Lentil-Walnut Burgers

It's Labor Day Weekend, and I kicked mine off by making Lentil-Walnut Burgers. This weekend will be full of sunshine, grilling, exercise, kidlets, family and friends. We're off to a delicious start!

I boiled lentils on the stove and mixed them with apple cider vinegar.

Then I mashed the dickens out of them with a potato masher!

As luck would have it, I had the perfect amount of walnuts left in this zippy walnut bag.  I left them in and used the handle of a knife to mash them to smithereens!  Upon reflection, this would be a great recipe to make if you have a lot of aggression to get out.

Once everything was mashed and bashed, I cooked the veggies on the stove: onion, garlic, mushroom, and spinach, seasoned with dry mustard. The walnuts went in too.

Look at all that goodness!  Soft, minced up bits of goodness.

Everything went into a bowl: veggie mix, mashed lentils, and some bread crumbs. The bowl chilled in the fridge for an hour.

Then it was time to pop some tots into the oven, slice up some burger toppers, form patties and fry these burgers up!

(Sidenote: Hey Trader Joe's!  Want to sponsor me?  I purchase virtually all of my goods from you!  While your at it, you should sponsor my dear blogfriend Ainsley too ... !)

Just a little oil in the pan goes a long way.

These looked so much like beef burgers ... it was eerie!  The taste was totally out of this world. Flaky, crispy, with the depth of lentils and the familiar flavor of onion and garlic. The green specks of spinach reminded me that I am a very happy, healthy girl.  I served these burgers bunless, with cheese, tomato, pickles, and tots. Lots of mustard and ketchup on the side. The only downside was that these crumbled quite a bit when I sunk my fork into them. Otherwise a totally beautiful, delightful, vegetarian dinner!

Salad Sandwiches

I know it sounds a little crazy, but these Salad Sandwiches were sans sliced meat and cheese and were TOTALLY BODACIOUS! As a recently recommitted full fledged vegetarian, I have been relying heavily on cheese for fun and flavor. This meal showed me that you can have substantial taste without the added fat and calories from cheese.

I began the spectacular salad sandwich journey by gathering the necessary ingredients.

I'd like to take a moment right now to apologize for the lighting in my kitchen. It's terrible, I know. I don't have the time and patience to make beautiful food in beautiful daytime light everyday, so my post late night school situation will have to do from time to time. I hope you will still date me.

After gathering came rinsing, slicing, and shredding.  The crispy lettuce was rinsed and patted down, the cucumber, onion, and tomato was thinly sliced, and the carrot was shredded. I decided, before embarking on this sandwich adventure, to have all of the toppings ready to go for assembly.  I wanted the real sandwich deli effect here, folks!

The recipe called for "slices of great bread."  In this house, we go for the greatest: Dave's Killer Bread! This bread seriously rocks. It is organic, vegan, and comes with an inspiring message. A thin layer of mayonnaise went on the bread, followed by some salt and pepper, the veggies, and a drizzle of balsamic vinaigrette.  I accidentally forgot to put the lettuce on the sandwich, so I improvised and put it under the bread. Truly a salad sandwich!

I served the salad sandwiches with some extra slices of cucumber and some delicious tots (so much for the calories and fat slashed from cheese!). Here are a few rare photos of myself enjoying my sandwich. I don't like to slather my face all over this blog, but this sandwich was so out of this world delicious, that after my first bite, I knew the goodness needed to be documented!

Thanks for reading!