Hellllooooooooo. Hope your Thursday is going great!
I left you with a bit of a teaser this morning….
Eric and I are crafting.
As part of my ‘stay off the computer during the evening’ pact, I decided that I could use my evening downtime to craft!
I am notorious for never printing any of my photography shots, so I decided that I needed to put an end to that. I submitted a ton of my favourite shots to Costco for enlargement and printing and then Eric and I picked them up last night. Costco has amazing prices and super fast service. Afterwards, we booted it to Michael’s Craft Store for oodles of picture frames (thanks to Amanda for the tip). Michael’s has aisles and aisles of frames…who knew!?!
Eric is also a photography fanatic like I am, so he was quite pumped about this project and offered to help! [Although, he insists what he is doing is not ‘crafting’…lol]
I said, ‘Ok, Ok, you are building things with your super manly hands, does that work??’ :biggrin:
We took the prints and each selected our favourite ones. I had over 60 shots printed off and we had to narrow them down to around 20! I felt like I was picking my favourite children.
Dearest maple baked beans and healthy spelt pancakes for one, I’m really sorry you didn’t make the cut this round. For some reason you didn’t look good blown up. Love, Ange. (tear).
I bought a mixture of frame styles because I wanted a bit of variety. We also got some frameless ones that I don’t have any shots of yet.
Is this real life?
How amazing would a bowl of oats that huge be?!?
Food picture enlargements = always a good thing.
I also put one of my favourite quotes on one of my most recent shots!!
The quote says, ‘To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art.’
I also made it the feature of my quotes page if you want to check it out.
Mmm strawberries!
Then I lined up all the ducks in a row!
Now we need help on how to hang/organize them!
We want to do a big collage all mixed and matched and eclectic looking, however we have no idea how to organize them. Maybe something like this…
We have about six 8 x 10’s and about ten 5 x 7’s.
Maybe it would help if I put them all out on the table and took one group shot of them together for you to see?
It was serious business.
Well, not really, but we pretended it was…heh.
Look at this adorable giraffe print we also picked out from Michael’s!
We are going to hang it in the family room as the first thing on the wall after living in our house for a year and a half!
Well, aside from our TV that is.
Our walls have been naked for a long time. Eric was perfectly happy with the flatscreen TV being the only thing hanging on the wall. I, however, was not. :biggrin:
This makes my heart melt.
Eric proceeded to poof out his lips and kiss my forehead like the mama giraffe. I was a bit scared.
I fled from his Giraffe like grip and found solace in the kitchen…
In A Jiffy Curry Chickpea Burgers
These are delicious and majorly addicting curry infused wheat-free chickpea burgers that bake to a beautiful burnt orange colour. The seeds give the burgers a fantastic crunch and texture. You won’t be able to stop at just one…or two…or three…
Adapted from my In A Jiffy Spelt Veggie Burgers and Emily’s Vegan Black Bean Burgers.
Ingredients:
- 1.5 cups cooked chickpeas
- 1/2 cup regular oats
- 10 baby carrots or 2 carrots
- 1 tbsp coconut oil (or oil of your choice), melted
- 1.5 tsp Arvinda’s Curry Masala (or other good quality curry powder)
- 1/2 tsp Paprika
- 1/4 tsp Tumeric
- 1/4-1/2 tsp sea salt, to taste
- 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tsp Parsley flakes (optional)
- 3 tbsp sunflower seeds
- 1/4 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
Directions: Preheat oven to 375F. Grease a baking sheet or line with parchment paper and set aside. In a food processor, process the oats, carrots, and all the spices/seasonings (sea salt, black pepper, curry masala, paprika, tumeric, optional parsley) for 30 seconds or until somewhat smooth. Now add in the chickpeas at 1/2 cup increments and coconut oil (melted), stopping to scrape down the bowl as necessary. [My food processor was quite cantankerous during this process (it didn’t process the chickpeas well, but that may have been because I doubled the recipe and I had too much in my bowl!)]. Once the chickpeas are mostly processed and smooth, take the mixture and place in a medium sized bowl. Stir in the sunflower seeds and pepita seeds. Wet your hands and shape patties or balls. Makes about 6-8 patties depending on how big you want them. Note: You can also pre-bake these for about 20 minutes and them pop them on the BBQ to finish them off!
For my first test batch, I made smaller patties and left some chickpeas whole…
They turned out delicious, however the whole chickpeas made the burgers fall apart a bit too easily.
They will be great for crumbling over salads!!
Afterward, I loved them so much I decided to make another batch and this time I doubled the recipe above! It was almost too big for my 12-cup food processor. I made 6 huge patties from the mixture.
I baked these huge burgers at 375F for 20-25 minutes on each side until golden.
They turned out incredible!!!!!!! Look at that rich orange/golden curry colour…Mmmmmmm!!
I also made Eric’s favourite new snack for a side…
That would be shredded carrot salad with my Better Than Bottled Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing!
Eric has a little obsession with carrots! They are his favourite veggie. He walked into the office the other night with a huge honking bowl of shredded carrots (plain!) and wouldn’t leave me alone until I tried some. I admit, they are pretty good…but I’m feeling a little ‘carroted out’ at the moment.
Somehow this happened again….!
That would be two patties with a 1/4 cup of roasted red pepper hummus smothered in between.
I swear to you, no buns are even needed! It might just be one of the best creations in the world. The Double Down need not apply!
I froze a ton of these burgers and I can’t wait to pop them out of the freezer for quick and easy meals.
Well, we are off for our evening stroll + chat. Then it is more crafting…or as Eric would say ‘constructing’. Night!
Didn’t have tumeric, sunflower seeds, or pepitas. Used some flax seeds and a little extra curry powder instead, they turned out great! My boyfriend loved them. A couple were a little crumbly. Definitely a fast and easy meal, and very delicious!
I just recently went from vegetarian to vegan. That’s how I came across your blog… searching for vegan recipes. I’ve made a few recipes and they have all been awesome! I tried these burgers last night and baked them for 20 minutes on each side. They were delicious, however mushy in the middle. I baked them longer but they were still mushy. What did I do wrong? I may have mixed them too well in the food processor. Other than that I followed the recipe exactly.
Our daughter in law made the chickpea patties for us and served them with hummus. They were outstanding. We loved them. She is an amazing cook and always loves new recipes, and we love being the guinea pigs. So I am copying this recipe and going to try it myself. Thank you so much.
I don’t have curry powder but do have all the main Indian spices. Can you suggest a mix that would work well for these burgers? Our family doesn’t really like store-bought curry powder (not sure what is in it that we don’t like…maybe it’s the curry leaves themselves?) but we LOVE Indian spices in general.
Oh I know what you mean about store bought curry powder, they are very hit or miss. I would just google a home made curry blend as I know I’ve seen them online before. Maybe that is a recipe I could do in the future.
My goal here is to clarify and simplify things as
much as I can. Take the first step if you haven’t started already; and if you have, make
sure that you maintain a constant pace or gradually increase
the amount of exercise that you do. You can find cereals and breads which make use of these
grains and are great for you.
Looks great!
Can you grill these on a flat-top grill or cook them in a skillet? Have you tried that?
Thanks!
Just a quick question – do you have something in with those carrots in Eric’s salad beside the carrots? Looks like maybe red onion? Or am I imagining? Would love to know because I ahve a TON of carrots to use… Thanks!
These chickpea burgers were delicious! I had some leftover tahini/evoo/lemon juice mixture that I subbed for the coconut oil. I wrapped them in a steamed collard green with avocado mayo. Amazing!