At long last, a recipe! Thanks to my Dad, I have a camera, and therefore can start to take pictures and post recipes again. Yay! I still need to get the hang of taking decent photos with it, as the intelligent auto doesn't seem as good as my old Panasonic, so I'm going to have to learn how to use it properly. However, to kick off in the new year (how far have we got into 2014?! Scary!) I have this new recipe of Sweet Potato & Black Turtle Bean Burgers that I created this week.
Because I have been doing the Guardian Live Better challenge, and have been focusing on reducing food waste and using up what I have in, I vowed to concentrate on using up the contents of my fridge, freezer, and cupboards. I have a stack of organic black turtle beans that I decided to do something with, as well as sweet potatoes, various spices and seasonings, etc. In fact, up until today, I had only spent £5 on additional fresh produce shopping this week. But I treated myself to a loaf of lovely white bread today to accompany some houmous I have made ;-)
This is a really easy and quick recipe, as long as you have the beans already soaked and cooked. I definitely prefer these burgers though with a sweet chilli type of sauce - and I've been eating them with an apple chilli jam (as seen in the photo) that my friend made. It's delicious. And a good budget recipe, too.
Further recipe tips:
1. Try substituting the beans for another black bean if yuo have no turtle beans.
2. This burger would also be very nice with a tocuh of spice - add some chilli if you like.
3. If you don't need a gluten free option, plain white flour can be used instead of gram (chick pea) flour, but I still prefer the gram flour, regardless of the fact that I don't need to take care about gluten.
Sweet Potato & Black Turtle Bean Burgers
Makes 6 burgers
Oil for frying
I medium onion, finely chopped
1 medium sweet potato, baked in skin (I microwave it)
1½ cups cooked black turtle beans
Approx 3 tablespoons gram flour (or normal flour if gluten not an issue)
Juice of 1 lemon
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh coriander, chopped
1 teaspoon all purpose seasoning
½ teaspoon turmeric
½ teaspoon salt
Black pepper to taste
1. Heat some oil in a frying pan on low-medium and sauté the onions until soft and very slightly golden. Add in the garlic and the turtle beans and cook a minute or two more, then turn off the heat.
2. Add the onion and bean mixture into a food processor with the coriander, lemon juice, and seasonings. Pulse together until bound, but not mushy. Scoop the sweet potato from its skin and stir into the mixture with a fork, or pulse into the mixture taking care not to allow it to go too soft.
3. On a plate, spread out the gram flour. In a frying pan, heat a small amount of oil on a medium heat. Spoon out some of the mixture and flatten into a patty, then coat each side in the gram flour. Place in the frying pan, and do the same with the rest of the mixture. It makes around 6 burgers. Fry each patty a few minutes each side until browned.
4. The burgers are nice served with chilli jam, as I have done in my picture. Or try a hot mango chutney. They can also be sandwiched in burger buns with ketchup.
I'm Andrea, and am obsessed with creating fabulous food. After I managed to ditch dieting, the reason Chocolate and Beyond was born, it seemed natural to evolve my site into a foodie blog. More so since I also ditched animal produce to be vegan. Now, I love showing how inventive cruelty-free cooking can be. And sometimes I like to rant, too. I wouldn't be myself otherwise :) x 
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