Black Bean Burgers

I've made many bean burgers over the years, but I've never cooked one on a barbecue because I feared they would fall apart.

Last Friday, continuing the expanding of my horizons inspired by Elizabeth Orsini's book From Garden to Grill, I made these black bean burgers and handed them to Larry to cook over the coals. He was dubious at first, but they did cook up beautifully.

Orsini says that the key to a making a veggie burger hold together is squeezing the vegetables dry before you add the beans: too much moisture and they fall apart. It seems quite obvious once she's said it, but since I spent my life trying to make burgers that were moist on the inside, it never occurred to me.

These burgers did hold together well on the grill, but I thought they were dry on the inside. Larry didn't. (He put our homemade salsa on his burger — maybe that's the secret.)

We didn't use buns. Instead we saved room for the sides: grilled shisito peppers, green beans from our garden, and a great salad of grilled corn and tomatoes also inspired by From Garden to Grill.

We only grilled two of the four burgers this recipe makes. We kept the others in the fridge to eat at another barbecue Sunday night. There's nothing like eating outside on summer evenings.

Black Bean Burgers
2/3 cup black beans (or 1 14-oz can)
1 stick celery
1/4 cup chopped red onion
2 cloves garlic, peeled
2 eggs
1 tsp cumin
1 tbsp chili powder
1 cup bread crumbs

Rinse the black beans and cook until tender (about 20 minutes in the pressure cooker or 90 minutes simmering on the stove). Make sure they're soft before you drain them. Drain the beans and pour them onto a kitchen towel. Roll them up and press gently to dry them.

Use a food processor to chop the celery, red onion and garlic very fine. Pour them into a strainer and squeeze out the excess water (your plants will enjoy the water).

Put the beans in a large bowl and mash with a potato masher until only a few lumps remain. Stir in the drained vegetables.

Whisk the eggs with the cumin and chili powder. Stir into the bean mixture. Stir in the bread crumbs. The mixture should hold together well.

Divide the mixture into 4 and shape into patties. Put on a plate, cover with wax paper, and refrigerate at least 30 minutes (or up to a couple of days) until ready to cook on the grill.

Grill over high heat (hand can be held over the rack for 4 seconds) for about 8 minutes per side.

Serve with salsa or ketchup. Avocado would be great too.

Serves 4.

Red Lentil Veggie Burgers

I love having veggie burgers in the freezer — not the hockey pucks found in supermarket freezers, but ones I make myself and then freeze. They defrost well for a quick nutritious dinner.

Sometimes I make them with leftover lentil loaf, sometimes with chickpeas. The other day I made them with quick-cooking red lentils and curry spices. Panko breadcrumbs made them light and airy, and eggs ensured they held together.

I served them with a Corn and Tomato Salad, and our homegrown bush beans.

Best of all, most of them are now carefully stored in the freezer, ready for when I need a quick dinner.

Red Lentil Veggie Burgers
1 1/2 cups red lentils
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped finely (3/4 cup)
4 medium carrots, finely diced (1 1/3 cups)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne
3/4 cup plain panko breadcrumbs
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tbsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Pick over the lentil and remove any small stones or debris. Rinse them well, then put in a large pot with cold water to cover by 2 inches. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat. Lower the heat and simmer until tender, about 10 minutes. Drain in a fine-meshed strainer. Set aside still in the strainer so they can continue to drain.

Warm the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Cook the onion, stirring frequently, until golden, about 5 minutes. And the carrots and garlic. Cook until the carrots start to soften, about 4 minutes. Stir in the cumin and cayenne. Remove from the heat.

Preheat the broiler.

Put the lentils in a large bowl. Add the contents of the skillet, the breadcrumbs, eggs, salt and pepper. Stir to blend.

Scoop out 1/4 cup at a time and put on 2 baking sheets lined either with sil-pats or aluminum foil. Gently pat into burger shape. You'll get 16-18 burgers.

Put one tray of burgers under the broiler for 6 minutes. Take it out and put the other tray in for 6 minutes while you flip the first lot of burgers. Repeat until all burgers have been cooked on both sides.

Serve warm.

Chickpea Burgers

There is nothing like an excellent falafel. It's the perfect vegetarian fast food — chickpea fritters served in a pita with those delightful pickled turnips. I used to eat it often in Montreal because there was a Lebanese restaurant right up the street from my home.

