I’m embarrassed to admit there are no photos with this post. Not even an attempt with a phone photo. We were just too hungry.

There’s a bit of a hiatus going on with the Great Gluten-Free Vegan Burger experiment. We’re getting ready to go on a big trip, so I may not be making burgers again until November. However, in keeping with the theme, I am going to be trying to hunt down vegan burgers on our trip and will be writing about them here.

That said, we did have burgers this week, just not homemade. Trader Joe’s have their own label version of the great Wildwood Veggie Burgers. These burgers are really tasty, satisfying, hold together well enough to be cooked on a BBQ, but taste just as good done in a cast iron skillet.

It used to be that we’d stopped having these burgers because we thought the higher fat content in them gave Christie heartburn. After finding out about Christie’s gluten-intolerance it turns out it wasn’t the burgers, but the buns that were causing the problem! Now we’re able to enjoy them again.

A word about buns and bread in general. If you can find it, we cannot recommend Happy Campers Gluten-Free Bakery highly enough. We’re partial to their Stompin’ Good Seedy Buckwheat Molasses bread and everyone of the burgers seen on the blog during the experiment has been served on one of their Wild Buns. This Thanksgiving I’m looking forward to using their Burly Bird Buckwheat Stuffing mix.

The real stand out to this week’s burger dinner were the fries. Usually we make frozen fries. Yep, that’s the truth. Usually the skin on ones from TJ’s.

This week I wanted to use some Yukon Gold potatoes I’d picked up when I made lentil soup since I’m trying to use up a lot of produce before we’re gone. I decided I was going to try my hand at making homemade, convection roasted fries. I feel I under utilize the convection settings on our oven and have had some good luck with roasting potatoes before, so I set out to make our fries.

I cut up all the potatoes into thin slices, tossed in a bowl with a few tablespoons of avocado oil and a couple of teaspoons of the salt blend I’d picked up at Bob’s Red Mill recently. They took a little longer to roast than expected, but were so delicious that I’m posting with out a picture because we ate them all.  In November you can expect a recipe coming soon for these delicious, healthier & budget-mindful fries.

The Whole Grains Store has a bulk spice & herb section where I find “Montreal Seasoning” which contained salt, garlic, black pepper, chili flakes, and dill seed. It was an intriguing combination and smelled awesome, so I had to get some. It seemed like the perfect thing to roast fries with… was I ever right!

The newest entry into the Great Gluten-Free Vegan Burger Experiment is an attempt to make the BBQ Black Bean Burger from Joni Marie Newman’s cookbook, The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet.

I say “attempt” because some things didn’t quite go right, but that’s the whole point in experimentation!

The recipe is gluten-free to begin with, calling for 1/2 cup of soy flour. I assumed we had soy flour and so progressed along with soaking the TVP and adding it with the black beans to a bowl. This would be when I remembered the soy flour.

Quinoa flour, fava flour, besan (chickpea flour), 3 kinds of gluten-free flour mixes, millet flour, almond flour… and…. soy milk powder.

At this point I decided my track record with using gluten-free instant oats had been pretty good and subbed them in for 1/2 cup soy flour I did not have.

Although I decided to start with 2/3 of the BBQ Sauce called for in the recipe, it still seemed very wet. 1/4 of potato flakes was added and I didn’t add in the final 1/3 of the BBQ Sauce called for.

Since I’d gone with oats + potatoes, I wasn’t sure if the fridge might inhibit the water those would soak up, so I let it sit at room temperature in the microwave (a.k.a., “cat safe”).

I’ll admit that I wanted to try baking in the drop-biscuit cast iron since it has been working so well to make very nicely shaped, cooked burgers. That perhaps isn’t a big deal, but I did try to get tricky and cook them at the same time as the french fries. So shorter time, higher temp.

At the halfway point I realized I couldn’t really flip them easily. Nor at the end point. Since the fries too seemed a little off, I switched the oven onto the convection setting and stuck everything back in for 5 minutes. Fries out, burgers another 10 minutes at 325F convection setting. They set up some in the pan, but we finally ate them. Still a little mushy, but way tasty.

The burgers sat in the cast iron for a bit, until they cooled and I put all the leftovers away. By that time they were very nicely set. This morning I had one along with a hashbrown patty from TJ’s, slices of the volunteer tomato that showed up in my zinnias, and a little avocado.

