Veggie burgers with halloumi and homemade guacamole.

My hubby made homemade burgers for him and the kids tonight, so I made myself a veggie option. I looked over a few recipes but then decided to just make up my own! It worked pretty well so I thought I’d share it with you. I also had a little bit too much fun writing words with food.

Ingredients

1/2 onion, diced small

3 large cloves garlic, chopped

8 closed cup mushrooms, diced (I really really like mushrooms by the way!)

1 tin green lentils

1 tin mixed beans

4 slices of bread, crusts cut off and then rubbed into breadcrumbs

1 heaped teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

Salt and pepper to taste.

Few strips halloumi to serve (to take it from veggie to vegan, you can always leave this out.)

(With hindsight, I could have added a fair bit more of the cumin. It got a bit lost as there ended up being so much mix.)

Method

Fry off the onion over a lowish heat, I use coconut oil, for about 3/4 mins or until softened, then add in the spices, salt and pepper and mushrooms and garlic and cook for another few minutes.

Lightly mash the lentils and beans with a fork then add to the pan for a further few minutes. Then place into a bowl and stir in the breadcrumbs. The mixture was still really wet, I left it for about 10 minutes and the breadcrumbs seemed to absorb a lot more of the moisture.

Scoop out a large spoonful and shape into a patty. I made 2 and had plenty of mixture leftover. Apparently you can shape into patties and place between two sheets of greaseproof paper and freeze but I’ve not tried it and so can’t say for sure what the results will be. I’ll update it when I know!

I placed them back into the pan without adding any more oil or washing it out and cooked them for about 5 minutes on each side until I got a nice crispy top and and bottom. Then I added in a few strips of halloumi to brown.

I served them with wedges my husband made and homemade guacamole. This is so simple and delicious.

Ingredients

1 Avocado

4 cherry tomatoes, halved and then quarter the halves

1/4 red pepper, diced small

1/4 onion, diced small

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

Slug of chilli oil, (should have been a red chilli de-seeded and finely chopped but we were out!)

Method

Mash the avocado with a potato masher. You can use a fork but it depends on the ripeness of the avocado. Stir in all the rest of the ingredients. Feel smug that you made something that looks really fancy and complicated in about 5 minutes! 🙂

No burger would be complete without gherkins!