Lentil and Mushroom Rissoles / Burgers

In my endeavour to continue finding food that looks like (what my mind recalls as) "real" food, I've tried some rissole/burger recipes.   

Its nice to have a bean “rissole” or “patty” to have.   I tend to just have them as is with a salad on the side, but you could put them on a burger with some sprouted grain bread or even on a rice cake with salad.  These would also be great made into small bite-size pieces as finger food when you’re entertaining and as finger food would I’m sure be eaten by non – nutrarians/vegans/vegetarians.     

I made 2 versions this week with lentils the first amended to be ETL friendly.  One is hot and spicy and the other has a definite herby taste.  Beware, they’re both more-ish!  (And they're great with a dollop of hummus - recipe in my last post).

Herby Lentil and Mushroom Rissoles

Makes 6 rissoles

2 cups cooked green/brown lentils  (this will be approximately 1 cup dried before cooking or ½ 440g tins, well drained.

1/3 cup quick oats (100% oats)

2 tablespoons of polenta (100% maize)

3 large mushrooms, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced/crushed

1 medium onion, chopped finely

2 teaspoons of chia seeds soaked in 3 tablespoons of warm water till gelatinous

1 tablespoon reduced salt tamari or soy sauce

1 tablespoon tomato paste (100% tomato)

½ teaspoon each dried oregano, basil, paprika and thyme

Good grinding of pepper

1. In a small saucepan, add a little water and the onion.   Heat and cook onion till starting to brown. 
2. Finely chop the mushrooms in food processor using pulse.
3. Add mushrooms and garlic to the saucepan and simmer 2-3 minutes.  Add a little more water if things start sticking.
4. Move mushroom/onion/garlic mix into food processor and add lentils.     Pulse til lightly combined.   Add remaining ingredients and pulse till well combined.  Mixture should be sticky.
5. Set the mixture aside while you heat the oven to moderate (375F/   xxx  ) and place a silicon baking mat in a baking tray/biscuit sheet or similar.
6. Scoop heaped large tablespoons of mixture onto the silicon mat and flatten to about 15mm high.   Place tray in oven and cook for approximately 20-30 minutes.  Check them around 20minutes to make sure they are firm in the middle and cook further if necessary.  No need turn them over mid cooking.    
7. I turned the oven off and opened the door when they appeared cooked and left them till the oven cooled before removing them with a spatula and storing them in the fridge.  But they’re yummy hot straight from the oven too!   

Hot & Spicy Lentil and Mushroom Rissoles

This recipe came from "Carrie on Vegan" without modification.

Makes 6 rissoles

1 cup dried lentils cooked (according to packet)  (or 2 -2 ½ cups pre-cooked)

1 tablespoon ground flaxseed

3 tablespoons of water

3 large mushrooms or 1 huge Portobello mushroom, chopped

1 small onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1. In food processor, process ground flaxseeds and water till well combined – the mix went a little creamy for me.    Add remaining ingredients and pulse till combined.    Add a little extra water if mixture is too dry.
2. On a silicon baking mat on baking sheet or similar, place large heaped tablespoons of mixture and flatten into rissoles.   Bake for 25 minutes, turning once carefully.

See you round like a rissole :)

Hommus

The first 6 weeks of my journey wasn’t very creative in the kitchen.  It looked nice with all its colour and tasted great and I discovered that you really have to forego that idea of what constitutes tasty from your old diet (laden with sugar, salt, oil) and start again.  But it’s still nice to have something people don’t look completely askance at.  So, now that I feel I have a handle on what I can (should) and can’t (shouldn’t) eat, it’s time to get a bit more creative in the kitchen! 

My first attempt at making something ETL (Eat to Live) friendly was hommus.  This middle eastern dip is made mostly from chickpeas (a.k.a. garbanzo beans) although bought versions and most recipes include a lot of olive oil in it.

Here’s my amended recipe:

HOMMUS

1 tin (450g) chickpeas, drained, rinsed thoroughly  (or approximately 1 ¼ cups of cooked chickpeas (soaked overnight, rinsed, fresh water added, brought to boil and then simmered till tender).

1 clove garlic, minced

1 ½ tablespoons of water

3-4 tablespoons lemon juice
1 ½ tablespoons tahini (ground sesame seeds)

A good grind of pepper

Throw the lot in the blender and process till mostly smooth, adding a little additional water if the mix looks dry.   You may want to add a little more lemon juice if its not tangy enough for you.

Serve with sliced fresh vegetables instead of crackers.   

Enjoy!

Starting Out

Eating the nutrarian way is a bit of leap.   The farmer wasn’t interested – he likes his meat, his cereal with milk and his chocolate/cakes/biscuits.    The firstborn wasn’t interested either – if it’s not cereal, pasta, lasagne or corn chips with salsa it wasn’t going to cut the mustard there.  Of course, part of that could be that he’s also a teenager!    And the twins (currently preteens) weren’t interested either, taking cues (of course) from the farmer and firstborn.     (Although I’m working on Twin 1 as she has tastes a little more like her mother!)

So, it was me against a household of not interested people who wanted their meals to remain just as they are thank you very much.    As I have had some health hiccups in the past (one of them being gluten intolerant), I’m acquainted with making separate meals so mentally prepared myself to get back on that track.

