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

Homemade Sushi - Maki rolls

So this weekend I made lots and lots of sushi maki rolls

They're really fun and suprisingly easy to make, and the best part is you can put whatever you fancy in them!

You do need a few basic starter things to make sushi that you're unlikely to have already, but I found that there were only a few things that I didn't already have in the kitchen

So here is a picture of everything I used for my rolls!

On top of the ingredients listed below you will need a bamboo rolling mat to roll your sushi, you can get them from all good Asian supermarkets and some larger regular supermarkets.

Basic Main Ingredients:

• Sushi rice
• Sugar
• Salt
• White rice vinegar (white wine vinegar can work as a substitute)
• Yaki nori (dried seaweed) sheets

Making the sushi rice

I find 250g of rice makes a decent quantity of rice.

You want to wash the rice really thoroughly before you boil it, I put it into a sieve and run it under the tap for a few minutes before transferring to a pan

Add approx 300ml of water and bring to the boil

Stir the rice to make sure it isn't stuck to the bottom of the pan

Once the rice is boiling, reduce to the heat so the water is just simmering, put a lid on the pan and leave for approx 10 minutes

After 10 minutes, turn off the heat and leave to cool for about half an hour

DO NOT TRY AND USE THE RICE HOT, IT WILL RUIN YOUR SEAWEED SHEETS!

After half an hour, stir in 3 tablespoons of white rice vinegar, 2 tablespoons of sugar and a teaspoon of salt to flavour

Ta da!

Now that the rice is ready you can choose your fillings!

For my ones I used smoked salmon, tuna and king prawns as the main ingredients.

I also added red pepper, cucumber, cream cheese and chives.

I chopped the pepper and cucumber into long thin slices and seasoned my tuna with lime, ginger and soy sauce

So the one I took photos of to demonstrate the technique had smoked salmon, cream cheese, cucumber and chive in it, yum!

Here's a pictorial guide to rolling your sushi!

First place your seaweed sheet onto your rolling mat and layer some of the rice on top

Then in the centre of the rice add your fillings

Try and stack them tall, as it will help when you come to roll them out

Grab the edge nearest to you and fold it tightly over the fillings, pressing down evenly along its length

Roll the mat back

The roll the edge furthest from you towards the roll

This time roll the entire mat around the sushi roll and firmly squeeze the roll to bind the ingredients together
Some might fall out the ends, but there is not really much you do about this!

Unroll your mat and you are left with a long roll

Take a very sharp knife and cut slices from the roll. I find it works best if you are very gentle and cut in a sawing motion, otherwise they get squashed and the filling falls out either side!

Beautiful!

From the 250g of rice I managed to make this amount of sushi:

So have fun choosing your fillings and enjoy your homemade sushi!


Hannah x