Mushroom Bean Burgers

Clarence and I have dipped our toe in the pool of vegetarianism.  To my surprise Clarence "the vegetable hater" was the one that suggested that we convert from our carnivore ways.  I was all for it.  Give me a steak from a grass fed organic cow and I'll gladly cook and stuff it in my face, but that's not exactly economical or realistic in the city. 
Factory farmed food is getting out of control.  The environmental impact and the chemicals/antibiotics/and poor diets fed to the animals meant of our consumption unnerve me.

I have a bit of a book obsession so I was happy to start buying all kinds of vegan/vegetarian cookbooks to play with in the kitchen .  My favorite by far has been The Happy Herbivore written by the fantastic Lindsay Nixon.  Her blog by the same name is great for the newly vegetarian (she's vegan but I adapt freely as I have a unstoppable cheese addiction), with extremely easy recipes with simple ingredients.  The recipe below is adapted from her version based on what I had on hand and what sounded good at the time.

What you need:

• 1 can of pinto beans (or 1 1/2 cups cooked pinto beans)
• 4 T steak sauce (my recipe is below, or A1 would work too)
• 1/4 c bread crumbs
• 2T flax meal (Bob's Red Mill sells the best)
• 1t each onion and garlic powder
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1T soy sauce (low sodium!)
• 5 medium sized mushrooms (I used white), minced
• 1t cooking oil (I used grapeseed oil)

To prepare:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees
2. Put the beans in a medium sized bowl and smash them with a fork or potato masher.
3. Add the steak sauce, bread crumbs, flax and spices.  Re-mash.
4. In a small pan, add the cooking oil and minced mushrooms and bring to medium heat.  Saute until soft, about 4 minutes.
5. Add the soy sauce to the mushrooms and stir in.  Let simmer a couple more minutes.
6. Add the mushrooms to the bean mix and re-mash again until everything is a nice paste and well combined.
1. NOTE: The mix may seem wet.  Personally, after all the 'veggie burgers' I've made homemade, I've preferred the more moist ones to drier versions.  To each their own.  There is no reason why you couldn't add more bread crumbs or flax until you liked they way it looked
7.  Grease or line a baking sheet.
8. Form the size of burgers you'd like to eat (we made sliders) and place on the baking sheet.
9. Bake for 5 minutes, flip, bake for another 5 minutes
10. Flip one more time and add some cheese if you'd like, turn the oven off and bake for 3-5 minutes more.
1. baking times may vary.  My oven cooks very hot.

Once done, fancy up your burger buns with your favorite sauces and veggies and enjoy.  I'll definitely be making these again.  I'm thinking that on my next try I might add minced onion and bell pepper to the mushroom mix which I think sounds amazing!

If you're anything like me you always assume you have what you need to make supper and then are quite surprised to find you are lacking an odd number of ingredients.  That's what happened to me last night.  So I whipped up a batch of 'steak sauce' (see below), at least as close to steak sauce as I could get, and ended up using it in the recipe and as a dipping sauce for my tatter tots!

Whisk the following together and store leftovers in an air tight container: 

• 1/2 c Ketchup
• 1/8 c each
• Lemon Juice
• Worcestershire Sauce
• Apple cider vinegar
• water
• 1T prepared mustard of your choice
• 1t each garlic and onion powder
• 1T brown Sugar

 ENJOY!