Black Bean Veggie Burgers

It has been a couple of months, and in that time, I have learned a lot about myself. This journey of self discovery has led me to one major conclusion: I am a horrible blogger. I think I discovered why I probably shouldn't have started a blog only because the name was mildly clever. Ok, who am I kidding, it's an immensely clever name. I really should try to actually blog though. Like even just a little bit. It isn't like I never cook or bake, I just don't take pictures and put them online ever. It shouldn't be this hard. *Sigh*

So here I am, Friday night, blogging for the people who begged me to blog (Jakob). Here you go, my one follower, this blog is for you! And what better way to please my Jewish friend than with kosher veggie burgers!!! Yeeehaaw!!

I have made these a few times with a variety of seasonings. They are so versatile and could easily be made with an endless variety of spices and herbs. The recipe is probably my favorite combination. In fact, just writing this blog makes me want to remake them. As a side note, I make most of my meals for one. That being said, I love recipes that I can freeze for later meals, and this recipe is one of them. It makes 6 (ish) patties, but I froze half for a different week so I wouldn't get sick of them. Then, after 3 days I was in love and thawed them anyway and ate veggie burgers six days in a row. I went through a lot of ketchup that week.

One thing that I think needs to be said (regrettably) is that I have not tried these burgers out on veggie haters. I have no idea if said haters would be hatin' on my patties. Whatever. More for me.

Black Bean Veggie Burger:
(Yields 6 patties)

Ingredients:
1 Tbsp. oil of choice (I used canola)
1/2 red onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, diced or pressed
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1 medium zucchini, shredded
1 medium carrot, shredded
1 15 oz can black beans
1 cup quick oats
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
1 egg
1 Tbsp. canola oil
1 Tbsp blackening seasoning

Directions:
Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and cook until tender.
Add the chili powder, cumin, salt, zucchini, and carrot and cook until most of the moisture is gone (if it looks like the veggies are going to cook too much, then just strain some of the extra liquid out of the skillet).
While the veggies are cooking, put the beans in a large bowl and mash them so that it is mostly a paste.
After the veggies are done cooking, add them to the black beans with the quick oats, breadcrumbs and egg. Stir until well combined.
Form mixture into 6 patties (if the mixture is too moist, add more breadcrumbs until the desired consistency is achieved). Lightly dust each patty with blackening seasoning (this might not end up being a full tablespoon).
In a clean skillet, heat the other Tbsp. of oil.
Brown both sides of each patty for about 5 minutes or until cooked through.
Serve on a bun, or in a tortilla, or on a salad, or with cheese, or with ketchup, or with bacon (no, I'm not kidding about putting pork on a veggie burger), or with whatever else you feel like you should put on this burger. Endless options, for realzies.

Groundhog Day Cupcakes

Here's the deal y'all. Valentine's day is coming up soon, as is the super bowl, and President's day. I could have blogged about any and all of these holidays, but I didn't want to cook lots of meat or purchase doilies with hearts on them. Instead, I have chosen to honor Groundhog Day.

As many people know, Punxsutawney Phil has decided for the rest of us that winter will indeed be extended. I'm a bit dubious considering it's 80 degrees outside today and I think Texas has decided to skip winter. I bet March will be in the 100s, which is awesome... I want a real winter. 

Okay but really, Groundhog Day is a really super amazing holiday to celebrate. I mean you have shadows, and possible weather changes, and an animal that's small and furry, and there are probably a million gazillion more interesting and exciting things I don't know about. But for real y'all, it gave me an excuse to make cupcakes! So that's a plus. Now, I know what you're thinking, but no, I did not make cupcakes out of wood and shadows in order to celebrate such a monumental event. Instead, I opted for the earth-toned chocolate with chocolate cream cheese frosting. Oh but I put some dirt on it. Oh and there's a groundhog popping it's little head out! 

I'm going to admit, that I got a little carried away with the faces. Honestly, who doesn't want a hipster groundhog, or an angry groundhog? I even tried to make a mustache (pretty sure that attempt ended in failure), but all of them seemed somewhat adorable to me. Can we please take a minute to look at the whole herd of the little buggers? Gosh, I love them...

... then I bite off their head!


Anyhoo, here are the supplies needed to make these guys:

Cupcakes (recipe follows)
Icing (recipe follows)
Crushed up Oreos
Milano cookies
Black frosting/gel
White sprinkles
Slivered almonds


CHOCOLATE CAKE (adapted from Allrecipes)
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup cold brewed coffee
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vinegar


Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 F
Line two muffin tins with cupcake liners.
Mix the first 6 ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Once combined, whisk in the eggs, coffe, milk, oil and vinegar. (The final mixture will be very liquidy.)
Spoon or pour the batter into prepared muffin tins.
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until done. 
Let cool.


