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!
Oh you and Eric are just too cute! Love your idea, the pictures look beautiful ;-)
The photos look gorgeous…you guys are too cute. I miss you BOTH! ;) I have actually been thinking of printing + framing photos and trying to sell them to earn some money…not sure if people would want pictures of oats in their house but you never know!! hehe Those burgs sound AHmazing. mmmmm
i’d buy your oats!!!!! haha
miss you!
Hi! random and strange question- do you find that curry makes you smell when you sweat?
haha I dont think so…?
oooh, what an awesome project!! Yes, I think you should arrange them all on the floor or table first and take pics :). That way you only have to nail first. I love mismatched frames and random non symmetrical picture collages. It’s going to look so cool!!
Those burgers look INSANE. I need to make them ASAP!
Haha I love how Eric just eats a big ol’ bowl of carrots :) Good for him for eating his veggies!
And the glob of hummus on the burgers? Wowowowow!! So yum :)
hi
Angela, this is my first comment on your website, i religiously read your website every morning, i am Indian, so thanks to the time difference between Canada and India, i get to read your new articles every morning. I love your blog and i have learnt to eat responsibly from your articles at the same time i also enjoy my meal, thanks a lot. i love your love and passion for healthy food, your honesty in relishing each dish is so inspiring. i have culivated it from you and i owe it to you completely.
i read about your carrot salad, i have a few suggestions if you dont mind, the next time you tried grated carrot, add finely chopped onion, 1/2 finely chopped cucumber and 1/2 chopped tomato, green chille, or few paparika and plain yogurt to it and garnish it with cilantro. this is more filling and have it chilled it tastes great. you can add variations to it buy adding sprouted green gram or golden gram as it is called.
And btw Eric looks really cute and trust me you guys make a cute pair~~
Thanks for the carrot suggestions!
I am glad you enjoy the blog :)
I know what I’m making on Saturday!! The curry chickpea burgers sound so good! Do you have any idea how many calories in a serving?
I love the pictures! I need to copy! So great!!
Beautiful pictures! I think it’s always a bit more fun to have your own art displayed on the wall… although that giraffe picture is really cute!
I love all the food pictures! I’m also a HUGE fan of making big wall collages like that– my husband and I are in the process of doing something similar in our dining room! We’ve laid out all our pictures on our dining room table to get the layout right, then we’re going to transfer it to our wall. It looks really good laid out on our table, but we keep procrastinating the actual hanging, because we don’t want to mess it up! LOL :)
love this post!
so colorful and delish!
i am SOO making these
and i think i just
got my husb to
agree to craft with me
to help decorate the casa!
; )
love it!
Those photos are SO stunning – what a brilliant idea!! I officially want to do that in my house when I’m older :D amazing!
The burgers sound FAB too, I LOVE chickpeas!
Those pictures! That giraffe! That hummus! Those burgers! That bowl of carrots!
This was an adorable post <3
I love that you're making your house so -you-.
I’m experiencing extreme camera envy because there’s no way my little point and shoot could ever take pictures as gorgeous as those! What kind of camera do you use?
Its A Canon 30D :) Thanks!
I love all of them, but that strawberry one is definitely my favorite. I love it with the wood frame. What a great idea! And they really printed large very nicely.
I bookmarked this recipe
enjoy!
Those pictures are gorgeous!!!
And I think your favorite quote just became my new favorite quote. :)
I’m horrible at printing photos! I haven’t even ordered my wedding photos yet and that was over a year ago! I need to get on the photo train ASAP.
These burgers look amazing. I’ve been looking for recipes (beyond hummus) to go through my chickpea stash before I move in 6 weeks, and these will do the trick perfectly. Thanks!
my husband looooves shredded carrot salad too! here’s what we put in ours:
– shredded carrots
– dried cranberries
– green onions
– crushed peanuts
– fresh dill
– dressing: apple cider vinegar, honey, freshly ground pepper
hmm… now I think I’ll make some this weekend! :-)