A Case for Burgers

I am a meat eater.  My wife is a plant eater.  I do most of the cooking in our house, and you had better believe that I don't make two different meals.  I am now a plant eater... well, much more than I used to be, and that is an important distinction.  I haven't stopped eating meat, I simply eat far less of it.

On Saturday night, we had my parents over for dinner.  Stephanie made some bread (see Stephanie's recent post on Sourdough), and I made burgers.  We also had some pickles on hand, and Stephanie made pickled onions, which are extremely simple and delicious.  So, when I say I made burgers, I should say that I made falafel burgers.  It seems to have been a hit, so here is the recipe:

1 can garbanzo beans (chick peas) (drained)

    Substitute different beans here if you prefer.

1 onion

cloves of garlic (to your taste)

salt (to your taste)

cumin (to your taste)

curry powder (to your taste)

1 to 1.5 cups oats

Olive oil 1 tablespoon at a time

1.  Combine ingredients into a food processor.  Hold back the oats for now.  Pulse the food processor until the onion, garlic, and beans are chopped well.

2.  Add  1 cup of oats and combine using the food processor.

3.  Add olive oil, 1 tablespoon at a time until everything starts to combine like a dough.  The trick here is to be wet enough for the oats to get chopped and combined, but dry enough so the mixture isn't super sticky.

4.  Once you have found the balance, roll the mixture into palm sized balls and flatten into a burger shape on a silicone baking sheet.  Place in the freezer for an hour or so (or for a couple of months).

5.  To cook, heat up a skillet over medium heat with a bit of olive oil.  We use a cast iron skillet, but you can use what you have.  Add the burgers when the oil is hot enough to give a sizzle.  Fry them on both sides and make sure they have heated through.  

    If you are concerned about burning before the center is heated through, you can throw the burgers in the microwave for a few seconds to thaw them a bit.  Not too much though or you will end up with mush.

6.  That's it!  Serve and enjoy!

On Sunday night we got takeout with our friends.  I ordered a burger.  It was a beef burger because sometimes I eat meat.  We think that is okay from a sustainability standpoint.  Meat is part of my diet, so, when not dining out, we simply try to source my meat from a local farm, raising their animals in an appropriate way.  The argument we usually hear (and the one I made at first) is that it's more expensive.  That is absolutely true.  It takes more time and effort for the farm to raise animals eating what they are supposed to be eating and letting them out where they are supposed to be grazing, so they have to charge more.  So, the meat I buy is more expensive, but I buy far less of it!  When I looked at this more holistically, I realized that we were not spending any more money on food.  It is easy to get caught up on the price of a single item, but once you look at the total budget, things start to even out.  So I buy less meat at a higher quality, so that when I do eat meat, it's typically better for me and better for the environment.  Basically, better, not perfect.

To be honest, we try to apply this kind of logic to many of our decisions.  When we purchase something, there are costs outside of the immediate financial burden.  We put our decisions through this other filter when we ask more questions.  Basically, we just think about it in the context of the environment as well as our own circumstances.

So what's better, falafel burger or beef burger?  I actually like them both.  They have totally different flavor profiles, and a different feel.  They are both filling and satisfying.  Both burgers are gluten free.  I would say that the falafel burger has a little more versatility in that it can be flavored to your taste.  The recipe above can be changed with different spices and herbs.  Let us know what you think in the comments section!

Thanks for reading!

Nate  

Potatoes

Continuing on my "prepared foods" binge, our next topic of discussion is potatoes.  Well, I guess we could call them hash browns... hashed browns?  You can buy them in the frozen foods section of the grocery store, but I like my potatoes out of the ground with a little dirt on them... I can hear my dad saying "man up" already.  

Anyway, I do buy potatoes in the store, or more recently, receive them in our CSA.  Hash browns are half of my breakfast every morning and since we are trying to do better on the zero waste front, I decided it is probably just as easy to make them myself vs. buying them pre-shredded and in plastic. 

Actually, I started this little adventure by making home fries.  I would chop the potatoes into small cubes and par broil them...you know, those were pretty good.  I'll just give you the recipe:

Home Fries:

1.  Cut as many potatoes as you want into 1/4"-1/2" cubes. The smaller the better if you like crunchy home fries like me.

2.  Put them all into a pot, and fill the pot with enough water to just cover them.

3.  The goal is to par broil them, meaning soft, but not falling apart.  Usually they come to a boil and need about 5 minutes.

