Black Bean Burgers & Sweet Potato Fries

This is actually take two of attempting to make black bean burgers and I'm still not sure that I have perfected it.

Here is the recipe that I used.

Against my better instincts, I included the egg (I think they would be fine without), and I didn't have enough bread crumbs so I put in some cracker crumbs. Both of those are no-nos on Miss May's diet, and I think I could have found suitable substitutes. I think next time I will use oats instead of bread crumbs. I also included a few carrots and used less chili powder and hot sauce (because, kids).

Here's what I would modify it too:

Black Bean Burgers
Ingredients:

• 1 16oz can black beans, drained
• 1/2 green bell pepper
• 1/2 onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• 3 small carrots
• 1/2 Tablespoon chili powder
• 1 Tablespoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon hot sauce
• 1/2 cup quick oats

In a bowl, use a potato masher to smash the black beans until a thick paste is formed. In a food processor, finely chop bell pepper, onion, garlic and carrots. Mix into beans. Add seasonings and oats and blend until the mixture is sticky and holds together. Form into patties. Cook in pan on medium high heat. Flip to cook both sides. Serve on a whole wheat bun.

This is what the mixture looked like before it was cooked. I used my Pampered Chef scooper to get all the patties the same size.

The trickiest part was trying to get the patties flat. I cooked them on the stove in a frying pan and used the back of a spatula to smoosh them but it kept getting stuck. Eventually, I got the hang of it. I thought they were really good, and the kids ate them pretty well.

I served them with some homemade sweet potato fries. This is something I have yet to perfect, but I'm going to keep trying because I love them!

Most of the "healthy" sweet potato fry recipes I've found basically say: cut up a sweet potato, put it on a pan with some oil and a little salt (Line the pan with aluminum foil. Trust me.), and cook for a long time. I cooked this batch at 400° for 50 minutes.

The result - delicious but mushy sweet potatoes. I'm not sure they would count as fries because fries should be crispy.

So I'll keep working on that.

Being goofy

My kids love their condiments. I need to find some without sugar/dairy. Working on that.

We had some spinach with the burgers. These kids were being silly with it. But at least they will eat it!

And I can't forget - I love recipes that can easily be turned into leftovers. I had a few bean patties left over the next day. They didn't hold together very well, so I mashed them up, added a little tomato sauce, and called it sloppy joes. Made a great lunch!