Meatless Mondays -- Corn & Two-Bean Burgers

Just as I post here each and every week, our family continues to take part in Meatless Mondays, dinner edition. At some point, in the near future, maybe we will also make it a full day, with no meat at breakfast, lunch or dinner. However, for now, Erin & I continue to enjoy trying new recipes and seeing what we do and don't like in terms of vegetarian fair.

Tonight, we made Corn & Two Bean Burgers with a side of sweet potato waffle fries.

I think that Erin was somewhat hesitant to try the burgers. I tried to go easy on her, as I've been wanting to try Lentil burgers for some time now. However, we had all the ingredients for this meal, so I chose this option tonight. According to Erin, "they were okay," and said "they weren't bad, I would eat them again." Erin was nonplussed with the consistency. I, on the other hand, really enjoyed them, which is somewhat surprising.

Many of you that know me well, or that join us for dinner here in our home, or out and about, know what a fan of the burger I am. I consider myself a bit of a hamburger virtuoso. In fact, I'd go as far to say that a hamburger is my most favorite food. If I were about to be executed, a hamburger would be a part of my last meal. I've tried all sorts of them, from beef, turkey and chicken, to mushroom, shrimp and even spam.



In form, they took to patty well, and friend to a nice color, very similar to a beef burger (except for the kernels of corn). The consistency was fine. They crisp a little on the outside, but they don't quite hold up as well as a burger would. We topped them with sliced tomato and green leaf lettuce, as well as muenster cheese. I added the ketchup from the recipe, with one accidental change. Instead of chipotle, I used chili powder. It still tasted pretty good.

On the side, we added Alexia All Natural Waffle-Cut Sweet Potato (from the freezer section at Winn Dixie). We'd never made sweet potatoes before, so we cheated, but they were fantastic (and much lower in fat and calories than store bought fries). The girls even ate up the sweet potato fries. I used the extra ketchup from the burgers for my fries, which added a nice zing.

One tip, in my opinion, is to use a lesser bread product than a bun, and we opted for deli flats, which we use in place of buns and bread a lot. Erin feels that it would have been a better burger experience if we had used fancy rolls, so we might try that next time.

I will certainly make these again, and we will certainly eat them again. However, I will continue to search for a good burger alternative for meatless meals. My three mushroom burger was a good example of how good a meatless burger really can be. In the coming weeks, I will make those again and post my own recipe for that.

Until next time, happy eating!

Meatless Mondays - Vegetable Lasagna

Last night, I made my famous Mushroom Lasagna, a constantly evolving dish (read, constantly improving) that sort of morphed into Vegetable Lasagna (click the link -- every time I say vegetable lasagna, I think of this).

In our continuing effort to eat vegetarian on Monday nights, I made this lasagna meatless. It isn't necessarily low calorie, but its lower calorie than a typical lasagna.

I started with two types of mushrooms, baby bella and white mushrooms (just the caps, I don't use the stump, myself -- note, I often use cremini as well, but they weren't available at Target, so we skipped them), and sliced up some zucchini. In addition, I used lasagna noodles, red sauce (1.5 jars), white sauce (1/2 jar), low fat sour cream (you can use ricotta or cottage cheese in its place), mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese and spinach (i used frozen, but it must be defrosted and wrung out completely -- you can use fresh).

I don't cook the noodles in advance. Save the time and effort. I start with a very thin layer of red sauce at the bottom of the pan, and a layer of noodles, covered in a thicker layer of red sauce. Next, I made a layer of thinly sliced zucchini, followed by a layer of white sauce. On top of the white sauce, I put the layer of baby bellas and spinach, covered by a thin layer of sour cream. Next, the second layer of noodles, covered again in red sauce, with a second layer of zucchini and the white mushrooms. On a side note, for the mushrooms, I mostly just capped them, and cut them into halves (except the large ones) as chunky mushrooms, in my opinion, make it feel bulkier and more satisfying. On top, I put a good layer of mozzarella cheese, sprinkled a small amount of parmesan cheese and added a few small dollops of red sauce for appearance. You'll want to bake it for about 45 minutes, at 375 degrees. It is best if you let it sit for about 30 minutes, to solidify, but if your family are hungry hungry hippos (I'm not calling anyone fat here!), they won't likely want to wait. The final result looked like this:













I served this tasty dish with bread sticks and a veggie salad. The veggie salad was composed of the leftover zucchini slices (halved), carrot pieces and chunked tomato in a zesty Italian dressing and a little bit of mozzarella.

I would love to hear if any of you guys try this, and what you think of it. My family loves it, even though it changes every time. I wouldn't recommend shiitake musrooms or oyster mushrooms for this lasagna, as I didn't personally enjoy the lasagna much the times I tried adding either of those.

As always, happy eating! I'll be back next week, hopefully with something somewhat exotic (like lentil burgers).

Pictures

I took the girls yesterday to the park because I wanted to get some updated pictures of them, but also because I am currently feeling insanely frustrated with my photography. I am not saying this to fish for compliments. I know I have an eye for what I do. I am certainly better than the average person. But I just feel like I am not at the level I wish I were. I would LOVE one day to be able to make a living photographing weddings and families. But until I figure out how to make my pictures what I want them to be, that just isn't going to happen. So I am feeling discouraged, to say the least.

Yesterday's trip was not a very successful endeavor. I can photograph other children just fine. I constantly get great shots of kids (and adults as well!). I have a ton of patience when it comes to photography trying lots of different things and completely making a fool of myself in order to get that perfect shot. Except when it comes to my own children. I guess I feel like they should listen better to me? But instead, they just do not take me seriously behind the camera. They run away, don't sit where I tell them, won't look at the camera, make silly faces...  Maybe when their older they'll be better models. In the meantime, I will remember these ages by goofy expressions and the backs of their heads. :)

But here are a few of my favorites from this attempt. I'll have to try again soon, maybe next time with backup.

Gimmie some attitude!

This one was a great smile of Sissy's!

Then Sissy got over it.

Sleepy eyes.

Jordan playing in the dirt.