Garden Beet and Brown Rice Burgers

I know it's gauche to toot your own horn when it comes to recipes you've created/made, but I think it's okay to rave about a recipe that your significant other makes, right? In the interest of not going into a major preamble before sharing the recipe, I'm going to cut right to the chase and post the recipe now, then write a bit below it. Because endlessly scrolling to get to the recipe can be annoying, I get it! Without further ado, I present: Garden Beet and Brown Rice Burgers.

Garden Beet & Brown Rice Burgers

Makes 12-14 burgers

• 1 ½ cup dry brown rice (pre-cook this so it's ready to rock)
• 2 cups cooked brown or green lentils, drained
• 2 cups shredded beets
• 1 cup panko breadcrumbs
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• ½ large yellow onion, finely diced
• 4 tablespoon peanut butter (or almond butter)
• 2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 teaspoon grainy mustard
• 1 teaspoon salt
• few dashes pepper

Directions:

The food processor is your BFF for this one. Put cooked brown rice, cooked lentils, and shredded beets in the food processor with the metal blade and pulse ~20 times until it resembles ground meat. Depending on the size of your food processor, you may have to do it in batches. Then, transfer that mixture into a large bowl and pulse onion and garlic in the food processor to finely chop up. Add onion and garlic to the bowl, along with bread crumbs, peanut butter, oregano, mustard, salt, and pepper.

Use your hands to mix it all up! Don't worry, the beets won't stain your hands I promise. Stick the bowl in the fridge to cool for 30 minutes, then remove and form patties using your hands to cup and turn into ¾ inch disks. Cook on a cast iron skillet on medium-high, or grill them up! I like to use a piece of tin foil underneath just so the burgers don't stick to the grill or crumble. Roughly 10 minutes per side, but keep an eye on things in case your grill/range runs hot.

Alright, folks. There's the recipe! I'm going to do this format for recipes moving forward, since it's such a hot button issue with people. In fact, years ago when I was a wannabe food blogger living in Brooklyn, I considered starting a food blog called "GIVE ME THE DAMN RECIPE" that would be just the recipe, nothing else. No essay, no life story, no explanation, nothing. But this is like a happy medium! People who just want the damn recipe get it right at the top of the blog post, and those who want some more info can skeedaddle down the page and read their little hearts out.

So, Kristian has taken it upon himself to make dinner once a week, and that usually happens on Sundays. He's a self-proclaimed beginner cook, but he's quickly building up some skills in the kitchen and I'm so darn proud of him. He whoops my butt in the baking department, but cooking is my sphere of expertise. It's fun to watch him learn and get excited about recipes!

For this one, we set out to make Isa Chandra's Bistro Beet Burgers, but realized we were missing nearly every ingredient she called for except the main stars: beets, lentils, brown rice, breadcrumbs. So we (he!) improvised. Honestly, we enjoyed the resulting burgers so much that we crossed everything in the cookbook out and just rewrote this recipe. The original also calls for half of all the ingredients, but we doubled it to make 12 burgers. They freeze really well, and we love keeping them on hand for easy weeknight meals, like to toss on top of a salad or throw on the grill with some side veggies. Just make sure to separate the patties with parchment paper or something to prevent sticking. Bon appétit!