Recipe: Kasha Burgers

 

These flavorful burgers were a hit with me, though the kids needed a lot of ketchup and thought the Quinoa Burgers we had last week (Recipe to come soon!) were better.  These were tough to keep together while cooking, took some extra care.

Recipe

• 3T Coconut Oil
• 3 C Chopped Onions
• 3 C Chopped Portobello Mushrooms
• 2/3 C White Wine
• 2 C Water
• 1 1/2 t Dried Thyme
• 1/2 Dried Sage
• 3 T Soy Sauce
• Salt/Pepper to taste
• 1 C Kasha
• 3 T whole wheat flour plus extra to help form burgers

1. Heat 1 T of the oil in a large saucepan. Add the onions and saute over medium high heat, stirring occasionally, until the onions begin to caramelize.  Add the mushrooms and 1 T of the oil, saute for two more minutes, stirring frequently.

2. Add the wine, water, thyme, safe, soy sauce, black pepper and kasha.  Over high heat, bring this all to a boil.  Cover and turn the heat to low, simmer for 15 minutes.  When the kasha is ready, it should have absorbed almost all of the liquid and the grains should be tender.

3. Move this to a large bowl and let the mixture cool for about 10 minutes.  Add the flour and mix with your hands until it is well mixed.  At this point (Sunday Prep Day), I covered the mixture and refrigerated until it was burger time on Tuesday.

 4. Get the extra flour ready as it is time to form this sticky mixture into patties.

5. Heat the remaining oil in a griddle/skillet.  Carefully handle these on the pan, you should probably make thinner patties than I did to help it stay together.  A few minutes on each side, they will brown nicely, keep pushing them back into shape.   Baking may also help these hold their shape. 

6.  I served these on whole wheat rolls, with fresh greens, sliced tomato and sweet potato fries I tossed with some olive oil and oregano, baked in the oven.

Recipe: Whole Wheat Waffles

Tonight, I made Whole Wheat Waffles for dinner!  My kids have always loved eating breakfast at a time that you wouldn't expect.  Go ahead, ask them where they want to go out to eat... they will start with Denny's, IHOP and then a local diner.  

So I'm again referencing a recipe from Lisa over at 100daysofrealfood.com (Thanks!)

INGREDIENTS

• 2 large farm fresh eggs
• 1 ¾ cups milk 
• ¼ cup oil (I tried coconut oil for the first time *see below)
• 1 tablespoon honey (I used Once Again's Dawes Hill Wildflower Pure Raw Honey, Made in NY!)
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 ½ cups whole-wheat flour (I used Red Mill's organic whole-wheat flour)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ⅛ teaspoon salt
• Warmed 100% pure maple syrup for serving
• Fresh fruit for serving

     Makes 8-9 Belgium Style Waffles

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat your waffle iron.
2. In a large mixing bowl whisk together the eggs, milk, oil, honey, cinnamon, and baking soda until well combined.
3. Add in the flour, baking powder, and salt and whisk together just until the large lumps disappear.
4. When the waffle iron is hot, dab it with a little butter and then ladle some batter onto the center of the iron. Follow the instructions that came with your waffle maker to know how long it should be cooked (mine takes about 5 minutes each).
5. Keep waffles warm until you finish cooking all of them. Top with pure maple syrup and fruit. Enjoy!

I had always used a basic waffle recipe from The Joy of Cooking and found this to be so much easier, without having to separate the eggs, whip the whites and then fold them back in, which never blended well.

*I  ran into an issue, as I had just bought Coconut Oil for the first time at Wegmans (Our grocery store of choice) the other day and remembered it being a liquid. When I took it out of the cabinet, it was a solid white mass!  After some research, coconut oil turns into a solid when the temperature is under 76 degrees or so, as the temperature is here today.  It isn't affected by this change in property, but I had to warm it up in order to use it.  However, as soon as I mixed it with the liquid ingredients, the cold milk immediately made the oil clump again.  I was concerned with this, but it proved to not be an issue!

Any waffle maker should work, 100 Days of Real Food used an "Eggo" style machine, I have a "Belgium" style and it worked great.  It rose a lot more than the Joy of Cooking recipe, so I had some spillover on the first batch.  I probably would have ended up with 9 waffles, but due to overfilling the first 4, I only got 8.

I cut up some fresh peaches and raspberries to put on top and the kids wanted whipped cream, so I prepared that too.  That was easy, heavy cream whipped to stiff peaks with a teaspoon or two of maple syrup to sweeten it a bit for the kids.  

The moment of truth, would they eat these up like they did my old recipe?  Yes!!  My son "C" gobbled his up so fast I had barely started eating mine!  We decided at dinner to use a rating system for these recipes to help us decide what we like and don't. On a scale of 1-10 (low-high) this recipe scored a 10 across the board, it surpassed my expectations for what a waffle could be!