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black bean burgers

Posted on March 3, 2010 by Jen

I made a great dinner tonight!  I am finding that I am getting much better and more comfortable at putting together my own recipes.  This one tonight turned out great!

But first, I snacked on some dried mango slices (no sugar added) on my commute home.

Sometimes I need a small snack to keep from eating everything in sight when I get home!  This helps me make it while I cook dinner.

For dinner I made Black Bean Veggie Burgers with Garlicky Greens.  I just kind of threw some things together to make the burger.  Here is what I came up with:

Black Bean Veggie Burgers


Ingredients:

  • 1 can black beans
  • 1/2 red onion
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1 celery stalk
  • 1 tsp paprika
  • 1 tsp chile pepper
  • 1/4 cup rolled oats
  • 3 tbsp cilantro hummus

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.  Then chop up the onion, celery and garlic.  Saute them in a little olive oil until cooked through.

2. Then add the spices and mix.

3.  Mix together the cooked veggies, rinsed black beans and oats.

4.  Then stir in the hummus.

5.  Form into 3 patties and bake for 20 minutes.

Garlicky Greens (from 101cookbooks.com)

Ingredients:

  • 1 large bunch of kale
  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • fine grain sea salt
  • 5 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped
  • 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese (opt)
  • crushed red pepper flakes

Directions:

  1. Tear kale into small pieces, rinse and dry.
  2. Add the olive oil, salt and kale to a pan and cook until wilted.
  3. Add the chopped garlic and cook a few minutes more.
  4. Turn off heat and toss with Parmesan cheese and a sprinkling of red pepper flakes.
  5. Serve immediately

The black bean burgers and sauteed kale made a great dinner!  Unfortunately, I realized after I got home that we didn’t have any bread, so I served the burger ‘naked’.

With a side of the greens and plantain chips.

And a side of cilantro/roasted red pepper hummus.

It was a delicious meal.  The burger was not overly moist, but definitely not dry.  I really liked it!

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Filed under: Recipes | Tagged: , | 6 Comments »

roasted chickpeas

Posted on March 3, 2010 by Jen

It has been a good day so far!  I woke up on time (well, early enough to get a run in!) and had a great breakfast and lunch!

Once I finally peeled myself from my toasty bed this morning, I quickly got dressed and headed out on a 7 mile run (with some speedwork).  No time for a pre-workout snack and I was regretting that about mile 3.

Workout

7 mile run with 4×1600 (.25 recovery between each)

  • 1 – 7:40
  • 2 – 7:57
  • 3 – 8:00
  • 4 – 8:20

The other miles were warmup, cooldown and recovery between miles.  Guess I went out a little fast, huh?  Opps!  Lesson learned. 🙂

After my workout, all I wanted was a big glass of juice.  So, I searched the fridge for some fruit and veggies.  Lucky for me, we had some fruit that was on it’s last legs – a little too overripe for eating, but perfect for juicing!  I hate wasting food, so making juice is a perfect way to use up this stuff.

Into the mix went the following:

  • 1 green apple
  • 1 orange
  • 1/2 lemon
  • 1 (squishy) golden beet
  • 2 celery stalks
  • 4 kale leaves
  • 2 carrots

I love citrus in my juice, it really cuts the taste or kale or spinach or other leafy greens.

YUM!  A few minutes later:

A huge glass of delicious juice!

Just what I wanted.

I also had the best snack on my way to work.  A piece of millet toast with Cacao Bliss and Raspberry Superfruit Jam, and a banana because I was still hungry! 

I enjoyed this snack while reading my book on my T ride.

This is what the outbound redline train looks like at 8am in the morning.

That’s right, no one on it!  Just me and my book.  Lovely!

Lunch was a treat today!  Last night, I spent some time roasting chickpeas while our dinner was cooking.  I used Mama P’s recipe and followed it almost exactly.  They came out so good!!

Pumpkin Spice Roasted Chickpeas

  • 1 can of chickpeas, rinsed, drained and patted dry
  • 2 T. maple syrup
  • 1 t. canola oil (I used coconut oil)
  • 1 t. apple cider vinegar
  • 1/8 t. salt
  • 1/4 t. nutmeg
  • 1/4 t. ginger
  • 3/4 t. cinnamon

I preheated the oven to 350°F, then combined all of the ingredients in a bowl and mixed well, until all of the chickpeas were coated.

I then spread them out onto a baking sheet (or pan in this case) and baked them for 40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so to make sure they cooked evenly.

They came out perfectly browned and delicious!  I’m adding them to my salad today, but I might make these again as an appetizer when we have friends over.

I added 1/2 of the chickpeas to my salad today (saved 1/2 for tomorrow).  My salad included baby spinach, roasted chickpeas, toasted pecans, green apple slices, cheddar cheese with oats and raisins (from TJ’s) and a splash of pear infused vinegar.

So good.  Enough said.  Try this combo, pronto!

I added an additional treat to my snack by trying a new product from Kaia Foods!  I have not tried many of their products, but I love the mission behind Kaia Foods.  Kaia foods was founded with the belief that our health is best supported by eating an abundance of minimally processed whole foods. We sprout, mix and dehydrate our organic foods at low temperatures so that they remain ‘raw.’ No baking, frying, bleaching, or weird processing steps!  Once I try everything, you’ll get a big review!

I tried out the Cacao Bliss Buckwheat Granola.

 

It looks delicious, doesn’t it?! 

 

I added 1/2 of a serving to my Oikos Chocolate Greek Yogurt.

My verdict:  I like it!  But, it has a bit of a different taste than you would expect.  I haven’t had buckwheat before, but I’m wondering if that is the distinct taste.  At first, I didn’t love it, but it grew on me bite by bite.  It is crunchy and chocolatey, and worked perfectly when I crumbled it into my yogurt.  I would definitely eat (and buy) this again!

The granola has 220 calories and 8 grams of fat in a 1/2 cup serving, and the ingredient list is great (compared to other mass produced granola’s out there which have lists to long to take the time to read).  Ingredients: buckwheat*, agave nectar*, raisins*, dried coconut*, cacao powder*, ground flax seed*, sunflower seeds*, pumpkin seeds*, walnuts*, natural vanilla extract, spices, and mineral salt. (*organic)

Just a little fact from me – If I look at a product’s ingredient list and it has a list a mile long, I just put it back.  It doesn’t matter how much I really want that product!  If it has a long list, then is it artificial and processed and I do not want to eat it.  You can most likely find a similar product out there that is much better for you (and it might surprise you how much better the healthier product tastes!).

Filed under: Product Reviews, Recipes, Running Laps | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »