April Danann's Mung Bean Burger Recipe

As promised.....here is my recipe for Mung Bean burgers....I posted this sometime last year, but have updated it and here it is again. These are the absolute best bean burgers ever (yes, I know it's my own recipe! LOL) and is something I have made for my family for years....now available at my market stall in Skibbereen on Saturday's. 

Oh, and these are best served with homemade mayo or honey mustard for dipping....

Mung Bean Burgers

1-2 cups of dried mung beans (or more if you want more burgers!)

3 cloves garlic

2 cups or more of chopped vegetables (onions, broccoli, scallions, leeks, etc.)

1 cup of cooked or raw chopped  fresh herbs or spinach

½ cup of grated carrot

Spices and Sea Salt

Olive oil

Sunflower oil for frying or baking

o Soak the mung beans for 48 hours (or until sprouted) in lots of water. Drain, rinse the beans and discard the soaking liquid. Put all the mung beans, raw or cooked herbs or spinach, spices (coriander, cumin, black pepper) and raw garlic in a blender or food processor with a little olive oil. Blend or process until you have a smooth and light batter. Transfer the batter into a deep bowl.

o Stir in chopped vegetables - scallions, onions, leeks, grated carrot, chopped cooked spinach, herbs to taste and cilantro if desired. Use the vegetables you have on hand- sometimes I use grated pumpkin or squash, and cooked green lentils.

o Using a frying pan, cook as you would a pancake- spoon some of the mixture onto the pan and flatten with the spatula, fry until crispy on each side then place onto newspaper to soak up oil – sprinkle with salt.

o   Or the mixture can be placed into an oiled pan and placed in the oven for about 30-40 minutes. I spread artichoke pate over the top when I bake it, to give it an added taste.

o   These burgers change as the vegetables you have on hand change and also you can vary the amount of vegetables you add in- we like it chunky with lots of onions and the spinach makes it moist. These are great served with a rice stir-fry and onion rings made with spelt/gram flour batter on a Saturday night in with the movies!

These can be frozen and will keep for a couple of days in the fridge....they taste great re-heated under the grill for a few minutes to crisp them up. We also make cheese bean burgers with lovely local smoked cheese.....(sigh).

Enjoy (and come visit me at my market stall)

April

A Meatless Sunday Meal....

Not so long ago I was vegan - and had been for nearly 6 years, before that I was vegetarian off and on for a few years (quite a few!). One of the regular foods we ate during those years was some sort of nut loaf.

I say some sort because I would make them with nearly anything that I had on hand - of course your basic ingredients might be ground nuts, however, after that anything goes. These last few days I have been rethinking my nut loaf recipe and decided to make one for the children.

Today I had some soaked mung beans on hand, extra walnuts, some olives, lots of spices and a fresh goose egg. The mung beans had been mixed and ground (after sprouting for 2 days) with fresh herbs from the garden, garlic, onion and leeks.

I then ground the walnuts and just started adding what I could find. One of the nicest things about a loaf of any type is that it will all bake up together with some of the flavours blending throughout the entire dish.

Mung beans tend to stay together quite well when sprouted and blended - earlier in the day I had made a few bean burgers with them, which is one of our favourite foods. But, I do like to create something different from time to time, even when using the same vegetable ingredients.

Perhaps it has a little to do with retaining the spiritual connection with our foods while aligning ourselves to nature's forces - that to me, now means to make the majority of our plates from the vegetable and herb kingdom, but to also be in touch with the meats you are eating as well.

Meat per se is not a negative - what tends to be dark about it, is when it is laced with unknown medications, fed GM ingredients, stressed out and full of toxins. Of course now there is the very real situation of not getting the meat you are paying for....

Vegetables and animals you grow, prepare and cook yourself are a fairly safe bet!! LOL

April

Bean & Nut Loaf with olives and garlic....