This experiment will be attempted again, this time using soy flour and really watching the liquid added to the TVP. I did sauté the onions, since they were very strong, which may have made for more moisture too. I do really like using the oats, but will see how the soy flour and refrigeration works before changing anything.

Something just seemed too wet with this version using oats, even through they ended up as well shaped burgers that reheated nicely and hold together well. I will add one to the freezer collection as well to see how it does with thawing. It may be these are a “make ahead” burger (the variation with oats), so they bake, set, and are lightly cooked again to heat through.

A while back, when we first got our copy of The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet the first recipe we tried was for the Denver Omelet Burger. While we really the idea, the resulting texture was described as pasty and it felt like the peppers and onions overwhelmed the vegan bac’n bits. I’ve always wanted to return to this and try changing a couple of things to create something very inspired by Joni Marie’s original recipe, but with a bit more texture and less oil. The Great Vegan Gluten-Free Burger Experiment is the perfect time to revisit the recipe!

I actually removed all the oil called for in the recipe save some spray oil for sautéing the pepper, onion, and garlic as well as some for the cast-iron drop biscuit pan. Once again this pan is the perfect thing for baking vegan burgers!

Other changes: I used a single, large orange bell pepper and only half a medium onion, both diced quite small. I used a couple of cloves of chopped garlic too. This I sautéed in a cast iron skillet until the onions started to caramelize.

I pressed the heck out of the tofu, thinking this was part of the texture problem the first time we tried. Next, rather than blend the tofu with oil and spiced, I just crumbled it up fine in a bowl, added all the spices in with the tofu and mixed it up by hand.

To bind this all I stuck with the chickpea flour (besan), but reduced to 1/2 cup and added 1/2 cup of gluten-free, instant oats as well. I also decided to throw 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast in there for stickiness and saltiness. I left out the salt the original recipe called for, but I think it should stay in with the next try with this revamped recipe.

One little change I make with all recipes calling for liquid smoke; I use smoked paprika instead. Since the original recipe called for 1/4 teaspoon of paprika, I just increased to 1/2 teaspoon of sweet, smoked paprika.

The results, all squished together by hand, were promising and held together well, especially after letting the mixture stand for five minutes to let the oats hydrate.

The drop-biscuit pan came out of the oven, heated to 350. I made 6 good-sized breakfast burgers and put them into the oiled cups.

These baked for 10 minutes. I turned them and then baked for 10 additional minutes. They came out nicely browned. Next attempt I’ll use red bell pepper for a more striking look. The oat/besan mixture gets a nice color and these held together beautifully in a nice patty.

I served them alongside hashbrown squares from Trader Joe’s, a pile of steamed broccoli, and a little avocado on top.

There’s a couple of small changes I’m going to make, and I want to see how these pass the “freeze test”, but these may become a great breakfast to-go, particularly for long travel days.

This week’s Burger Experiment comes to us from Lindsay S. Nixon‘s cookbook, Everyday Happy Herbivore cookbook. I have decided that in the Great Gluten-Free Burger Experiment I’m going to try substituting instant oats (GF, of course) any time I see Vital Wheat Gluten called for in a recipe. I also sub Tamari for anytime soy sauce is called for.

We’d already tried the recipe for the Pinto Burgers (same cookbook, page 86), which is already gluten-free, and loved them. In fact, they inspired my Summer Cilantro Slaw recipe! However, I wanted to try a new recipe and since this book has several bean-burger recipes to try I went for the Kidney-Qunioa Burgers (page 85) merely because I like kidney beans a lot.

First of all, this recipe comes together so quickly it is great. These could be whipped up from scratch on a weeknight. They were very flavorful, even though I totally forgot the tablespoon of Italian Seasoning it called for. The instant, GF oats worked perfectly, especially since I gave the “dough” about 10-15 minutes to rest and let the oats get sticky.

Last week, after the Scarborough Fair Burger Experiment, Christie had the idea of trying out our English muffin cast-iron pan for cooking the burgers. It would heat them more evenly and it would keep them in a nice, uniform burger shape (one which perfectly squishes out to fill an average bun). I heated the pan up in the oven while it preheated and sprayed lightly with oil before putting burger patties into each mini-pan. I must say, this idea is a winner and I will be using it for all burgers despite what cooking directions suggest.

Also known as a Drop Biscuit Pan, this works perfectly for English Muffins and scones too. Oh, and clearly vegan burgers as well!

