red lentil burgers

Is life just busier? I feel the days are going faster than ever and any spare time that I have gets filled up pretty quickly. I don't mind though, I love fitting as much into life as possible that's just living, right?!

After a busy weekend and a full day at work I came home, chopped the fire wood, started the fire, then got started on these beauties.

Luckily there were heaps more burgers than I anticipated which means I can stock the freezer for a quick lunch option on work days. Sometimes with all the rushing, it's good to have a healthy back-up meal that you can defrost for a quick satisfying lunch or dinner and this is surely one.

Ingredients

(makes 20)

1 1/2 c split red lentils, soaked for 6-8 hours

1 c walnuts

2 carrots, grated

1 brown onion, grated

1 c besan flour

1 tsp bi-carb soda

1 tblsp savoury yeast flakes

2 eggs, lightly whisked

olive oil, for greasing

salt and pepper, to taste

Heat oven to 180 C and line a large baking tray with parchment paper then lightly grease with oil.

Bring lentils to boil in a heavy based saucepan.

Cook for 15-20 minutes until soft, then drain and set aside to cool.

Add walnuts to a food processor/blender and pulse until crumbled.

Mix walnuts, carrots and onion in a medium sized bowl.

Next add in the lentils and remainder of ingredients, mixing until well combined.

Using wet hands, scoop small handful sizes of the mixture then roll into a ball.

Place on tray and push down lightly to flatten out.

Repeat until all the mixture has been used.

Place tray in oven for 25 minutes, then flip the burgers and bake for a further 15 minutes.

Serve!

herbed chickpea salad

Absolutely love chickpeas and it has been too long between friends.

Like, seriously, way too long. I even expressed to Joel how excited I was to be having chickpeas for dinner. He sarcastically responded by saying, ‘that’s great honey’.

As you may have read in the last post, we did a whole lot of gardening on the weekend and I had to harvest all my herbs. I don’t really like using up all my crops as I feel safer with still some sitting there. It’s like, but what if I want some fresh mint later in the week? What will I do then! I even get a little precious and won’t use as much as I like, just so there is always something filling the pots. It makes me feel wealthy in a very green way.

Anyways, with the massive influx of herbs in my kitchen, I have been throwing them into everything. Handfuls of mint in some mineral water, chives in my cabbage wraps for lunch, parsley on EVERYTHING.

Chickpeas are so tasty and make an awesome protein packed ‘throw together’ salad-like meal. And best of all, they are inexpensive. Joel and I lived off legumes when we travelled Europe. They were the most filling, affordable meal addition for us vegetarians/pescatarians, on a very tight budget. 30 Euro cents (40c in Aus) would get you a 500g jar of pre-prepared beans, peas, lentils etc and would easily stretch 2 meals each.

You can get super creative with chickpea salads. I’ve just thrown in whatever I felt like when digging through the refrigerator, but any fresh vegetables will work.

Ingredients

(makes 4 serves)

1 ½ c dried chickpeas, soaked for 6-8 hours (or 2 drained and rinsed tins)

1 spanish red onion, finely diced

1 cucumber, diced

½ c of complimentary fresh herbs (mint, chives, parsley etc)

½ lime juice

salt and pepper to taste

If you are using dried chickpeas, place them in a pot of water and bring to the boil.

Simmer for 20-30 minutes.

Drain and set aside to cool.

Add all ingredients in a medium bowl and toss well to combine.

Place in refrigerator for 30 minutes - 1 hour for flavours to infuse.

Serve and enjoy.