Homemade Adzuki Bean Burgers

Recently I've started eating less meat and so I've been experimenting with some vegetarian recipes!

A lot of the vegetarian meat-substitutes that I've seen in the supermarket tend to have a mushroom base, and as I consider mushrooms to be my food hell they seemed less than appealing!

I like bean burgers so I thought it would be a good place to start!

I found this recipe made 3 large burgers

Ingredients

100g adzuki beans

100g quinoa

1 carrot

1 egg

Salt and Pepper

1 tablespoon tomato ketchup

2 teaspoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon chilli flakes

This makes a sweet and spicy burger, if you prefer a savoury option, swap out the ketchup and brown sugar for 2 teaspoons of paprika and a clove of chopped, fried garlic.

Preparation

I buy my adzuki beans dried so they need soaking overnight before they can be cooked

For 1 part adzuki beans, add 5 parts water

Cooking

Cook the adzuki beans in 500ml of water. Boil for 10 minutes and then simmer for 40 minutes.

Drain the beans and mash them lightly with a fork.

In another pan, cook the quinoa in 400ml of water, simmering for 20 minutes.

Drain the quinoa and add to the mashed adzuki beans.

Set the oven to 180°C (fan assisted, 200°C for non-fan ovens) and line an oven tray with greaseproof paper.

Grate in the carrot, add the ketchup, brown sugar and egg.

Salt and pepper to taste.

The mixture is quite sloppy, but don't be put off by that! When the mixture is baked, the egg firms up the burgers.

I put large handfuls of the mixture onto the lined baking tray and flattened them into burger shapes (use a spoon if you like, I just like getting hands on with my cooking!). This made 3 large burgers.

I cooked them for 15-20 minutes until the burgers began to crisp around the edges

They were delicious! I had mine with some lettuce, cheddar cheese and (yet more) ketchup!

The burgers are moist in the middle and crisp on the outside!

The other burgers I kept in the fridge and when I wanted to have another I warmed them up in the oven for about 15 minutes.

These will definitely be added to my regular rotation of meals!

Hannah x

Homemade skinny oven chips

I love chips. If I could have them with all my meals I probably would. But sense (and my waist line!) tells me that's probably not the best thing to do.

We went through a phase of buying lots of frozen oven chips, they're easy to just shove into the oven and forget about, but they're pretty average taste-wise.

Then we decided that they couldn't be that hard to make, they would just take a little bit more effort, but they would be a whole lot tastier!

And damn, were we right! Now every time we have chips, it's these bad boys that we're chowing down on!

So here we go: homemade skinny oven chips!

First and Foremost: Which potatoes?

In my opinion, the best kind of potato to go for to get the best chips are the fluffy ones, something along the lines of Maris Piper or King Edwards. This means that when you bake them they will be crunchy on the outside and nice and fluffy on the inside.

Method:

I generally go for one medium sized potato (about the size of a fist) per person for this recipe.

You can peel your potatoes or leave the skins on depending on your preference. I've kept the skins on for this batch. C

Set the oven to about 180°C (fan assisted, 200°C for non-fan ovens)

Cut the potatoes lengthways into slices of about 1/2cm, then cut these slices into 1/2cm wide chips

Put the chips into some boiling water for about 5-10 minutes, just to blanch the potato so there is less cooking required in the oven

Drain the chips, and add some olive oil (enough to coat the chips), some salt and some pepper and mix well

Put the chips onto an oven tray or a crisper tray and cook for approximately 20 minutes ( or until chips are golden brown, turning occasionally

These guys turned out a little crispier around the edges due to my ovens tendency to create random hot spots in the oven, but they tasted fantastic!

Experiment with flavours!

We've tried a couple of different ones (garlic and rosemary, paprika and onion granules) so add your favourite flavours at the olive oil stage and experiment away!

Hope you enjoy!

Hannah x

Return to the blog

So things have been a bit hectic in my life recently, leaving me no time whatsoever for blog writing!
However, now that things have calmed down considerably, I thought it was high time that I got back on the proverbial horse.

Hopefully I'll be blogging more regularly now, so I hope you enjoy what you see!

Hannah x