Clean Eating #87: Meatless Black Bean & Lentil Burgers

Meatless Black Bean & Lentil Burgers

I started with this recipe from www.cleaneatingmag.com and used what I had on hand and changed a few things because yes, I'm too lazy to go to the store again.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 1/2 cup lentils, cooked and drained
• 1 1/2 cup black beans
• 1/2 cup crushed whole grain crackers or bread crumbs
• 2 egg whites
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup diced yellow onion
• 2 small/medium carrots finely shredded
• 1/2 Zucchini, finely shredded
• 2 tbsp ground flaxseed
• 5 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 baked tomato
• 1 tsp chile powder
• 1 tsp garlic pepper
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• 1 cup cooked long-grain brown rice (I used our already seasoned leftovers from last night)
• 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• "breading" (I used the leftover breading from our chicken fingers)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Combine half of all the beans, rice, crackers, flaxseed, mustard, tomato together and puree in the blender.
2. Mix with remaining ingredients and stir together well.
3. All is well and good at this point, but my "burgers" were way too loose and sticky at this point, so I decided to give them a light coating of 'breading' to help.  It worked:)
4. Form into patties and dip in the breading on a plate.
5. place in a preheated skillet, lightly oiled.  Cook on medium for about 5 minutes per side.  
6. Top with cheese if you like and viola!  Yummy!

What I'd do Differently Next Time:

First off, I know I ruined the "Vegan" concept here by adding eggs and my kids added cheese to theirs... but I couldn't get it to stick together at all... and this is a journey for me, I'm NOT Vegan at this point, although I would like to lean more in that direction, I'm still not even completely vegetarian.  Baby steps, people.  ANYWAY, if there is a better way to get things to stick together, please enlighten me!

Also, what can I do for a more firm texture?  I pureed a lot of the ingredients because I knew that would be what my kids preferred, but my hubby likes it chunkier, so I'll definitely leave some chunky next time, but what about FIRMNESS?  Is there something specifically that I'm missing?

The FLAVOR was FANTASTIC.  Paris, the Bean, Jaedin and I really liked them.  Squatch-doesn't-like-change wouldn't even try it.  My husband has 'resigned' himself to the fact that we'll eventually at least be full out vegetarians, so he was willing to try it.  Like me, he liked the flavor, but didn't like the texture... so help me, oh wise people!!

Sorry I haven't been keeping up with things.  This is a really hard time of year for me and I struggle a lot with even maintaining my daily life.  I am hopefully on the upswing now, so I'll try to be more consistent!