black bean – Think and Bee happy

I am on a roll this week with black beans! Yesterday my family decided to make steak with rice and black beans for dinner and unfortunately I do not eat steak so I had to make something else. I decided “What a perfect time to make a black bean burger!”. The burger was amazing, it came out a lot better than I thought it would. It was so easy to make so I figured “Hey I’ll eat it today for lunch also”. Since I didn’t take any pictures of it yesterday I thought today I could do that too.

I’ve had black bean burgers from other places and for the most part they were just okay. (Except the black bean burger at Pride & Joy in Wynwood, South Florida they have amazing black bean burgers!) The beauty of cooking at home is that you can tweak anything to your liking and that’s exactly what I did.

Ingredients :

Sweet potato, I used frozen fries but you can use fresh sweet potato

1 can of black beans (15 oz) rinsed and drained
Onion ( I used less than 1/4 of an onion)

1/2 of a green bell pepper

1 cup of bread crumbs

1/4 cup of fresh cilantro

1 egg
1 teaspoon of dry basil
2 teaspoons of crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon of thyme
Salt and pepper to taste

To start off I had some frozen sweet potato fries in the freezer and I wanted those in my burger, what better mix than black beans and sweet potatoes?! So I got a pan and coated it with coconut oil and popped a few sweet potatoes fries in the oven at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.

While my fries are heating up I placed all my remaining ingredients into a bowl and mashed it up, you want most of the beans mashed but it doesn’t have to be 100%. When I was done with that my fries were ready. So I took them out of the oven and cut about half of them into little pieces and mashed them into the bowl with all the other ingredients.

You must remember to drain your beans so they are not liquid-y!

If your mixture is sticky just add more bread crumbs.

On a plate I placed some more bread crumbs and got about a spoonful of my mixture and folded it into the crumbs to form a ball. When the ball is no longer wet or sticky you flatten it into a patty. Continue this until all the mixture is in patty form. My mixture made 7 patties. It really depends on how you want your patties, mine were not that thick but if that’s what you like then go ahead!

I cooked my burgers on the stove with my pan covered in coconut oil. The only reason I didn’t use the grill is because these burgers are a little more delicate so you have to be careful.

Each burger is probably going to take about 3 minutes on each side, this also depends on if you want your burgers with a crunchy exterior (the breadcrumbs help with the crunch factor)

While these burgers were cooking I decided I wanted something a little different. I figured I’d make a sauce for them. This sauce was extremely easy but extremely flavorful.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup of vegan mayo
1/2 juice of a lime and lime zest
2 teaspoons of crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon of minced garlic
salt and pepper to taste
1 teaspoon of dry basil and dry thyme

Mix it all together and there is your sauce!

When everything was done I made myself a plate.

I took the burger and drizzled my sauce on top. Crumbled some Mexican Queso Fresco on top of that (I LOVE this cheese) and placed a slice of tomato on top of that. Then I placed a few of my left over fries on the plate and I decided I needed a salad also. I had some spring mix so I got that with diced pears, about a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and oil, and salt and pepper.

I was pleased with this lunch, the pears were a really nice touch too because they were perfectly soft and sweet. This meal was filling without leaving me with a gross feeling. And that’s how food should be! Food is supposed to give you energy not leave you lethargic!

I hope you guys try this out and if you have any suggestions or feedback I’d love to hear it!

Happy Wednesday

-Nicole ❤

My blog is all about my experiences with food, health and even beauty. With that being said, most of my experiences with cooking are somewhat failures (I’m a not that great of a baker). But my readers can learn from my failures so I like to share those experiences with you guys.

For the past couple of days I have been wanting to make black bean brownies. Our cabinet has 5 cans of black beans……FIVE…. I love black beans but I like to use items such as these beans in different ways other than just the basic rice and beans, so I decided to give these brownies a try. I will explain exactly what I did that didn’t make the brownies quite right and hopefully you guys can recreate these brownies the right way.

Ingredients:

1 can (15 oz) of black beans, make sure they are rinsed out.

1/2 cup of cocoa powder

1/2 cup of oats

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

1/4 cup of honey (I used Orange blossom honey, you can use agave as well)

1 teaspoon of vanilla

1/4 cup of melted coconut oil

1/4 of hazelnuts (chopped, I used a kitchen mallet)

2 eggs (or two bananas)

1/3 cup of flour

The black beans for these brownies are supposed to replace the flour, but I used flour anyway because I just didn’t think they would come out like the brownies I wanted.

Also if you pay attention to what I put into the brownies you’ll realize that I didn’t include a major ingredient……. sugar! (You should use 1/2 of sugar) I was so upset with myself when I tasted the brownies and they weren’t sweet but I hate being wasteful so I just fixed it up a bit. (I’ll explain that a little later).

So I mixed all the ingredients together and it looked amazing. I popped it into the oven at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. I check the brownies by sticking a fork or knife in the center and if it comes out clean its ready!

The brownies looked really good I was so giddy and couldn’t wait to try them. So I popped a piece into my mouth and I was very disappointed, I knew immediately what I forgot. I remember thinking while I was mixing the ingredients “I have to get the sugar”, but I was excited and got sidetracked. Regardless of this I made it work! I decided to make a chocolate sauce to pour over the brownies.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup of water
1 1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of cocoa
1 stick of vanilla

I placed these ingredients in a sauce pan on medium heat mixing it every once in a while so it does not burn. When it was done I went back to my pan with the brownies and I shifted the brownies a little. I just took a fork and made sure the brownies weren’t stuck to each other nor the pan so that I could pour the sauce over the brownies and the sauce will be able to go into every nook and cranny of the brownies. After I poured about 1/3 of the sauce on the brownies and put the rest of the sauce in the fridge. The brownies went back into the oven for about 5 minutes, just enough for the sauce to get all warm and soak into the brownies.

After all of this I cut a piece for myself and dusted a little powdered sugar on top and tried it out. It worked! They came out really good, my father even tried it and liked it. I didn’t tell him what was in it and knowing me he knew they weren’t just regular brownies and he said they weren’t bad so I’m pretty proud of myself.

So if you want to try these brownies out I just have a few tips for you…..

Mash the black beans up so you don’t have the whole black beans in them.
Use bananas instead of eggs, I didn’t use bananas because they were all gone 😦
Do not forget the SUGAR!
Even if you do mess up, like I did, don’t throw it out! You can still fix it!!
You don’t have to use hazelnuts, you can use any nuts or no nuts at all!
Chocolate chips would be great in this!

I don’t really have a sweet tooth I just thought black bean brownies would be cool. If you guys do end up trying to make black bean brownies let me know how it goes and if you changed anything, I’d love to get feedback!

Happy Tuesday

Nicole ❤

Tag: black bean

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