A victory.. of sorts
General August 28th, 2008So I was super excited about the dinner I was going to make last night. It was Herbed Veggie Burgers from this low fat vegetarian cookbook that I’ve had forever. I’ve made a lot of recipes from it, but seem to do the same ones over and over again. Mr. Eryn wasn’t going to be home so I figured I’d make something I knew he would crinkle his nose at. This recipe involved chopping veggies very fine (a great use for my new food processor) and mixing them with some low fat cheeses, some grains, and egg whites. Then you form them into “burgers” and place in a pan coated with cooking spray. Cook until brown on one side, flip, then same on the other. Sounds easy, right?
Yeah, up until the part where when you are flipping the burgers they all fall apart. I don’t know if it’s because I used liquid egg whites from a carton (instead of whites from an actual egg) or what, but these things didn’t hold together. In a fit of frustration, I finally broke them all up with my spatula and mixed it all together in the pan.
THE OLD ME… would have given up completely and called for pizza. In fact, I contemplated that for about 10 minutes or so. But I didn’t want pizza. And after spending an exorbanant amount of money at the grocery store this past weekend, I didn’t want to spend money on pizza when I still had a salvagable dinner on the stove.
SO, I went back into the kitchen and decided to have Herbed Veggie Joes. They aren’t sloppy but I just put some of the Herbed Veggie Mess on a hamburger bun, topped it with a tomato, some hot sauce, and some fat free mayonaise and was good to go. And YUM!!! I’m so glad I did. It was much healthier than pizza and I didn’t waste all that food!!
Oh, and guess what I saw in the grocery store yesterday, bigprof? Cheez-its… BUY ONE GET ONE FREE!!! Oh, the horror!! I only needed to get 3 things… and I thought about those damn cheez-its the whole time. I almost bought them for the kids.. FOR THE KIDS!!!! I resisted though because I knew exactly who would have been eating the cheez-its and it WOULD NOT have been the kids.
August 28th, 2008 at 7:16 am
I haven’t tried veggie burgers, but I made these burgers out of lean beef and roasted red bell peppers and spinach and an egg and bread crumbs and stuff. Our grill is right outside the window over the kitchen sink. So I stood there and watched my hubby getting quite obviously annoyed trying to cook the things. They were falling apart all over the grill. It is a shame because they were SO YUMMY. I am still trying to figure out how to make it work better because I definitely want to make them again. I am thinking about using that mix and just stuffing it in bell peppers, but I really want the burger thing to work if possible.
Yeah, unfortunately there are things that we just can’t have now because i don’t have the self control to allow my children to have them without me. Brownies. My children are doomed to a brownie-less life.
August 28th, 2008 at 10:01 am
LOL. my hubby loves Wham! too. and he’s straight. at least i think he is.
August 28th, 2008 at 10:28 am
My shuffle plays a non-stop array of rap, hip hop, and weird 80s music. It isn’t the music I usually listen to, but then usually when I just listen to music to enjoy it, I’m not trying to eek out another .25 mile on the treadmill. There are times when I’ve resolved to walk & Run DMC or Salt & Pepper comes on & I just have to run. That’s how I judge music now…would it inspire me to run again if it came round on the shuffle?
I need to tell hubby that he’s shopping alone until this cheez it thing blows over…but then we’d have a freezer full of frozen pizza & pot pies, a pantry full of snacks & bleached flour products, & only raw carrots & celery in the fridge. I guess I’ll have to take yours and Nancy Reagan’s lead here & just say “no”!
August 28th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
cheez-its. plain, hot & spicy, cheez-its. mmmmm… GET. IN. MY. BELLY.
August 28th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
It defeats the purpose of fresh, however, we make beef/turkey burgers with some spices (garlic pepper, seasoned salt) and 1 whole egg (to 1-1/2 of meat). They do tend to fall apart when fresh, however, they cook beautifully from frozen. We use very old tupperware snap together containers and keep them ready to use in the freezer.