Adventures in the Kitchen

For the past two or so months, ever since I moved into a new apartment in May after finals (oh yeah, I moved into the UV!), I've been meaning to blog about my kitchen adventures, considering I now have a kitchen. Oh, and since I started working full time, the knitting time has been severely slashed, so in this two and a half months, I've made a few things, but not many. Perhaps I'll update you another time - probably after I get back from a stint at home for my birthday.

Important knitting news though:

1) I'm in Knitty! You can find my sock pattern, Primrose, here :)

2) I also got a pattern into the Knit Picks IDP program. Here's Pagoda.

Anyways, last night I decided to try a new veggie burger recipe. It was a long week, and I decided I wanted something deeply comforting and satisfying for dinner. Being that I'm poor, and didn't have any ground beef, what was a girl to do? Make veggie burgers of course!

I used this recipe for the burgers, and I have to admit, the patties didn't stay together very well, or cook really well, and ended up just tasting like slightly grilled black bean dip on a bun, with avocado and muenster cheese. And it wasn't that spicy either (though this might have to do more with the fact that I was supposed to mix everything by pulsing in a food processor, which I don't own).

However, since there isn't any egg or anything in this, you can eat it raw, and therefore it would make a fabulous black bean dip. But I won't be making it again for burgers.

The buns, however, oh the buns! The buns were absolutely fabulous! So fabulous, when they came out of the oven and cooled a little, I just grabbed one and ate it by itself (OK, I split it in half and gave some to Jen, who was cooking right next to me, but she was eyeing them too). This is all that remained this morning:

I used this recipe, and just didn't do any sort of wash on the top, because I really love that dusty flour look on bread, rather than a golden or brown finish.

This morning, it being Sunday, and my day off, I decided to make something nice for breakfast. I was going to make an omelet, until I realized I had extra buns, and the burger patty fodder would go excellently with eggs.

Therefore, I fried up two eggs, seasoned them with paprika, freshly ground pepper, and salt. Then I scooped some of the patty fodder on top, flipped them over to grill it a little, flipped it back over, and topped with cheese.

Notice how the muenster is cheese, and the american is processed cheese food? I looked on the back, and the only ingredient in the muenster is muenster cheese, while in the american, there's american cheese plus some other... stuff. Yummy.

Anyway, our toaster only has two slots, so I sliced the buns in half and put them in the oven on broil to toast.

Then I stacked.

In hindsight, I think that the patty fodder would benefit from a strong dose of taco seasoning, and perhaps some more breadcrumbs,an egg instead of the flax meal. But these brunchish sandwiches only needed a nice mug of black tea (sugar only) to really make them shine.