Thursday, September 01, 2011

Scraps and Snippets ~ Leftover Lentil Dilemma... Falafel Burgers



I had some lentils left over. Quite a few. And some brown rice. And no plans for din-din, and a few hungry mouths to feed, including mine.

So I threw a whole lot of stuff together and ended up with something I'm going to call a tasty Falafal Burger experiment. They aren't as pretty as they were tasty. My batch was nicely spiced and very falafaly in texture and taste. But it could've used a touch more flavor since I used a lot of bland ingredients. 
1 Cup cooked lentils (I used green, red might be prettier).
2 Cloves of garlic
1/2 onion (I didn't use this in my batch, but I needed a wee bit more flavor, this should do it.)
1/4 Cup garbanzo bean flour (or oatmeal would work, I'm thinking)
2 TBSP nutritional yeast
1 tsp cumin
3/4 to 1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp dried parsley
1/4 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp tumeric
1/2 Cup sliced baby bella mushrooms
1/2 Cup walnuts
1 Cup cooked brown rice
1/2 Cup bread crumbs
1/2 Cup fresh washed spinach
2 TBSP sesame seeds


Okay. Putting the bad boys together. First SAVE the walnuts, mushrooms, rice, spinach, sesame seeds and bread crumbs. You will pulse them in later, but not mushify them because they will give extra texture.

Everything else, mushify in food processor until combined. Then add the walnuts, rice, spinach, sesame seeds and bread crumbs, and pulse just till everything is pulled into the mixture.

Form into patties. I got seven medium sized ones, chill for a half hour of so. Then cook on sprayed skillet, flip burgers til both sides are crusty/brownish, and burger is heated sufficiently. Three or four minutes total was about what I did.

We ate them with our Super Genius Tortillas, spicy mustard, romaine lettuce, onion slices and fresh heirloom tomato slices.