Of course, falafel are traditionally deep-fried, which is not the healthiest thing. I now only eat falafel on my trips back to Montreal.

The other night, however, I combined chickpeas and spinach in this yummy burger that was reminiscent of falafel in flavor and texture. I served it with a sauce of yogurt with mint and garlic — the burgers are dense and on the dry side so the sauce helped — and a salad of romaine lettuce with more yogurt sauce drizzled on it. It was a nice light dinner, until I found a bag of organic french fries in the freezer and decided to serve them alongside. Larry appreciated that. And actually Chase, the Lebanese restaurant I frequent in Montreal, serves excellent french fries and salad alongside their flafel sandwich, so it was a nice reminder of home for me too.

Of course, you could stuff these burgers in a pita, or even put them on a bun. Make sure to have a sauce or some juicy tomato with them. They are dense and protein-packed, but still not as much like a hockey puck as many commercial veggie burgers.

They made good sandwiches the next day too.

Chickpea Burgers
2/3 cup chickpeas
1 cup packed chopped fresh spinach
2 scallions, white and light green parts, sliced
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/4 cup flour

Cook the chickpeas in plenty of simmering water until tender, 2-4 hours depending on the age of your beans. Drain.

Put the chickpeas in the food processor with all the remaining ingredients. Process until well blended. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Tip the mixture out and divide into 4 pieces. Shape into patties about 1/2 inch thick.

Warm a well-seasoned cast iron skillet over medium heat. Add just enough oil to coat the bottom lightly.

Place the burgers in the skillet and cook without touching them for 4 minutes. Check if they're lightly browned on the bottom. If they are, flip them over and cook another 4 minutes without touching. Resist the urge to press the patties while they're cooking. This would compress them even more - not a good idea.

Serve immediately.

Makes 4 burgers.

Lentil Loaf

I know many vegetarians celebrate Thanksgiving with a Tofurky, but not me. I want something beautiful as my holiday centerpiece, not something that looks like a dead animal.

So this year I will be serving a squash or pumpkin (haven't decided which one!) stuffed with lentil loaf. It will be a truly festive and seasonal dish.

With it we'll have corn and carrots, creamed spinach, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and the persimmon and pomegranate salad I made last year. (You can read the recipe here.) With goat cheese walnut puffs as appetizers and apple pie with whipped cream for dessert, we will be suitably rotund when we rise from the table. That's okay, Friday we'll have Green Soup for dinner.

Unlike the lentil loaf I made a couple of years ago which fell apart at the table, this one will hold its shape. (I know because I made it today. On Thursday I will cut the top off the squash, take out the seeds, and stuff the already cooked lentil loaf in the cavity. Then I'll cook it at 375° for an hour, by which time with luck the pumpkin will be cooked through.)

If you are going to a non-vegetarian dinner, take a couple of slices of this loaf wrapped in foil and heat it in a corner of the oven for 10-15 minutes. As long as you're not somewhere bacon is added to every dish, you'll have great sides to go with it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Lentil Loaf
2 tsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled
2 sticks celery, chopped
1/3 cup kidney beans, cooked (or 1 14-oz can, drained)
1/3 cup brown lentils, cooked (or 1 14-oz can, drained)
1 egg
1 carrot, grated
1/2 cup Cheddar, grated
1 cup whole wheat bread crumbs
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp tomato ketchup
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp chili powder

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Sauté the onion, garlic and celery in the olive oil until tender, about 5 minutes.

Put the kidney beans and lentils in the food processor. Add the egg and the onion mixture. Process until smooth.

Pour into a large bowl. Add the remaining ingredients, along with salt and pepper to taste.

Grease a 9x5x3 inch loaf pan. Spoon the mixture in the pan, smooth the top, and bake one hour.

Let rest a few minutes before tipping out of the pan to serve. (Or let it cool in the pan.)

Can be served any way meatloaf is: with vegetables and mashed potatoes and gravy, cold in a sandwich, shaped into patties and dipped in breadcrumbs and fried like burgers, or as I will be doing Thursday - stuffed into a pumpkin.

Makes one loaf - enough for 8-10 servings.