Once again, the Wild Buns from Happy Campers Gluten-Free were the bun of choice. I loaded mine up with grainy mustard, vegan mayo, avocado, red pepper relish, a little ketchup, and some salad greens. It was pretty awesome (blurry, impatient photo indicates my rush to eat this all up).

On the reheat in the morning these, similarly to the Pinto Burgers, were a little dry. One patty is frozen to see how it does with the thaw/reheat test. One possible idea for these might be to par-bake them to help to retain the shape, freeze, and then reheat in a cast iron skillet.

For over five years Christie has suffered from a severe, life-affecting cough. She’s seen several doctors, had all kinds of tests, and taken several different medications, but nothing really has solved the cough. This year we changed physicians and our new one immediately started doing several tests for food allergies and sensitivities that could be causing systemic inflammation, affecting her lungs.

We were pretty worried it would turn out to be something we really loved, like soy (miso, tofu, tempeh, Soy Curls…) or tree nuts, peanuts, sesame seeds, etc. When the results came back the culprit was gluten. Another round of tests was ordered to rule out Celiac, which thankfully came back clear, leaving only the signs of systemic inflammation severely affecting the lungs. We were hugely relieved and felt like removing gluten was something we could do. Honestly, after so many years it feels good to have anything we can do.

I set about to rid our house of gluten-y goods, giving everything away to friends so that at home Christie would know she could eat most things (I am still getting one of my favorite cold cereal indulgences, Barbara’s Peanut Butter Puffins, which Christie hates and therefore won’t mistakenly eat). What it quickly brought to our attention was how often our “easy dinners” were centered around several products that contained gluten. Tasty things and easy on a busy night, but honestly not so great for either of us.

While I’ve been doing some creative things with tofu (two new recipes coming soon!), and we have several go-to legume recipes, I wanted to start experimenting with veggie burgers and cutlets. Hearty, healthy legume & grain dishes that I  can make up in large batches, cook, and freeze servings of for quick dinners.

One of the first things I’m trying out is my now, newly made gluten-free, Marvelous Quinoa Nut Loaf. A generous slice is in the freezer to see how well it does reheated.

Next up was the lovely looking Scarborough Fair Burger from Joni Marie Newman’s cookbook, The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet. We’d been meaning to try making it for ages, but now we’re extra motivated since the recipe is already gluten-free.

When I got all the ingredients together I felt the mix was a little wet and added an extra 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast to help bind it and also because I’d forgot to make the TVP with broth!

After baking for the full time the burgers still hadn’t formed up fully. So I set our oven on convection and cooked them an additional 5 minutes, which helped a lot. They came out looking very tasty.

We served them on Happy Campers Gluten-Free Wild Buns and they dressed up beautifully!

Next week there will be another Burger Experiment to report on! Please post your suggestions for great gluten-free burgers and cutlets in the comments.

I’ve been experimenting with refrigerator lemon pickles for a couple of years now. Tonight I wanted to work with lemon and other Japanese flavors, but didn’t have any preserved lemons in the fridge. Rather than put off using up some fresh shiso I had on hand, I decided to experiment with using other methods to infuse lemon flavors, plus make a garnish of the fresh lemon as well.

First I sliced up a large lemon in very thin slices. You might want a mandoline to get very thin slices, but it can be done with a very sharp knife (I used my nakiri). I layered the slices onto a plate then layered thick slices of extra-firm, water-packed tofu I’d pressed for 40 minutes, on top of the lemons. I sprinkled on a little Alaea salt and black sesame seeds. I let this sit for 15 minutes.

I heated up a cast iron skillet on medium-low heat and added a few tablespoons of avocado oil and let it heat up. I put the tofu sesame-side down into the hot oil and then layered the sliced lemons over the top of the tofu. It seared in a covered pan for 12 minutes before removing the lemon slices (reserve), spraying the tofu with oil, and flipping the slices over. Lemon slices where placed back onto the tofu slices and pan covered to let tofu sear for another 12 minutes.

I removed the lemon slices and set aside. Into the pan I poured half of a mix of rice wine vinegar, tamari, red miso, and mirin over the tofu and let the liquid reduce in the pan. Once all liquid had reduced I removed tofu from the pan and added back in the lemon slices. These were spread out in the bottom of the pan to sear lightly for a couple of minutes before turning to sear on the other side. Once both sides had seared I added the rest of the sauce I’d mixed and let it reduce with the lemons.

