New Year's Resolution aka Quinoa Black Bean Burgers & Quinoa Pudding

If you follow this blog, one (of possibly many) thing you will learn about me is that I have a difficult time with recipes. I don’t follow them and I don’t write them! I have made a New Year’s resolution to change this. Change is good, right? The other night I was trying to create a quick and easy dinner along with trying out a dessert recipe which Carin sent. The recipe was for a Quinoa Pudding which had eggs but was otherwise Plant-based. It’s easy enough to modify a recipe like this to work just as well without the eggs. You can google “egg replacements” and come up with all sorts of substitutes. My favorite is to use what I have on hand (always, with everything). In this case, I had an old banana, PERFECT! I also had some flax-meal, also PERFECT for subbing for eggs if you soak it in a liquid first, which in this case turns out to be soy milk. So I knew I had no trouble here making the recipe work without eggs. What I did not realize was how much leftover Quinoa I would have! This actually worked in my favor as it was dinner time and I had no plan, just dessert (just dessert??) 

Well, being the queen of recycled food that I am, I combined the quinoa with some broccolini, acorn squash and carrots left over from dinners past, added a can of black beans (I actually only had adzuki beans but lets pretend because I know black beans were the right bean for this dish) and threw in some tomato paste (ketchup) and some other stuff and pattied up some honking good veggie burgers for the dinner! It was an All Quinoa Evening! We had them on a bed of spinach with salsa, YUM!


Back to my New Year’s resolution; recipes. Kerith, the burger recipe is for you and Carin, here is the pudding without the eggs! I might add that the pudding tasted way better for breakfast the next morning.

Vegan Quinoa Pudding 

Ingredients:

3c. Cooked Quinoa (follow package directions for cooking)

2c. Low Fat Soy, Almond or Oat Milk

2T. Ground Flax Meal

1t. Vanilla Extract

2c. Raspberries (I used frozen)

1/2c. Golden Raisins

1/3c. Maple Syrup or Agave Nectar

1 Mashed Ripe Banana

1t. Grated Lemon Zest

1/2c Chopped Pistachios

1/2t each Ground Cinnamon, Cardamom & Nutmeg

Method:

Mix together Soy Milk & Ground Flax Meal and let sit for 3 min.,

Add: Vanilla, Raspberries, Raisins, Maple Syrup, Banana, & Lemon Zest and cooked Quinoa. Stir until just combined and pour into baking dish sprayed with Canola Pan Spray.

Combine: Pistachios, Cinnamon, Cardamom & Nutmeg and sprinkle on top.

Bake: @ 350 for 40 min. or until liquid is absorbed. Serve warm or cold, seen here with a bit of Rice Whip on top, just a little bit.

Quinoa & Black Bean Burgers

Ingredients:

1 c. Cooked quinoa

1c cooked vegetables (small dice) I used leftover broccoli, carrots & acorn squash that I had already cooked for another meal!

1T minced Onion

2Tbl chopped Cilantro

1/2 c. Bread crumbs (I used brown rice bread crumbs)

tomato paste or ketchup to bind

Herbemare or salt & pepper to taste

Method:

Combine all ingredients and make into "burgers" You can then bake or cook in a hot skillet. I use a cast iron skillet which is the original NON STICK pan! Its the greatest, but that's another blog entry.