Tuesday 26 January 2016

'What's For Dinner?' - Lentil Burgers with Root Veggie Fries

Hello Everybody!

Today is the beginning of my new segment 'What's for Dinner?' where I will be choosing a vegetarian meal/dessert, cooking it then reviewing it for all of you lovely people!  I'll be going through things such as availability of ingredients, cost, time and level of difficulty. I really hope you enjoy these posts! I'll be aiming to post them monthly, if there are any meals that you would like me to try and review for you let me know in the comments.  However for the first few I will just take them out of the many cook books we own.  Also just remember if you want to recommend any make sure they are vegetarian!



So lets jump straight into it.  Tonight I will be reviewing White Bean and Red Lentil Burgers with a side dish of Root Veggie Fries that I cooked up last Friday out of the wonderful Thug Kitchen Cook Book.  Firstly for this you will obviously need the following list of ingredients. Wonderfully though, for most vegetarians the majority of these ingredients will already be stocked in your cupboard.


For the Burgers:
Half cup red lentils
Two thirds cup water
Three cups cooked white beans
Half red onion, chopped
Three cloves garlic, minced
One Jalapeno, minces
Half cup bread crumbs
One and a teaspoon smoked paprika
One and a half teaspoon mixed herbs
One teaspoon ground cumin
One tablespoon olive oil
Half teaspoon salt
Grated Zest of half a lemon
Cooking spray
Burger fillings; buns, tomato, lettuce etc. 

For the Fries:
Five tablespoons white flour
Half a teaspoon garlic powder
Half a teaspoon chili powder
Pinch of salt
One tablespoon lemon juice
One teaspoon soy sauce or tamari
Two tablespoons olive oil
Two pounds root vegetable, peeled and cut into small chip sizes


Now, for the average vegetarian, as I said most of these spices, beans and oils will already be on hand.  For me, the only ingredients I had to go out and buy were the white beans, red onion, garlic powder, chili powders, and lemon juice.  However I did not add the Jalapeno or lime zest so honestly I probably paid a total of $20AUD for the lot. However if you had none of the ingredients and had to buy the lot, I would estimate that it would be no more than $100AUD, so not extremely cheap however once you have the spices and sauces you won't have to buy them again for a while.  
Now for the method; both the patties and the fries are very simple with only a few steps for each.  Start by cranking your oven to 200 degrees Celsius (425 degrees Fahrenheit).
For the Patties basically all you have to do is cook the lentils in the water for approximately 10mins, drain the water and let cool.  Mash the white beans in a large bowl, add the lentils and the rest of the ingredients (not the fillings or cooking spray). Shape into patties, place on a lined baking tray and place in the fridge for minimum 30mins while you prep the fries. 
For the Fries, mix together the flour, spices, and salt in a small bowl.  Toss together the lemon juice, soy sauce and olive oil in a large bowl and add the veggies.  Sprinkle the spice mixture over the roots and mix until everything is coated.  Spread the roots over a lined baking tray and place in the oven.  Lightly coat each of the patties with some cooking spray and place them in the oven with the fries and bake for about 30 mins turning halfway through.  When they are all golden and cooked, serve the burgers up with your fave burger filling and dipping sauce for the fries.  I wasn't very adventurous and just used barbecue sauce.  


To be honest this is a fairly quick meal to make, the only time consuming part is letting the patties sit, so I would definitely recommend preparing the patties first, maybe earlier before you want to start cooking dinner so all you have to do is prepare the fries.  The baking time is basically 30 minutes, maybe a little longer for the fries depending on how big you have cut them.  When I took mine out of the oven after cooking for 30 minutes they were just on the borderline of cooked so I didn't mind but they could have cooked for a further 10mins.  I am not one for spicy food so this was never really going to be a favourite for me but I am so glad I tried it because it is very nice.  There are so many spice flavours that work so well together but for me it was a bit too much, the chili powder in the coating on the fries was a little too hot for me and I found myself constantly reaching for my glass of milk so you could definitely say I was glad I didn't add the jalapenos.  However if you love spicy foods or experimenting with recipes this may be a new favourite or you may add it to your list of 'need to try meals'.  All in all I would definitely cook it again but I would tweak the recipe so that it isn't so spicy and I would probably add something more to the patties such as capsicum or carrot just for something different.  I would say that even beginners to cooking could even pull this off, I'm definitely not a professional but I have been cooking meals for a while and meals from a cookbook are one of my faves to try, especially if they look nice.

I think I have covered everything, if you have any questions feel free to comment below, if you have any meals you want me to review, let me know in the comments.  I really hope you enjoyed this sort of post because I loved posting it and can't wait to post more in the future.  Let me know if you have the same cook book and your opinions on it! Thanks again guys.

Until Next Time
BrittanieDe-Ann xoxo


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