coconut-curry chickpea quinoa pineapple burger

Sometimes you just need to sink your teeth into a nice burger. Being a vegetarian (A lifestyle choice, my diet used to consist of Doritos and pasta…when did I eat fruit? I couldn’t answer that) that doesn’t happen. BUT every once and a while you get a reaaaalllyy good veggie burger. One that can win any meat lovers heart. If you like Indian spices, smooth coconut and bursts of warm pineapple…you’ll being making this burger weekly.  This burger pairs perfectly with sweet potato fries, your favorite chips, or cold veggies with dip.

I found this great recipe over at cheekykitchen.com. SO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOD.

Chickpea Quinoa Pineapple Burger

Ingredients:

1 can chickpeas, drained
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon curry
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon Goya Adobo Seasoning (or onion salt)(Haley: I used 1/2 teaspoon onion powder and a dash of salt)
1/4 cup fresh chives or scallions, chopped (Haley: I used a bit of chopped red onion)
1/2 cup quinoa, cooked
2/3 cup panko breadcrumbs (Haley: I made my own quickly my toasting bread in the oven and chopping in my food processor)
4 slices fresh pineapple
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seed oil
1/4 cup mayonnaise or something similar
lime zest
pepper
4  hamburger buns
4 teaspoons butter
lettuce

(Haley: I also added slices of red onion)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place the chickpeas, coconut milk, curry, garam masala, adobo seasoning, and garlic powder in a food processor. Pulse until pureed. Stir in the chives, Quinoa, and panko crumbs. Form into 4 patties.

Heat a grill pan over medium-high heat. Drizzle the pan with olive oil and a bit of sesame oil. Pan fry patties until golden brown on each side. Then set aside the patties and grill the pineapple until golden brown grill lines appear on each side of the fruit.

Butter the inside halves of the hamburger buns with Earth Balance butter. Bake, buttered sides up, in an oven preheated to 400 degrees until the butter is melted and the buns are toasty.

In a small bowl, stir together the lime zest, pepper, and mayonnaise.

Serve the Chickpea burgers topped with grilled pineapple, your flavored mayonnaise, and a bit of lettuce on top of your burger buns.

Pinecocoban Popsicles (pineapple, coconut and banana)

These popsicles are simple and quite yummy. 1 can coconut milk, 1 can pineapple (+ juice), 2 bananas, 1/2 tsp vanilla. Blend it up, pour it in a mold, pop in a stick, freeze it, eat it.

After using my old yogurt containers, I realized that the shape was not conducive to eating very easily. Ha.

So I happened to be in the dollar tree yesterday and found one. I grabbed it and the cashier struck up a conversation about popsicles. The conversation went like this:

Cashier: “Oh, it’s popsicle time for sure!”

Me: “Yup.”

C: “So these are for the kiddos right?”

M: “Well, no. There for me.”

C: Dumbfounded look…”But they are so small.”

M: Confused by her confusion, “I’ll eat two.”

C: “Okay you must not have seen our other popsicles. Let me show you.”

At this point she walks away from the counter with all my stuff on it and a line of people waiting to check out.

C: “Come ‘ere!”

M: “Uurrrr…okay.”

C: “Okay see these. This is what you want. You get 6 pops, same as your mold. But they are a little bigger, and you don’t have to make anything.”

She holds up a box of generic brand sour-gummy popsicles (neon green again…the color that should give you a hint that it’s probably not a good addition to your diet.)

M: (lying to be nice) “Oh yeah…those do look good. Wow…I wonder what’s in these?”

Flip box over.

M: Under my breath: “Oh wow…150 calories per pop, 34 grams of sugar” (that’s basically a can of coke per popsicle)

C: “Mhhmm.”

M: I read silently the ingredient list: Water, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, sugar, orange juice (from concentrate), contains 1 percent or less of each of the following: malic acid, citric acid, guar gum, natural flavor, locust bean gum, annatto (for color).

The cashier must have been reading it over my shoulder as well because suddenly she says:

C: “Locust bean gum?”

M: “You know, I think I’ll just stick with what I’ve got. I’ve already got the ingredients at home.”

C: “Yeah…what the hell is loctus bean gum?”

M: “I dunno…”

C: “I’m Lydia by the way…what do you put in your popsicles?”

:)