Spicy Black Bean Burger

After eating leftover brisket for 3 straight days, I figured I should take a meal off from meat. Tonight was another dig through the pantry and vegi drawer and see what I can make. Lucky for me I had all the ingredients to make black bean burgers. I've never made them before but have read a bunch of recipes so I just decided to make my own. One of my problems of when I cook like this, I don't really measure out anything. That is why I don't have any measurements for most of the ingredients. Just add as much as you like to your taste.

They came out really good. I wrapped them in Lettuce as opposed to bread (protein style!) because I didn't have buns.  I probably wouldn't have used buns anyways. My dry rub has a kick to it so with that and the cumin they were pretty spicy (which I love). The burger was a bit hard to handle. It didn't completely fall apart in my hands, but a few pieces did. I read that if refrigerate the mixture prior to adding in the bread crumbs, this helps. I hope you enjoy!

Serving Size:  1 Patty

Ingredients

½ Cup Black Beans (drained & rinsed)

¼ Cup Canned or fresh corn

Diced red & green bell peppers

Diced Jalapeno

Diced onion

Smoked Salt

Waterman’s Kitchen Pork Dry rub

Cumin

Bread Crumbs

Leaf Lettuce

Cooking Directions

Combine Black beans, corn, jalapeno and half of the bell pepper and seasoning

Place in a food processor and pulse 5-7 times (make sure its still chunky and not a pile of mush)

Remove from food processor

Fold in remaining bell peppers and bread crumbs

Heat a cast iron skillet on med/high heat

Add high temp oil when pan is hot

Form mixture into a patty and move directly onto the hot pan

Cook on each side for a few minutes

Cover and remove from heat for 5 minutes to heat all the way through

Weekend Smoking

Last weekend, we finally had nice sunny weather. I have a ton of yard work to do so I was happy to finally get working on it. Since I was going to be in my backyard all day, I decided it would be a good idea bust out the smoker for the first time in 2012. Last summer I worked a lot on pork shoulder and ribs. This summer, I am going to focus on Sausage (see previous blog) and brisket. I am not going to go into detail on all the recipes on what I made but just a run down on what I made. Whenever I smoke, I try to keep the smoker filled to capacity in order to maximize the coals and wood. Here is a list of what I made.

Black Bean and Quinoa Lettuce Wraps

Here is another great healthy Quinoa recipe. I saw a similar recipe to this on pinterest but modified it to my own tastings. It came out really good. I had it as a dinner, but I think it would be better on a hot summer day for lunch or an afternoon snack.

Hickory Smoked Salt

I was smoking a bunch of meat today and had a little room left in my smoker so I threw some coarse sea salt in the smoker for a few hours!