4.  I keep enough to cook for one meal now, and put the rest in a container in the fridge for the rest of the week.  

5.  Mince some onion and throw it in a skillet with some oil (this is optional, but adds a lot of flavor).  Add some cumin, paprika, salt, and anything else that feels right.  (I stop just shy of the kitchen sink.)

6.  Add the potatoes and get everything well coated.  The longer you cook them, the crispier they get.  

Add a couple of eggs and BAM there's breakfast! (Just try not to bam those eggs all over the floor...)

Anyway, back to the hash browns.  If you have a food processer this should take all of 5 minutes.  If you don't, well, this might not be worth it.  It probably isn't worth your time to sit there and grate 2 full potatoes.  Then again, if that's what you have, go for it!

Hash Browns: 

1.  Wash the dirt off the potatoes.  Seems obvious, but Stephanie had to train me on that one. (that was for you Dad... cue the Tim Allen grunt.)

2.  Cut the potatoes in half so they fit in the food processer with the grater attachment.  (I know this is a silly step to have, but I've got to have more than one step in the process right?)

3.  Grate the potatoes...

4.  Dump some into a pan with some oil and cook on medium heat.  

5.  Place the rest of the grated potato on a silicone mat on a baking sheet.  Spread them out into a single layer.  Don't skip the mat on this one, believe me, they will stick to the pan.

6.  Put the sheet pan in the freezer and give it 4 hours.  When they are frozen, take them out, break them up, and put them in a silicone ziplock bag.  Place back in the freezer for tomorrow.

7.  Quick! back to the pan it's going to burn!  Flip the potatoes and finish frying them up.  Add salt to taste.

8.  That's it!  You have just made breakfast and frozen prepared hash browns for the week! 

Food processer!

Hash browns in the skillet

Frozen hash browns

 

Broccoli Anyone?

We can get any food we want, in almost any location, in any season.  It has been this way my whole life.  Have you ever stopped to think about how amazing that is?  When there is snow on the ground outside, I can buy strawberries, peppers, zucchini, summer squash, avocados, and almost anything else I desire.  Part of this is due to the ability to ship food across the country, and part of it is due to the ability to flash freeze and package.

There is a wonderful book by Barbara Kingsolver called Animal, Vegetable, Miracle recommended to me because I want to become a farmer... well, maybe not, but I do enjoy many of the farm tasks like growing vegetables, composting, and moving dirt around.  The book is about the author's family and their attempt to eat only locally grown food for an entire year.  They scour the local farmers markets, grow a surprising amount of their own food, and make it through the year.  The winter of course, is the hardest part as surviving on what can be stored from a fall harvest is tricky, not to mention that root cellars are no longer on the must have list in a new home. (Believe me, I've checked.)

One way of preserving summer and fall vegetables is by freezing them.  Yes this takes energy, not to mention valuable space in the freezer, but things like kale and broccoli don't keep in a root cellar, even if our Wakefield apartment had one. (Which it doesn't, I've looked.)  So I embarked on a project.  Over the summer, my mom has a market garden, though due to COVID, she did not participate in the market, so there was a bounty.  Every week I went grocery shopping in my parent's backyard, picking raspberries, (okay, Stephanie did most of the picking.) kale, spinach, and many other things.  We don't go though all of that in a week, so I started to preserve them.  I'll give the steps I took to freeze things below.

Typically, we  also get an assortment of frozen vegetables when we go food shopping, but they come wrapped in plastic.  While things like broccoli are not strictly in season right now, I thought it is at least better to buy the unpackaged stuff rather, so we tried it.  We now have a re-usable bag full of frozen broccoli and a little less guilt about how it got there.  In the future, we will either grow it ourselves, or buy locally grown and preserve it.

Preserving the broccoli.  This system will also work for other vegetables like kale and spinach.

1.  Cut the vegetable into the size you would like to have later.  I use the broccoli florets and keep the stem for broth.

2.  Blanch or steam until 75% cooked.  Don't cook it all the way because when you reheat it, the veggies will get soggy and gross.

2.  Place a single layer of broccoli on a silicone baking mat which is in turn placed on a cookie sheet. (Now I want cookies).

3.  Let it freeze completely.  I usually leave it overnight.

4.  Place in a reusable bag or container and return to the freezer.  

5.  That's it!  Just take them out of the freezer and add to whatever you are making at the last minute because remember, they are already mostly cooked.

Processing, steaming, and placing in the freezer took about 15 minutes, so this is an easy one!

In the end, we still bought out of season, but have plans for something better next year.  We still have raspberries from last summer in the freezer.  I take them out now and again to make jam or a topping for some delicious dessert.  Maybe I'll do a post on raspberries sometime.