CHOCOLATE CHEESE ICING (adapted from Allrecipes)
Ingredients:
1 8 oz. package of cream cheese
1 stick of butter (or one half cup of butter)
2-4 cups of sifted powdered sugar (depending on how sweet you like your icing)
3/4 cup sifted cocoa powder
1-2 Tbsp. milk (depending on how much it takes to get the desired consistency)

Directions:
Beat together the cream cheese and butter until light and well-combined. Slowly incorporate the powdered sugar and cocoa powder into the cream cheese mixture until well combined. Add milk until desired consistency is reached.

GROUNDHOG ASSEMBLY (adapted from about 800 blogs...)
Crush up the Oreos until fine (I used a fork because that is literally all I had, but much better methods would include a food processor, or putting the cookies in a plastic bag and smashing them with a heavy object).
Frost each cupcake and dip them into the Oreo crumb mixture.
Break the Milano cookies in half and using the black piping frosting, pipe on the face of the groundhog (it's ok, you are allowed to be creative).
Break the almonds in half. Put a dab of frosting onto the end of the slivered and halved almond, and place it on where the ears would be. 
Take a sprinkle and place it on the groundhog's lip. (I don't know why writing this line made me giggle...)
Pick up the Milano cookie groundhog and put some icing onto the bottom and stick him onto the cupcake. 
Take pictures/ share with friends/ "hog" them all to yourself! :)

Blueberry Banana Bread

Since this is primarily a food blog, I guess I can start with talking about food, but I really want to bitch about inadequate kitchen lighting which caused my photos to look nasty and off-colored. But first the food. Now, like many bakers and cooks and, well, frankly anyone who enjoys creating pretty much anything (cars, paintings, bombs), the amount I bake or cook increases exponentially during times of stress. This is why I think the holidays are kind of nice. Not really because I love spending time with my always amicable family (eye roll), but because I have the joy of baking a smorgasbord of cookies and pies and such. Kitchen therapy is so much cheaper than an actual therapist.

That's where this blueberry bread came from. It's stress bread. Well, actually, it should be a chocolate chip banana bread (which gets baked in our house at least once a week), but I wanted to change it up. Pretty sure my family almost killed me for leaving out the chocolate, but before they could impale me with their swords, I shouted out all of the phytochemicals blueberries contain for like an hour and forced them to listen! They loved it. Truly. Hence why I am still alive.

Ok so I can bitch now right? I'm very disappointed with the lighting of the kitchen. These pictures look like I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. Maybe I don't, but I promise, I'm working on it. One day, I'll probably win some pretty bad-ass photography awards or something. It's debatable, but I'm thinking I might be a prodigy. However, right now I just really hate these lights and am going to need to find a solution like buying a new house or some other highly logical solution.

Blah blah blah... but what all five of my readers really care about is the recipe. I know. I can hear you all right now yearning to know how to make this super delicious and healthy bread. Oh but I failed to say just how healthy it is! Blueberries! Whole wheat! Bananas! Applesauce! Low fat! Tender! Delicious! Amazing! Food of the gods!

If that didn't convince anyone, it's because nobody has read this blog...

Ingredients:
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1 scant tsp salt
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup apple sauce
3 very ripe bananas, mashed
2 cups blueberries (or chocolate chips, or nuts, or dried fruit, or skittles... but that might be odd)

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Combine both flours, salt and baking soda in a medium sized mixing bowl and set aside. In a separate mixing bowl, whisk the oil and sugar until well blended. Beat in both eggs, one at a time. Once blended and light in color, slowly add the flour mixture and stir until ALMOST combined (you don't want to stir too much because it will overdevelop the gluten which will cause the bread to be chewy).

Add apple sauce and mashed bananas and blend until just combined (still don't stir too much!!). Gently stir in the blueberries and pour into well greased bread pan.

Bake for 1 hour or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, and then flip onto cooling rack to continue cooling.

Dig in (hint: if using chocolate chips, eat this bread warm).

Pizza No. 1

Things to note about me. I love cheese. LOVE CHEESE!! Thus, pizza could possibly be my favorite meal. Unfortunately, I completely lose all self control when it comes to pizza and just want to eat the whole thing with complete disregard to my health and stomach size. Usually, a meal of pizza ends with me moaning on the couch saying things like "I want to die!" and "never again!" I believe this to be a lifelong struggle that may or may not require years of therapy. Alas, I always live (which consequently means that I will inevitable eat pizza again; it's an endless cycle).

