barley mushroom cheesy bean balls

As I am always on the hunt for a great veggie burger I opted to finally buck the system and just wing it with my food processor. The results were great! The patties and mini balls I made all held up to a good pan frying and I am certain they would do well on the grill too (although I haven’t dug mine out yet and taken it back for it’s new wasp inhabitants)

I got to use my fancy new pressure cooker to cook the black eyes peas and barley in just 12 minutes so that is what started it all off for me.

There was some controversy amung our farm interns as to wheather or not it was cheatting if you topped a veggie burger with local happy bacon. I felt it was all wrong, they rooted for bacon, so I gave in  (they were working so hard out there moving dirt), we topped our burgers with avocado and smoked thick cut bacon and a good slab of cheese, homemade pickles, and home made ketchup… YUMM. I am a bacon veggie burger convert:) sorry my veggie friends! We ate the burgers so fast I didn’t get a chance to snap a picture… but I did manage to get a shot of these darling mini bean balls.

This recipe makes a huge batch, which yielded 9 thick and lovely burger patties as well as about 2 dozen mini bean balls.

In a large food processor combine:

1 cup cooked barley

1 cup cooked black eyed peas

1/2 cup of feta cheese

2 eggs (fresh from the chicken nesting box)

6 shitaki mushrooms (fresh or dried and soaked and drained)

a handful of parsley

1/2 cup of sunflower seeds

1 carrot

1 celery stick

4 cloves of garlic

2 tbsp grainy mustard

S+P

1 tbsp home made seasoning salt

1 tbsp tumeric

1 tbsp garlic powder

2 slices of toasted sprouted grain bread (or 3/4 cup gluten free bread crumbs or cereal flakes)

and a good amount of love

Once combined, allow to set covered in fridge for about 1 hour.

Then form into desired shape and pan fry or grill using organic veggie oil until golden brown, top or dress as you see fit and best of all ENJOY!

Summer time good eating!

seedy rice quick fry + import beers

There are so many foods I cook in volume when I cook them… to ensure the fridge is always armed with a quick fix meal, whether it’s rice, bean, lentils, ground meat or boiled eggs, I love to have them on hand. Because eating out of the pantry means planning ahead, and sometimes I am not very good at that… So when I go to the trouble of soaking beans, I make sure I have enough to make a few meals.

This quick fry rice is the perfect use for left over brown rice and an abundance of fresh eggs. Oh and all the beer cans in the picture, were just delivered from the “province of cheep beer” by a visiting friend the other day, was the perfect accompaniment for this dish. Oh Big Rock Beer!

In a wok or deep frying pan brown:

2 cloves of garlic

2 shallots

2″ ginger freshly grated

in a bleand of sesame oil and organic vegetable oil

1 small can of matchstick chopped water chestnuts

1 cup of thinly sliced green cabbage

S+P

1 tbsp chinese 5 spice

5 sichuan peppers ground

Once the onion, garlic and cabbage are just golden brown, then add:

2 cups of cooked brown rice

a drizzle sesame oil

and a good glug of rice vinegar + soy sauce or braggs

allow to cook for 5 minutes before adding:

4 eggs, cracked into a well in the middle of the pan, break yokes and run a fork through the eggs a couple times. Then wait a few minutes until they cook a little more, before running a fork through them again. Do this a couple times before mixing the egg into the rest of the dish.

Toss in a handful each of sunflower seeds, black seasame seeds,  hemp seeds, and fresh minced parsley.

Serve and enjoy. Dinner on the table in less than 15 minutes!

Seedy White Bean & Feta Veggie Balls / Burgers and Winter Kale Pesto

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I made this stellar veggie burger mix and turned it into burgers the first night and bean balls the next days, both worked out great. The veggie patty is a white bean and nut burger that came together pretty quickly. The next day I whipped up a winter pesto with kale, artichoke and sunflower seeds and used that as my sauce for corngetti and bean balls.

Seedy White Bean & Feta Burgers / Balls

Soak and cook 1 cup of white beans. I just learned that if you don’t add salt or acid to beans while they boil they cook way way faster! Why didn’t I know that before?  Set beans aside to cool, meanwhile toast 2 slices of gluten free bread cut in small cubes over medium heat with a glug of olive oil and sea salt. Remove the bread crumbs and in the same pan brown 1/2 or a large yellow onion sliced thick, cook until soft and  brown.

Beans, Barley and Lentils

The last few night I have been raiding my legume jars in search for healthy hearty meals and I created some pretty yummy, stick to the ribs dinners, perfect for dark winter nights.

