. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if suddenly the whole blog disappeared for good, never to be retrieved again….? :P
Anyway, it’s a good thing we were able to reload the blog because otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to write this post~
My friend Sonia was having a burger night and since everyone else would be having regular meat burgers, she promised to make a vegan version just for me. Usually if I’m invited to an omnivore house-dinner, I’ll probably have to bring a bunch of my own vegan dishes to share and so that I’ll have something to eat. Which is why I’m so amazed and grateful when someone (even if it’s a close friend) is like “Oh, don’t worry, we can make vegan versions for you.”
Anyway, I ended up getting there early so I helped my friend make the veggie patties. She got the basic recipe from this Popsugar Fitness site, but then made some changes like skipping the quinoa, and reducing the amount of barley. I think it turned out pretty fantastic. Here’s the recipe with our modifications.
Chickpea, Sweet Potato, & Barley Veggie Burger
(modified from Popsugar Fitness)
Ingredients
15-ounce can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1 small sweet potato, baked
1/4 cup cooked barley
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
Directions
- Peel, dice, and steam the sweet potato until soft.
- In a bowl, mash the garbanzo beans and sweet potato together with a fork. Add the cooked barley, parsley, cayenne pepper, cumin, salt and pepper, flour, and one tablespoon oil.
- Using hands, form into patties (makes about 6).
- Heat the remaining tablespoon of oil in a pan on medium heat. Brown both sides of each burger.
Mixin’ and mashin’ all the ingredients together~~
Here are the patties before getting pan-fried. Since we mashed everything with a fork instead of a food processor, our burger had texture and some bite. They look like they would fall apart easily, but everything stuck together pretty well! Just as long as we didn’t man-handle them.
Getting toasty in the pan.
Completed patties. Now it’s time to assemble our burger!
I got these vegan “hard roll” buns from The Baker’s Table by Kyungridan. It’s hard to find burger buns in Korea, so we had to make do with these. They actually worked pretty well. Perhaps a little too thick, but they tasted great.
Not wanting to go completely empty-handed, I made this cashew cheese spread thingy at home. I totally winged it so I don’t have the exact recipe, but here’s a general idea: Start with 1/2 cup raw cashews, soaked for several hours. Rinse and drain. Combine the soaked cashews, 2 cubes of veggie buillon cube, 1/3 cup water (or to just cover the cashews for blending), 2Tbs nutritional yeast, 1 Tbs fresh lemon juice, 1 clove garlic, 1/8 tsp xanthan gum (optional), salt and pepper to taste. Using an immersion blender, blend until smooth. Add more water if it is too thick, and to help everything blend more easily.
My completed burger~ I ended up eating this open-faced because the roll was too much bread for one burger. I just threw some more lettuce leaves on top to make it easier to hold. Yay~ Less bread means more room in my tummy to eat…..
…fries!! They’re from a bag because peeling, cutting, and frying a ton of potatoes is too much work. Ain’t nobody got time fo dat. So we just reheated these frozen ones in the oven. :) yummy.
Sonia also made this vegan red bean chili for me. :) She’s so sweet the way she thinks of me and makes sure I have options to eat! Fries and chili and cashew cheese– tasty, tasty combo.
Anyway, it was a truly filling, stick-to-your-ribs dinner. I hope these dinners become a regular thing because I love getting to cook a bit with my friends, and also ‘force’ them into trying vegan recipes. And because food. Lots of delicious food.
Feel free to leave a comment!