The whole thing was presented with the hot lemon relish topping the seared sesame tofu and a chiffonade of fresh shiso.

There was also some summer squash chips made with thin slices of patty-pan squash tossed with dried cilantro, avocado oil, and Alaea salt. These roasted on a pan in the oven on convection setting, 235 degrees.

All this was accompanied with brown rice tossed with lemon zest and shiso.

We ate all of it. It was amazing. There will be recipes.

This is something of a recipe in progress. That said, it is a very tasty and a lovely autumn dish. There will be future variations yet to come!

There will be at least one more variation of this dish as I’m not quite yet satisfied with the creaminess of it. It may just be that I want more coconut yogurt in it, but I’m also thinking I want about half the tomatoes. Right now it reminds me more of a variation on aloo gobi than the creamy korma I’m after.

Be sure to check out the new thing at the bottom… I’ve decided to start using data from NutritionData.com with recipes.

The Stuff

• 3 cups diced pumpkin
• 1 medium head of cauliflower, cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 large clove of garlic, minced
• 1″ of fresh ginger, peeled and minced
• 15oz canned, diced tomatoes
• 1 large onion, diced small
• 8oz container of So Delicious, Greek-style, plain coconut yogurt
• 1/2 t whole cumin seed
• 1 t ground turmeric
• 6 whole cardamom pods
• 1 c water
• High heat spray canola oil

The Making

Heat a 5qt. cast iron pot to medium heat, or use a 6 qt sauce pan, with lid.

Lightly spray the bottom of the pot and add the cumin seeds. Toast seeds for 30-60 seconds, until they are browned and fragrant.

Add onion and saute 5 minutes, add minced ginger and garlic. Sprinkle ground turmeric over all ingredients, add in cardamom pods and mix in. Continue to saute, stirring occasionally, for 5-7 more minutes. Onions should be beginning to brown and caramleize. Add diced pumpkin, reduce heat to medium-low, and saute for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add cauliflower and stir in.

Combine yogurt and tomatoes in blender. Process until smooth and creamy. Add mixture to pot. Rinse blender container out with the 1 cup of water, and pour into the pot. Mix everything together well.

Cover pot with lid. Reduce heat to low and let simmer for 25-40 minutes, until pumpkin is tender.

Serve by itself, with rice, or along with some dahl (I’m also working on a Rajma Masala dish right now). Just watch out for those cardamom pods, they’re quite shocking to get whole.

Makes 8 1/2 cup servings.

Nutrition Details

Serving Size: 1/2 cup
Calories: 66
Total Fat: 1g
Saturated fat: 1g
Sodium: 46 mg
Carbohydrates: 13g
Dietary Fiber: 4g
Sugars: 5g
Protein: 3g

This year I’ve found success with all fava beans we’ve been delivered from Organics to You!

Last year I tried a couple of things with mixed success; mostly we found them kind of tough. The flavor had promise, but we were mixed on the texture. I even posted one of the more successful attempts, an Umbrian inspired dish that had great flavor, but tough beans.

This year I finally caught that there is a second peeling step I’d missed last year! Not sure ow I over looked this step and it does mean that preparing fresh favas is even more labor intensive. That said, they are so tasty and lovely it is entirely worth the effort.

Image by @Edsel Little used under Creative Commons License

Here’s the deal. You have to peel them out of the big pods first. Boil them for 4-5 minutes. Drain. Rinse well in cold water. Let sit for a few minutes. Peel off the tough, fibrous layer. Set aside tender, delicate favas to add to dishes.

The favas, once peeled out of the tough skins, are largely bright green, very delicate, and taste lovely. I have to chase Christie out of the kitchen or she’ll stand there peeling and eating them directly!

Since they’re already cooked and will fall apart if you cook them much further, I set them aside and toss into dishes right before serving just to warm them back up. This discovery has even caused me to revisit a spring soup made with pureed favas featured in the beautiful cookbook Christie gave me for Christmas, Kansha: Celebrating Japan’s Vegan and Vegetarian Traditions.

Mostly I’ve just tossed them into stir-fry dishes, where they are reminiscent of edamame, but with a greener taste and a delicate texture. I’ve also added them at the very end of rustic, northern Italian inspired dishes with fresh tomatoes, gnocchi, and summer squash. I suppose I could tackle more exciting dishes, but right now I’m just basking in the joy of figuring out how to make delicious things with produce I’ve only newly been introduced to.

