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

Lentil Pot Pie with Pumpkin

My children love pies – and they ask for them all the time. However, these are not sweet pies or desserts they are hoping for – they are wanting a savory pie made with lentils, beans, vegetables and anything else on the go.

With all my years spent being either vegetarian or vegan, this was not a dish I had ever taken to much. I wonder if I had always associated pot pie with those little dishes that come from a factory with bits of chicken in them….

Having trained in those factories during my time as a Food Hygiene Inspector and again while completing my degrees in food and packaging – I would never have been drawn to eating them, making them or buying them. They kind of creeped me out....

But of course now when I am creating, making and cooking all our food from scratch, I know I can make pot pie with anything (and everything!) with some wonderfully delicious results.

Yesterday I had a huge pot of lentil stew ready – it kind of got away from me – as I had vegetables to use up and just kept loading them into the stock pot. After everyone had been well fed, I decided to use up the rest of the stew and make some pot pies – as a surprise.

After taking some of the liquid off – but not too much – I cooked even more vegetables (pumpkin and sautéd onions) to create a thicker filling. These were added to the deep dishes ready to be filled, I also buttered the inside of each dish a little before filling.

Next I covered the pumpkin mixture with scoops of the lentil stew until each dish was nearly full. After liberally salting and peppering over the top of the vegetables, it was ready for a crust. A thicker topping is something that seems to go very well with this type of dish as well. 

I was a bit dubious about how to go about this – I wanted it to lend a very savory flavour to each dish – mainly because the lentils are so earthy, so I made a bread with spelt flour, goat’s milk and water, lots of rosemary, thyme, baking soda and my homemade cinnamon mustard.

This was spooned over the top – and spread it out a little around the middle of the lentils – leaving room at the edges for the pie filling to bubble up.

I think it turned out very well – there’s nothing left!

April

Lentil Pot Pie with Pumpkin

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....