Veggie Burger Bliss

Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day Weekend!  Thank you again to everyone that has served/is serving our country: )

I had a bit of a challenge this past weekend.  I wanted to throw a rockin party where I could utilize my grill and new fire pit to their full potential.  That would not usually be a challenge...except that I have several vegan and vegetarian friends.  I don't know if you realize this but BBQ cookouts are not exactly vegan/vegetarian friendly.  What to do, what to do? Hmmmm...tofurky?  No.  Vegan "chicken" drumsticks?  I don't think so.  Grilled tofu and cauliflower?  Too smelly.  Wait!  I know!  Veggie burgers!  I've been wanting to try and make veggie burgers...this is perfect!  Anyway...enough silliness, on with the veggie burger recipe. This recipe is based on a Food Network Magazine recipe in the June 2011 issue.


Blissful Veggie Burgers, Makes 8 burgers

1.5 cups cooked barley
 olive oil (enough to cook veggies in)
1 cup medium dice onion
3 small stalks celery, med. dice
1 red bell pepper, med. dice
kosher salt, to taste
2-3 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
3 tablespoons barbecue sauce (if you're serving vegans, make sure the sauce you use is vegan friendly!  I used Sweet Baby Ray's)
1 tablespoon chili garlic sauce (again, make sure its vegan friendly, I believe most chili garlic sauce is: )
2, 15 oz cans black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
salt, pepper, parsley, thyme and oregano to taste


Saute celery, onion, red bell pepper and pinch of salt in olive oil until golden brown, 12-14 minutes.  Add garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes longer.  Place veggies, breadcrumbs, barbecue sauce and chili garlic in food processor and pulse until combined and finely ground.  Here you would normally add 1 cup barley and black beans to the food processor and pulse again until combined and finely ground.  Unfortunately, my food processor is not big enough, so I removed the veggies, pulsed the black beans and barley together and then combined with the veggie mixture in a bowl.  After combining all ingredients, add the other half cup cooked barley and your seasonings.  Form into 8 patties and grill (I used my griddle because my grill was full of hamburgers and hot dogs).

Serve with your favorite hamburger buns ( I found vegan ones for the vegan friends) and condiments.  I put provolone cheese, romaine lettuce and some basil pesto on my veggie burger.

So what was the result of my foray into vegan cooking?  Well...they tasted fantabulous (yes I needed a fake word to describe their ridiculously awesome flavor) but the texture wasn't firm enough.  They were slightly mushy and I don't think I could have grilled them even if my grill wasn't full of meat: (

So again, what to do? What to do?  I talked to one of my lovely and wonderful vegetarian friends and between the two of us we came up with a couple ideas for future endeavors.
1)  Instead of pulsing some of the barley with the black beans, add all barley, whole, after everything else is combined
2) Add some steamed potatoes to burger mixture.  Starchy potatoes would probably yield the best results.
3) Do not rinse the black beans.  My wonderful friend had an excellent point that the liquid the beans come in has starch in it and would help thicken the mixture.  I will definitely still drain the beans because I don't want a lot of the starchy liquid.

I will try these changes and let you all know how they turn out.

Oh!  And I promise next blog will be about the easiest way to dice onions and bell peppers.