The whole goal of The Produce Project was to get us to eat more fresh, seasonal vegetables. Here we are, going strong and still experimenting. The favas are a complete success story now that we’ve really figured it out. We hold out hope for the same success with the garlic spears (scarpes, scrapes, etc.). Chard… we finally asked that no more be brought to us and we won’t be growing it. Just not that much of a fan.

For the past two years the “Recipes for Health” section in the New York Times has included a feature on vegan recipes for Lent. I didn’t get around to trying any last year, but this year’s dishes really caught my eye. I have been surprised by the huge amount of oil these dishes call for, but I honestly think they can be made without that much added oil.

Tonight we decided to give the lead dish of the article a try: Baked Beans with Mint, Peppers and Tomatoes.

Really, this is a three-chilies dish when you look at the dried, hot chilie added to the simmering beans, the paprika, and the chopped sweet bell pepper. The result was really delicious. Perhaps I should have left it in the oven longer than the 45 minutes or so, but we were famished. Longer cooking would just let the peppers and onions cook down further; the beans were tender and perfect. Honestly, after dinner I found myself standing next to the Dutch oven eating spoonfuls of these delicious baked beans!

I made a few other changes to the recipe as written, and I’d like to make a few more. That said, I’ll post a final recipe of my variation some other time. Here’s a quick recap of my changes.

• We used pinto beans, we had them on hand.
• I didn’t have 2 medium yellow onions on hand so I used 1 yellow and 1 red
• I did NOT use the 1/4 cup of oil, I used only a spritz of spray, high-heat canola oil in the cast iron skillet
• I used Muir Glen’s diced, fire-roasted tomatoes; delicious flavor!
• To my horror I discovered we were out of sweet paprika, so I used sweet, smoked Spanish paprika instead. This added a really marvelous smokey note that went well with the fire-roasted tomatoes
• In fact, I added a full teaspoon more of the paprika.
• I added MORE mint, probably 3 tablespoons. If I’d had more fresh mint, I would have added it in. At least 1/4 to 1/3 cup of fresh chopped mint would be great.
• I think some fresh, chopped parsley would also be good.
• I didn’t add any salt, just that added by the canned tomato products. Easier to salt at table if needed.
• In the future I plan to serve these delicious beans on a bed of steamed kale, collards, or other greens.
• I might cut the onions, especially, and possibly the bell peppers, into a smaller dice so it cooks down more quickly into the sauce.

It came up in conversation recently that both Christie and I love twice-baked potatoes so I decided to give them a try for dinner. I’d made them before a few years ago using Earth Balance and soy milk to mash the baked potato filling, but I wanted to try out a cashew creme that Christie whips up with she makes her fabulous mashed potatoes. Since we had fresh parsley on hand I used some of that in the cashew creme.

I used one largish, long even Russet, a quite small Russet and a small yam. All of these were first “baked” in the microwave and set on the counter on a plate to cool enough to handle easily. I then sliced the big Russet carefully in half and scooped out some of the insides into a bowl, being careful to leave enough potato behind to make a stable “boat” to fill.

The cashew cream was made with about 1/2 a cup of raw cashews soaked in hot water and then drained. These were processed with 1/3 cup fine flake nutritional yeast, some sea salt, some garlic pepper, the juice of one lemon, and some fresh parsley. This was pretty pasty so I ended up adding in a few tablespoons of water (I wondered about reserving the soaking water for this).

I mashed the scooped out insides with about 3-4 tablespoons of the cashew creme. This honestly was pretty sticky and I should have went with that initial observation!

The stuffed potatoes were put in a cast iron dish and tossed under low broil until the tops were golden. The all-potato one turned out extra lovely.

Gorgeous Golden Top!

I filled my potato “boat” with a mixture of potato and yam; a combination I like a lot. It needs less time under the broiler since the sugars caramelize faster than on the all-potato one. Still, pretty awesome looking.

Love me some yam!

These were paired with a saute of curly green kale and tempeh that was finished with a little drizzle of balsamic vinegar and fresh parsley.

The verdict: Sadly the potatoes were a little dry and sticky (I knew I should have paid attention to thinking it at first!). That said, they were very tasty. When I talked with Christie about the cashew creme she makes she revealed that hers has a thinner consistency than the thick, rich paste I’d made. I think it would be good to add either a little water (perhaps reserving the soaking water for the cashews to mix back in) or rice or soy milk.