Considering I just purchased 25 lbs(!) of dried large lima beans, the main ingredient for these veggie burgers was decided. I have also been eating a lot of eggplant lately. Despite what Alton Brown says, they are not nutritional wastelands, but are actually rather good for you.
Feast your eyes on this beautiful and hearty tower of alternating eggplant, roasted onions, and lima bean burger layers, set atop romaine lettuce and topped with roasted garlic, tomatoes, tahini, and cilantro.
The tahini is not the only ingredient making this dish Lebanese. The lima bean burgers are jam-packed with the traditional spices of the region.
Layer eggplant, roasted onions, and burger on romaine lettuce. Repeat. Finish with garlic slices, tomatoes, tahini, and cilantro.
These pictures don’t do justice to this favorite. Raw collard greens are so delicious and make for sturdy wraps in place of the standard high-carb, grain-based options.
With all my recent trips to the farmers’ markets, I’ve really come to appreciate eggplant. I like to simply fry the rounds with onions, garlic, and peppers. For this wrap, I laid them out on the collard leaves and added scallions, basil (or is that sage?), tomatoes, and hot sauce. It looks like this particular incarnation also has tempeh and maybe mushrooms in there.
It is, it is tempeh! LOL. This one has chunks of mango instead of tomato. Other common fillings at my house include seitan and split pea curries, though with the latter romaine wraps work better, as they provide just that much more crispiness to offset the softer interior.
Just last month, over at The Feral Vegetarian Yahoo! group, we were discussing our favorite baked desserts. I offered up as mine: peanut butter or oatmeal cookies, both with chocolate chips; pecan pie; and, I lamented, prior to going vegan, the cheesecake brownies of my college days. Someone responded with the suggestion that I try to create my own vegan version using Tofutti cream cheese. As I do not use the prepared vegan cheeses, my creativity was stretched even further. Nevertheless, it sounded like a good and fun idea. So, here is my first attempt.
Brownies
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup raisins
4 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder*
1 teaspoon baking soda*
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Hazelnut Cheese
30 grams hazelnuts
20 grams (1/4 cup) oats
3/4 - 1 cup water
1 Tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
First prepare hazelnut cheese by pureeing all its ingredients in a blender until smooth. Place over medium heat in a saucepan and cook until thickened to desired consistency. Cool in refrigerator. Preheat oven to 350°F.
Plump raisins in hot water for fifteen minutes. Sift together dry ingredients. Drain raisins and combine with maple syrup and vanilla in a blender. Process until smooth. Mix gently, but thoroughly into dry ingredients.
Pour chocolate batter into a well-oiled,, 9×9 baking pan. Drop blobs of hazelnut cheese over top and gently spread to create a marble effect. I used 1/2 the cheese and saved the rest. Next time, I’ll likely use more and add sweetener to the cheese itself as well, so the brownie part doesn’t have to perform these duties by itself.
Bake for 15-20 minutes. Makes 8, fudgy, servings.
I set these out at work with the “warning” that they were an experiment in veganizing a favorite. The responses were all positive, with several commenting that they were very chocolatey and one saying you could not tell there was no dairy.
Each serving, as shown here, is 140 calories, 2 g fat, 2 g fiber, 2 g protein, 31 g carb.
I hit up a different farmers’ market on Monday, taking advantage of the computers being down at work to take off a little early. And what a beautiful, seventy degree day it was. This one is in the middle of my old University stomping grounds. (You know you’re getting older when all the college students look like they’re fourteen!)
The yellow tomatoes are known as peach tomatoes and indeed have a fuzzy exterior. Most of the striped ones are called, appropriately enough, zebra tomatoes. There’s another kind there too, but I forget what he said it was.
Then there’s a Japanese eggplant, some pattypan squash, and other varieties. (Nothing so simple as a baby summer squash, as I had guessed. Sorry, their names elude me too.)
Let’s see, we have leeks, which I had actually never tried before, a mesclun blend, beets, red potatoes, broccoli, yellow and red onions, hot peppers, a huge bunch of basil with roots attached (sadly, on its way out), and a couple corn on the cob.
Eggplant with a half peck of apples. Those are McIntosh apples in the back and two Cortlands up front.
All I can say is, what took me so long!? In the last couple of days, I’ve hit up two separate farmers’ markets in my area. And, oh what I’ve been missing! We are talking the freshest, ripest, and sweetest produce I’ve had all summer.
This last quality may be the most under-appreciated of local, just-picked veggies by the uninitiated. I know it surprised me. Even the hot peppers and garlic, which I enjoy eating raw as well as cooked, had so much more flavor and sweetness, without losing their heat and/or bite.
Kale. Summer squash. Ripe tomatoes. Basil. I also picked up a couple okra as well, at 25¢/each, but they didn’t make it to the spread.
I almost bought some beautiful, huge shiitake mushrooms from this one fella, but I chickened out. He explained how he had seeded a log a year or so ago and it only just this year came up all over the place. Maybe next time.
Corn. Hardneck garlics: “Georgian Fire” befriending, appropriately, the hot peppers, and “Romanian” varieties. Onion. Bell pepper. Tomatillos (one peeled, one not). Green beans. Scallions.
The lady selling the garlic, onion, and basil really knew her stuff about the garlic varieties and had little pictures showing the cross-sections. I’ve not knowingly had the hardneck garlics before. They are much easier to handle, seeing as they only have four large cloves around a woody stem. She also had some purple basil as well. I’m kicking myself for not trying it. Again, maybe next time.
Red eggplant resting on a bed of baby green leaf lettuce. Of course, your standard big purple one is on the right. Then there’s another eggplant variety, that round, pink one, for which I, unfortunately, no longer remember the name on the sign. Red and yellow tomatoes. Cucumbers. Bell and hot peppers. Common softneck garlic.
I overheard someone asking the farmer selling the eggplants (and more) whether he had any winter squashes. His response was that the weather this summer had caused a late harvest, but they were coming. More incentive to return. It seems early October is when these places close up shop, so I have some time yet to rectify my transgression of not frequenting them earlier. The prices were probably higher than in the grocery stores, but so worth it. And you’re sure to learn something new while there.
or, if you can resist, pour into miniature springform pans or English muffin molds and let set overnight in the refrigerator.
The craters on the top were formed when I lifted the plastic wrap off the next day. Obviously, the inspiration for the name.
And the dark side of the moon:
Look at these numbers, where a serving size is HALF the recipe! A little high in carbs, if you worry about that kind of thing, but also a good amount of protein and relatively low in calories for such a substantial treat. Quite possibly the healthiest non-soy-based pudding around. And, oh so fragrant and delicious.
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I have also been eating a lot of eggplant lately. Despite what Alton Brown says, they are not nutritional wastelands, but are actually rather good for you.
