Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

For long time now, I have wanted to prepare vegetarian burgers, or rather it was my husband’s long pending request and I finally made it yesterday from Jai and Bee’s blog. Their Spicy Kidney Bean Burgers is a fantastic recipe. I was able to prepare it for dinner in no time.

I used canned and drained kidney beans (2 cans, 15.5 oz each). It was also the “No Salt Added” store brand canned beans, this allowed me to control the sodium content in the burgers.

I don’t have a food processor, so at first I just drained one can and rinsed it well and mixed all the other ingredients listed in the recipe and blended it using my Indian mixer. And let me tell you, it was little tricky to get the right consistency. Initially it did not grind at all and once I added a little water it became very mushy. I was glad that I reserved the other can. Now I opened the 2nd can, drained and rinsed it and mashed the beans nicely with a potato masher and mixed the ground mixture to this. Even then I was not able to make balls out of it. So instead of adding flour to the mixture as they had mentioned, I added a handful of quick cooking oats and I got the desirable consistency to shape them into burgers.

I also used curry powder and Maggi’s tomato chili ketchup to give it a desi taste. The original recipe mentions to use either ajwain (omam) or cumin, but I strongly suggest to go with ajwain, because I felt that it gave a very good flavor and aroma to the burgers. I also did not have nutritional yeast, so used roasted chick pea flour (besan) instead. Also don’t forget to add the 1/4 cup of chopped almonds, because this gives a nice crunch to the burgers, which you don’t want to miss.

I used a stove top non stick griddle to cook the burgers. Sprayed the grill with non stick canola oil spray and placed the burgers on it. It took around 8 -10 minutes for one side. Let it cook completely on one side, don’t be in hurry and bother to turn them immediately, because it will lose it’s shape. After 8 minutes or so, slowly flip it over the other side and let it cook for another 7-8 minutes. For 2 cans of beans I got 8 medium size burgers.

For the buns, I used Arnold’s Select 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Thins. It is a mere 100 calories, with 6gm fiber and 5gm protein and it doesn’t taste like mulch also

We had our burgers on a bed of iceberg lettuce, grilled zucchini with a side of potato/sweet potato fries. (Ya I know, was trying to reproduce their original menu!)

Jai and Bee we loved them absolutely. Thank you very much for such an easy and healthy recipe. Your Recipe Rocks!

This is also my entry to Zlamushka’s Tried and Tasted event.

Last year during Navrathiri (Dasara), I was preparing green peas sundal (curry).  I soaked dried green peas overnight and pressure cooked it the following day.  But I guess I added more water than required, so the peas were mashed.  I was wondering what to do with so much peas.  First I thought of making cutlets, but my husband is not a big fan.  That day I was going to prepare chapathis for dinner.  So I got the idea of mixing the mashed peas to the roti flour and prepare rotis.  The rotis were so soft and added bonus we get the fiber and proteins of the peas also.  So now I prepare it quite often with different types of beans. 

Ingredients:
There is as such no strict measurements.  It’s just mixing mashed beans with the regular chapati flour and preparing the rotis. 
Any type of cooked beans (I used half a can of red kidney beans this time)
Whole Wheat Flour – 1.5 cups
Salt
Oil

Procedure to prepare the mashed beans:
1.  You can either cook the dried beans yourself and prepare the rotis or use canned beans.

2.  For cooking the dried beans, soak it overnight.  Add the beans and water (more than the usual amount you use) to the pressure cooker and leave it for 1 whistle.  You will get a nice mushy mixture.  You can also add grated ginger/asafoetida while cooking the beans to aid digestion of the beans. 

3.  If you are using canned beans, drain the beans in a colander and rinse it well under running water.  Add the beans and little water and blend it to a smooth consistency, like hummus.  Be careful while adding water, we need a semi solid paste of the beans.

How to make rotis?
1.  Now combine the mashed beans, flour, salt and oil to form the dough.  Knead it well.

2.  Pinch a golf ball size dough.  Knead it again and roll it in whole wheat flour which is set aside for dusting.  Flour the surface and roll the dough into a circle.

3.  Cook it on a heated griddle on both the sides by applying little oil or spraying non stick cooking spray.  You can either cook it one by one or use this tip of rolling out all the rotis at once and then cooking them.

My Notes:
1.  You can use any type of cooked beans or can also use a combination of 2 or 3 types of beans. 

2.  You can also add spices to the flour, like garam masala, red chili powder etc, so that you need not prepare a separate side dish.  These masala rotis can be had with yogurt.

This goes to Srivalli’s Roti Mela.

This one also goes to Sangeeth’s Eat Healthy Event, this month’s theme being Fiber Rich.

 Also thanks to everybody for voting for me in the Open Sesame Contest May 08 edition.

(Click the image for a bigger view)

I’m happy to inform everybody that this is my first entry for the prestigious CLICK photo contest.  I didn’t have the idea of taking part in the contest until this evening.  Like many other bloggers, I have this pre-conceived notion that it’s for great photographers.  So I didn’t even bother to think about participating in it.

At this juncture I would like to mention one other thing.  Actually I don’t take any pictures for my blog.  I arrange the food and my husband being a photography enthusiast, takes the pictures.  I was taking it earlier when we had the simple Sony Cybershot digital camera.  But recently my husband bought the Canon EOS 40D camera and I have not yet learned to operate it, so for the time being “JK” is the official food photographer. 

He ALWAYS has the habit of rushing through things in the last minute, and that’s how he got the idea of participating in the event this morning.  I was telling him that we can do it in June, but he was determined to make it this month itself.  He has this idea that, only when we near a deadline, we can become more creative.  I hate to admit that, but he was right. 

We got all these crazy ideas and he started taking pictures of various beans and lentils around 4 PM.  He was telling something about using different cookie cutters and to fill them up with different types of beans.  So I thought of making flowers with round and heart shape cutters.  But that did not come out properly.  Then suddenly an idea flashed in my mind, why not use alphabet cookie cutters to spell out CLICK and fill it with different beans.  So I tried it out and it did look good, but it was plain.  I felt that soemthing was missing and moreover there was a little white color smudge mark on top of “K”.  So I had to do it once again in another clean place.  Then I got the idea of having a border around the word and started working on it.  In the meantime the sun started to set and on the other side my toddler was trying to pull the poster board on which I was working.  Finally I was able to complete it and my husband took some pictures.  I think it has come out decent.

Here is another click on the same theme:

I really loved this experience of working with my husband or rather arguing with him.  So eagerly looking forward to take part in the contest every month. 

Thank you very much Jai and Bee.