Musings

Archive for January, 2010

Oats + Bamix = Oat Powder

After a mostly successful first attempt at making Black Bean Burgers, I decided to have another go for lunch today.  Keeping in mind Heather’s preference for *not spicy*, and a general desire to cut down on grains, we made a few adjustments to the recipe.

Recipe Revisions

• Drain & rinse the beans. A colander worked well for this, then after a few minutes to drain, spread the beans out on a paper towel to soak up even more moisture.
• Reduce the spices. Cut the chili powder down from 1 tablespoon to 1/2 tablespoon, and the Frank’s RedHot from 1 teaspoon to 1/2 teaspoon.  We left the cumin and garlic alone.
• Cut down the grains. Instead of using bread crumbs, Heather did a quick search and found that oats make a good substitute.  I got to learn what the grinder attachment does for the Bamix mixer! (That’s the Bamix in the photo, with the grinder attachment – best kitchen tool ever, next to a sharp paring knife.) It also only need a shade over half a cup, instead of the nearly two cups of bread crumbs (partly because I drained the beans this time…)
• Cut down the onion. The original recipe calls for half an onion, but I don’t think it meant the mutant-onion-that-ate-Detroit that I went with the first time.  We used a more respectively-sized chunk of onion this time.

Results

Outstanding!  There was just enough for 4 good-sized burgers, and while they still had some bite, it wasn’t overwhelmingly spicy.  Heather proclaimed them tasty.  In fact, she’s heading to the store for ingredients so I can make a couple dozen burgers and freeze them.

We’ll chalk this recipe up as a solid success!  If you get the chance to try the recipe out, add a comment below to let me know how it works out.

Image Source: Flickr

Today is scale day! The last few days have been a bit tense; on Thursday morning the infernal device displayed something north of 319, a clear indication that the week was going to be much less dramatic than my first check-in. So for the past two, no, three days, I’ve been extra-rigorous about monitoring portion sizes.  Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t stop eating!  No, instead it was a focus on being more conservative in measuring out calorie intake.  It’s astonishing how quickly a half-cup in your mind actually measures out at a cup or more.  For calorie-dense foods, that kind of doubling-up is disastrous!

Last night we had the black bean burgers; I ate two of them, and stopped there.  They were tasty enough that I could have powered through another two without slowing down, but the scale, and New Years’ Eve, loomed on the horizon.

Learnings This Week

Here are a few of the items I’ve learned (or remembered) on week two of this year-long journey.  This isn’t anything formal, it’s what has emerged in the past week or so from recent experience. (And it seems to be confirming those things Mom said when we were young.)

• Drinking more water really does make a difference. Slamming 8 oz. when you stagger out of bed in the morning helps, too.  It’s like a shot of caffeine, really.  The body heats up, a flush creeps up your neck and face, and the world comes into clearer focus.
• I’m drinking less coffee – getting enough sleep (6.5-7 hours a night), excercising in the morning, and drinking more water are contributing to blunt the thirst.
• Eating just before bed is a recipe for a lousy nights’ sleep.
• Reading motivational books (like Born to Run) is, well, motivational.
• Having a spouse that is turning into a serious runner helps, too. (3-4 miles a morning, in freezing temps, 3-4 times a week – she rocks!)

The Results

Starting Weight: 328 pounds.

Last Week: 320 pounds.

This Week: 317 pounds.

Total Weight Loss: 11 pounds.

Weight Lost This Week: 3 pounds.

With a goal of 2 pounds per week, the past two weeks have been an outstanding start!

Who knew a can of black beans, half an onion, half a green pepper, an egg, some breadcrumbs and a handful of spices would be so delicious?  Easy preparation, quick grill on the stove (no fat means no grease spatter), and excellent texture and taste.  One thing to note, to avoid burning them, keep a careful eye.  Because there’s next to no fat, they don’t sizzle like a meat burger as a warning; actually, they sizzle for a few seconds while the surface moisture cooks off, then they, well, sit there.

My tastes run to the spicier, so these were absolutely delicious to me.  The recipe indicates it serves four (4 patties), but even with relatively large burgers, we were able to make six burgers.  Heather didn’t care for them so much – too spicy.  We’ll cut the spice components in half next time we make this recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 can Black Beans (15.5 oz is fine)
• 1/2 Onion (Medium-sized onion)
• 1/2 Green bell pepper (Medium-sized pepper)
• 1/2 Cup bread crumbs
• 1 Tbsp chili powder
• 1 Tbsp cumin
• 1 tsp hot sauce (we used Frank’s RedHot)
• 1 Egg
• 3 Garlic gloves, peeled
  • (We used 3 tsp of garlic powder for the first run, since we were out of garlic, seemed to work ok)

Put an iron griddle on the stove on medium-high heat and let it warm up while mixing the ingredients.

Drain, rinse and then *dry* the black beans to remove excess water.  We missed this step, so had to add an extra cup of bread crumbs to get the mixture to the right consistency for patties.

Put the beans in a medium-size bowl and use a fork to mash them into paste.  Drying the beans will also help with this since they won’t be so slippery.

Use a food processor to blend up the garlic, pepper and onions.

Drop all of the ingredients into the bowl and blend them thoroughly.

Add extra breadcrumbs if needed to get the bean dough sticky enough.  As I mentioned earlier, drying the beans first will help reduce the amount of carbs you’re pouring in at this point.

Make some patties and throw them on the now-heated grill.  You shouldn’t need any spray – the moisture in the burgers was plenty, and we just used a metal spatula to flip them after a couple of minutes.

Throw on a multi-grain bun with some lettuce, tomato and ketchup!

The new website is up!  If you’re reading this, it’s clear evidence that the gmpiv.com site (all of it) has been successfully migrated away from its old host.  The site is now living comfortably at its new home with Rolling Waters Internet Services.  Full disclosure: Rolling Waters is my Internet consultancy, still very much in its infancy, even though it has paying clients already.

If you’re one of those rarest of people, the “repeat visitor”, you’ve no doubt noticed that the entire site looks different, and at the moment doesn’t include all of the old content.  Well, it won’t.  The Internet may be forever, but life moves on, and some of the old projects have been deleted to make way for brash new endeavors.  Some things will be sticking around though, like the humor archive and the character survey, both of which are very popular attractions.  The viking axe project will probably stick around too, although I haven’t played medieval since shortly after the birth of JP, and he’s 4 now.