The one thing I found was that eating the nutrarian way, at least on the 6 week plan, was pretty easy.  The guidelines were clear and easy to follow and as the food was mostly fresh, preparation time was minimal.

As I mentioned in my introduction,  I live quite a long way from any large supermarket and even my small local supermarket is still 25km away.  So making do is with what’s in the pantry is a big part of my life in the kitchen!  Add to that my rather dismal gardening skills which equals a defunct veggie garden, although I do have a small orchard which I am endeavouring to spend a bit more time watering so I can fully enjoy its summer bounty.

As a guide, should you wish to embark on this plan, you should have in your pantry some

*dried beans (eg. lentils, kidney beans, chickpeas etc)

*canned beans (as above, preferably low salt and with the least number of additives/preservatives – if you don’t have any in your pantry get some!  If you only have the regular variety, then rinse them well before using).

*fruit

*tinned fruit, in juice, no added sugar

*fresh vegetables, particularly leafy greens

*frozen vegetables

*brown rice

*rice cakes (100% brown rice, no additives, preservatives  - most unflavoured brands I’ve found meet this criteria)

*herbs, spices (no salt added spice mixes)

*balsamic vinegar – buy a good one if you haven’t one in the cupboard, they’re much sweeter!

*salt reduced soy sauce or salt reduced tamari

*walnuts

*ground flaxseeds aka linseed meal.

Now, even the most disorganised household usually has most of these things (well maybe not the dried/tinned beans, perhaps not the salt reduced items and probably unlikely to have the ground flaxseeds) and as I only get to town once a week, fresh fruit and veg can be a bit tired looking, but I did have SOME.

Consequently I read the book and started immediately :)

The easiest way I found to eat was basically:

Breakfast:

3-4 pieces of fruit, cut up.  A handful of walnuts and/or 1 tblspn of flaxseed sprinkled over the fruit.

Lunch:

Salad made with whatever fresh vegetables I had to hand – lettuce (preferably cos, also called romaine lettuce), carrots, beans, snow peas, alfalfa sprouts, tomato etc.  A good drizzle of a good balsamic vinegar.  If I didn’t have the nuts in the morning, I’d often add them to my salad.

Dinner:

Stir fried vegetables – a mix of fresh and frozen.  Onion and mushrooms are especially good for you.  Saute in a little water and for flavour I added a little salt reduced tamari.  Then add  1 cup of cooked beans and 1 cup of cooked brown rice.  

Occasionally I would feel like eating something akin to a sandwich so instead of a salad I would basically assemble it on rice cakes with a little avocado, and forego the rice with dinner, although these are 'processed' and so shouldn't be the first choice.   Plus, as I started in winter I did make a lentil soup for dinner a few times - filling and tasty.

All the cravings went away after about a fortnight and my tastebuds have become acquainted to how food tastes without salt, oil and sugar!

An Introduction

Hello!  I guess a bit of an introduction is in order....

My name is Annette and I live on a farm on the Great Dividing Range in NSW.    I am married to my favourite man in the world who, depending on which hat he puts on (literally) is either The Farmer (his day job) or The Aviator (his sport and his favourite pastime!)   We have three children - the Firstborn who is a teenager, and Twin 1 and Twin 2 who are still preteens.   

Life down on the farm can be peaceful or stressful.  It depends what is happening that day and often what the weather is doing.   We live in a passive solar home which works well and we're looking at going more 'green' in the energy department with wind and/or solar energy.   Our farm is located on the Great Dividing Range and we are half an hour drive from the nearest shop or just over an hour's drive from the nearest supermarket of decent size.  This is making my leap to nutritarian eating a little more challenging!

I fill my days as a mum, farm assistant, bookkeeper and jewellery designer (the latter is definitely fun!)   Whilst being a mum entails a lot of dashing about it seems and farm assistant can be time consuming, doing bookwork and designing jewellery aren’t the most active of pastimes!   Over a decade of this lifestyle added over 15kg of added baggage on my body which was starting to get annoying, depressing and just not good for my health.

After trying quite a number of dietary changes over the years I have finally found one that works for me – the Eat to Live program by Dr.Joel Fuhrman .  It is one of those books whose information just made sense!   (If you buy a copy ensure its the latest version as they're constantly being updated!) 

It revolves around eating highly nutritional foods which will improve your health and help you lose weight.   People following this way of eating refer to themselves as nutritarians.  

So armed with the book I embarked on the 6 week aggressive weight loss plan.   The first couple of days were difficult, just because it was such a different way of eating – no processed foods and basically vegan (something that The Farmer is very doubtful about!)   But since then it’s been fairly easy – and the weight just fell off.  

At the end of the 6 weeks I’d lost around 7 ½ kilos which is amazing in itself!   But adding in the bonus of feeling so much better all day long and the facts that I can now see my face without it being hidden behind the double chin helps too! 

I’m not being quite as strict with myself post 6 weeks, but am still eating mostly according to the plan with the hope that another 7-8 kilos will decide to detach itself as well in the near future.

So welcome to my nutrarian journey, let’s hope it’s a serene ride!