Lentils and Rice

This dish was really earthy with the bright flavors of cardamom and toasted cumin, hits of garlic and citrus. When making this I used left over basmati brown rice which I often cook in over sized batched so I have extra on hand for soups and stir fry or just to entice the dog to clean her plate. Start in a deep cast iron pan by browning 1/2 of a yellow onion and 3 diced carrots in a good glug of oil along with about 2 tbsp of whole cumin seeds and sea salt. Allow the onion to brown then add 1 cup of French lentils, coat them with oil and start to simmer them in 2 cups of water. To this add 1 tbsp cardamom, 1 tbsp garlic granules, black pepper, and a squeeze of lemon juice and apple cider vinegar. Simmer this on med-low for 25 minutes, adding more water as necessary. Once the lentils are cooked add 1.5 cups of cooked rice and S+P along with 1 tbsp of nutritional yeast, a squeeze of Braggs and a little pad of butter and continue cooking for 5 more minutes. In a separate small pan toast some almond slices seasoned with a little S+P and a pinch of garlic powder. Add toasted almonds to each serving and enjoy.

Barley Risotto

My wonderful “sister in law” sent us a big ‘ol case of wine for Christmas and the lovely assortment included some white wines, which inspired me to make risotto,

stupid easy – super quick – fried rice feast

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I have been baking up a storm these days, but have neglected my blogs oh so much… tis the season I guess. I have a million images of things I have been making, however I just haven’t found the time to share recipes and post them.

I feel I am still morning the loss of my garden, and I am eager to get back into the growing season: I miss sun warmed tomatoes, and fresh greens and herbs, and my heart breaks when I have to buy lettuce these days! The one thing I am certainly not buying currently is eggs! we are flush with eggs… our little ladies are up to 7 eggs a day, this has meant lots of frittatas, macaroons, and fried egg samies!

Goats & Torts

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Slow Stewed Goat Tacos; I was trying to come up with a witty title for this recipe; bah bah black beans, goat-ita’s, chimichangoat… you get the picture, and while I realize that it may be unlikely you have goat meat in your freezer, I wanted to share this easy, meaty Mexican dish which is great for strong and gamey meats; ground lamb, venison, or elk would all be nice slowly stewed in this blend of beer and chillis. Goat is one of my favorite meats, I adore a good Caribbean goat curry with roti, and would maybe give a toe for a firy Indian goat vindalo, seriously. This was my first time cooking goat and I was really thrilled to be given a few bundles of goat meat from some new and lovely friends who are in their first year of goat keeping and very recently they learned how to pack the gents neatly into brown paper. They now have two Nubian girls left who are sweet as pie (with another hopefully on the way) and of course milk and cheese to follow…

Corngetti & Bean Balls

This dinner was picture perfect spaghetti and meat balls, only batter. It was Wheat Free, Vegan, and totally guilt free.

When I made the below barley beet and bean burgers I set aside about 1/3 of the batch which yielded about 10-12 patties total. The portion I didn’t turn into patties I rolled into little bit size “meat”balls  which I browned for dinner last night.  Dinner came together in about 15 minutes and was super easy. I started with 1/2 of a red onion and a few cloves of garlic diced and browned, simmer this with a can of tomatoes, whole stewed if you like your sauce chunky or crushed if you like it a little smoother. * I can’t wait to savor the first tomatoes from the garden this year! anyways as for garden goodie these day I had a bunch of basil and some parsley so I diced this up and added it to the simple sauce along with a pinch of S+P and a squeeze of lemon. In a separate pan (or the sauce pan if you want to do the meatballs first; simply brown the formed and refrigerated balls in olive oil slowly, rolling them around often to evenly brown all sides. Boil a package of Organic corn spaghetti toss it all together and top with more fresh herbs! Viola.

Barley Beet and Bean Burger

The only thing weird about this burger is that the beets give the patties a raw red meat colour! That aside these patties are really substantial and tasty. I added cheese into the mix but you could leave it aside for a great vegan patty which I have made with tofu instead of cheese many times. Also we devoured them so quickly I didn’t have a chance to take a picture of one all dolled up, so as you can see I just have a shot of my little one enjoying a big bite!

Boil 1 cup of pearl barley with 2 1/4 cups of water for 20 minutes or until water is absorbed (this recipe will work best if the barley is a little mushy and over cooked). While your boiling the grain; grate about 1/2 c of sweet potato,1/2 c beet and 1 carrot blend in large bowl and mix with 1 tbsp canola oil, S+P, 1/4 cup goat feta chopped or medium tofu, 1 tbsp pesto, 1/4 c pumpkin seeds, & 1 tbsp flax seeds. Blend all of this together with 1 can of refried pinto beans and the hot barley once it’s cooked.

Form into patties and refrigerate to set up for as much time as you can up to 1 day.

I don’t have an working oven right now (so sad I know:( I have a beautiful vinatge stove out in the wood shed with no electrician to help me rewire it yet) so I had to just pan fry these, but I would suggest that you bake the patties on a cookie sheet at about 350º for 20 minutes and then pan sear them in hot oil until both sides are golden brown. I had to sear them off then reduce the heat to allow the inside to cook a little. Dress and serve these as you would any burger, enjoy!