Monday, August 9, 2010

We're Baaaaaaaaa-aack



Ahhh...back from the big city and we had a great time!  Next time though...I have to remember to bring my camera with me to take pics of our eats - since I'm new to blogging, I forget my camera all the time and there were all these photo opps that totally went uncaptured, boo.  We were out at Richmond Auto Mall checking out some cars as we're thinking about buying a new car...and the place is totally overrun by bunnies.  We were heading back to the car after drooling over a few vehicles (I'm a bit of a tirebiter) and there was the cutest little bunny ever! He looked like he had a little mask on his face and he had little white paws (pic above was closest I could find to Bugs)...and was so tame, I was handfeeding him leaves. Super cute.

We definitely crammed as many food type pleasures in as we could...burgers at Vera's Burger Shack, delish sushi at Samurai but unfortunately some meh Chinese food at Cabin 5555.  My in laws really like this place for some reason but we found the food to be not great...but maybe it's because we find it gimmicky because it's done to supposedly look like the cabin on an airplane.  They even serve you the food on trays, and make it look like airplane food.  What is appealing about airplane food?!  And every time they brought out the food, they didn't give it to the right person - just kind of brought it over and slapped it in front of someone and darted off - and the food came at all different times.  Not impressed. 0/5!
 
Anyways, we gorged and we shopped.  We're back on the good food train for this week and I realized I hadn't reviewed the Anaheim Black Bean Burgers that I'd made the other week.  These are pretty darn good as is, but it needed just a bit of tweaking for my tastes - more garlic, more cumin/chili powder and a bit more salt to bring all the flavours together.  We had these with the regular ketchup/mustard, cheddar cheese (OK, OK, I snuck some dairy!), pickle and red onion on a Thintini - next time I think I might whip up some guacamole or something to really zhuush it up.  Hubs liked them and the texture was quite good.  They're not quite burgers from Vera's Burger Shack, but they're not bad...and no cholesterol!

Anaheim Black Bean Burgers - from Rebar Modern Cookbook

Yields 6 burgers (I got about 8 out of mine)

•2 x 19 fl oz cans black beans
•1/2 cup cooked brown rice
•1-1/2 TBS extra-virgin olive oil
•1 small red onion, diced
•3 garlic cloves, minced
•1 tsp pure chile powder
•1/2 tsp each cumin and coriander seed toasted and ground
•1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
•1 tsp salt
•2 tsp chipotle puree
•1 small can Anaheim chiles, drained; or 4 Anaheim chiles, roasted,
seeded and peeled
•1/4 cup masa harina
•1/4cup toasted pumpkin seeds, finely ground
•3/4 cup fresh bread crumbs

Directions:

1) Heat oil in a small skillet, add onion and saute until translucent. Add garlic and spices and continue sauteing and stirring for 5 minutes. Set aside to cool.

2) In the bowl of a food processor, add 2 cups beans, rice, Anaheim chiles and the cooled onion/spice mix. Pulse to coarsely grind the mix. Turn into a large bowl and add the masa harina, pumpkin seeds and breadcrumbs. Mix together thoroughly. Add the reserved whole black beans and mix in well. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

3) Divide the mixture into 6 equal portions and form them into patties. Dredge with a light coating of masa harina and fry in a lightly oiled pan until browned on both sides. Serve hot on sourdough buns.

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