End of the Week Stew

Tomorrow is market day, the day we buy all our vegetables and fruit for the week. Actually we try to shop as little as we can, producing as much of our own food and growing anything that will grow. That way we have less opportunity to bring home things we do not need. 

So far, we are able to grow all our own herbs, onions, salad leaves, greens, leeks, some carrots, runner beans, peas, and of course we are waiting on a few other little 'crops' to mature. It is the highlight of my day going out into the garden with a basket to see what I can find for our meals.

Today being the end of the week, there is not much left over from our shopping last Saturday - a couple carrots, one leek, sweet potatoes, avocado and onions, garlic and that's about it. When I first looked over the selection, my thought was - we need more vegetables to make a meal.

But then I quickly realized that all I needed was here. Right now I am looking at the meals I have prepared for the day and I am quite pleased with making something from 'nothing'! 

Since I had mung beans soaking for some bean burgers, I took a few beans and put them in a pot with seaweed. To this I added 4 sweet potatoes and one of the carrots all chopped. Then I sautéed garlic and 2 large onions with turmeric, cumin, salt and pepper and this went into the stew.

End of Week Stew cooking 

When the stew was nearly ready I went into the garden, to find French sorrel, chives, Welsh Onion, parsley and some other leaves. I used about a cup all total - chopped up and stirred into the bubbling stew. I only let this cook for another few minutes and then turned it off. It smelled lovely and was rich and thick by now. 

While this was cooking I made some guacamole from the avocado, garlic, lemon, olive oil and fresh parsley. This is one of my favorite snack foods, avocado is so good for your skin, digestion and of course all that raw garlic can't be bad for you either. I usually put extra in mine. LOL

Freshly made guacamole 

I put this together with some crackers and goat's cheese muffins left over from last night and voila! A wonderful meal. 

Homemade crackers and muffins

The rest of the veggies (onion, carrot, leek) will go for our mung bean burgers later tonight and I am off to the garden to gather more greens and herbs for them. Fresh parsley and coriander are always lovely in these burgers. 

Living like this, close to the land, being conscious of our food and taking the time to remain in touch with our bodies brings us back to the basics of what is really important far more then being able to open a tin of soup or order a take away meal. 

Food is life and it feels good to be alive.

Have a healthy day,

April

Mung bean and sweet potato stew 

Bean Burgers

Yesterday was what we refer to in our house as a 'big eating day' or a day with a big meal of several courses and dessert. This is as opposed to a fast day, cleanse day, small eating day or festival! All of which are very different from each other and have their own significant meanings, rituals and celebrations.

For our big eating day, which usually follows our 10 day Master Cleanses - by way of a little celebration - we decided to have a mung bean burger feast with sheeps' cheese, roasted root vegetables, jasmine rice stir-fry with fresh greens/herbs from the garden and peach ice cream for dessert. 

Those of you who have my 1st recipe book The Way to Heal - Body, Mind & Soul, would be familiar with this recipe that has been loved by my family for a few years now. These are the absolute best bean burgers that you can possibly make and are preferred here over lamb burgers.

To make the bean burgers the main ingredient (mung beans) must first be sprouted over 2 or more days, I find them ideal after about 48 hours or so. Then once the beans are ready these are ground together with fresh greens such as spinach or yesterday I used baby rocket leaves from my garden and garlic.

Soaking Mung Beans

We then add grated carrot, chopped onion, leeks and broccoli to this burger base mixing it thoroughly and then frying it in hot sunflower oil. (And no, they do not fall apart) These are lovely with a piece of mature goat's cheese, homemade mayo and fresh naan bread right out of the oven. 

Needless to say, yesterday was a lovely meal for us - the culmination of days and weeks spent cleansing, cleaning and detoxing. I can only imagine how lovely next week will be with the harvest feast (Lughnasdh) just around the corner! 

Mung Bean Mixture - with rocket and garlic

Voila - bean burgers! 

Have a lovely day,

April