Because of this tragic lack of self control, I limit my pizza consumption throughout the year. This self-inflicted abstinence has led me to a state of depression. I realized at some point that there was a simple solution: make my own healthy, portion controlled pizza.

Ok now here is the part when I have to admit something to the world (yes, the world I eat). I can't just eat any pizza. I'm a pizza snob. It's frustrating and annoying to pretty much everyone around me. I stick my nose up to the typical take-out, shun the frozen section at the grocery store, and judge people for partaking in buffets. Sorry national pizza chains, I don't like you. That being said, I couldn't just go get a personal "healthy" pizza from the grocery store or something and call it a day. So I did what any normal pizza loving person would do. I read for hours on the internet about pizza and soon came up with a game plan to make my own. I must admit, my personal pizza skills need some work, but at the end of the day, if you smother anything with Fontina and garlic, how can you really go wrong?

My recipes were adapted from Smitten Kitchen and Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

Pizza Dough:

2 cups WW flour
2 1/2 cups AP flour
1 tablespoon salt
2 1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 1/2 cup lukewarm water
3 tablespoons olive oil

Stir first four ingredients in a large bowl. Once mixed, add the remaining two ingredients and mix until combined. Dump ingredients onto clean surface and knead for one or two minutes.

Return dough to well oiled bowl and wrap with plastic wrap and put in the fridge. Leave in fridge all day (my fridge is too cold so I took it out an hour or so early to warm up and rise some more). When doubled in size, take out of fridge and press down to deflate with the palm of your hand. Separate into three balls, cover with plastic wrap and let rise for an additional 20 min.

Once dough has almost fully risen, heat oven to the highest temperature (mine was 550 F) with pizza stone placed in upper third of the oven (due to the demise of my pizza stone, I used an upside down heavy cooking sheet). Roll out each crust onto a piece of parchment paper lightly dusted with cornmeal. Add desired toppings to first pizza crust. Slide the parchment paper with pizza onto the pizza stone. Bake for 10 minutes or until cheese is browning lightly on top.

Pizza Sauce (This recipe is really for pasta, but I was too excited to try it so I used it for pizza as well. As my family learned later, this sauce is definitely better as a pasta sauce, but whateves.)

28 oz can whole pealed tomatoes
4 tablespoons butter
1 medium yellow onion pealed and cut in half
Salt to taste

Pour tomatoes into a saucepan with butter. Add onion halves. Stew sauce over low heat for 45 min, stirring occasionally. When the onion has softened, remove it from the sauce and reserve for a later use.

Pizza Toppings:

Pizza 1: sauce, mozzarella, and fresh basil
Pizza 2: crushed garlic, fontina, prosciutto, and topped with arugula after it was out of the oven
Pizza 3: mozzarella, Fontina, Gorgonzola, olives, red onion, and mushrooms

All and all, I need to try attempt number 2. "Jenny Eat World" might turn into "Jenny Eat Pizza... Often".

Contemplation of Veganism

I have to be honest here, I have no idea how to write a blog. However, I have recently been toying with the idea of going vegan or not, and I thought this might be a good medium for me to work out the pros and cons. That being said, I'm just going to go ahead and list some pros and cons:


Pros:
1. It's healthy (as evidenced by research and shit)
2. It saves the animals!!!!
3. I would like to stay on good terms with Peta
4. Vegan recipes intrigue me. How do their cakes turn out so similar normal people cakes? How come sometimes tofu tastes so delicious?
5. KALE!! (I'm utilizing two exclamation points because I want to be "in" with this whole kale thing)

Cons:
1. Prosciutto
2. Aged gruyere
3. Pretty much all other cheeses
4. Butter
5. Properly made cakes (you know, with eggs in them)


Well, I think I have shown some pretty convincing evidence that I should stay an omnivore. Mostly I think due to cheese. But also aged meats. I think every time a vegan has to turn down some prosciutto, a small, sensible part in them dies. That being said, I really do want to be mostly vegan. Just with emphasis on the "mostly" part of it. Maybe I'll blog about it again. Wouldn't everyone who reads this love that????

On a more serious note, this omnivorous self realization has mostly made me understand that I need to add some pictures. This shit is boring. Next blog, there will be some pictures. Of food. Because this is a food blog damnit!!!