go forth ye and make this - BBQ Nut Burgers

Being a vegetarian intimidates some people, especially when they'd like to have you over for dinner but don't know what to serve, I'm often asked, "What do you eat - other than salad?" Or "
You don't eat any meat?! not even chicken or fish?!" Nope, not even chicken or fish. And yes, I eat more than just salad. Once past the initial reaction of being vegetarian I'm usually told, with what seems like a bit of guilt on the part of the other person that, "Oh I think that's great! I don't eat much meat," or "I only eat seafood because it's an external skeleton." Yes, I've heard that! Listen folks, I'm not a 'preachy' vegetarian, I raise meat for human consumption for crying out loud, (I love the contrarian nature of that too fyi!) I have my reasons for being a vegetarian and you have your reasons for not being one, I'm ok with that. In fact if you come for dinner I'll even roast you a chicken, some say it's good enough to gnaw the bones. So in case you ever wondered what to serve a vegetarian I thought I'd post a really delicious burger recipe for you. I got the original recipe from my grandmother who oddly enough gave me the most grief about becoming a vegetarian in the first place. I have no idea there she got it so if it's your recipe let me know and I'll thank you for the delicious idea and give credit where it's due. I've made these and tweaked the recipe a bit, feel free to try it and retweak if you like. Here goes:

In a food processor add:
1/2 cup cashews
1/2 cup pecans

You can likely tell there are no cashews in this bowl, that's because I'm very allergic to them, so I use pecans, (which I love,) walnuts, almonds and sunflower seeds. Pulse until the nuts and finely ground.
Transfer to a bowl and add:
1 cup of wheat bread crumbs
1/2 cup of potato flakes


Oops! Out of wheat bread crumbs, so I used a handful on panko bread crumbs and handful of italian bread crumbs. Not quite enough potato flakes, (don't freak out, I only use them for this recipe!) so I added enough nutritional yeast flakes to make the correct amount.

You may have noticed that I tend to use a recipe more as a general suggestion guide, not so much a hard and fast rule, I find cooking to be way more enjoyable that way and less like "I have a kitchen because it came with the house."

Mix that together and add:
2 eggs beaten
2 tsp dried minced onion
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp salt

You can see that my onions are neither dried nor minced, that may have a great deal to do with the fact that I just now as I was typing this up for you realized that the recipe calls for them to be that way, not chopped fresh... Well what do you expect, see the comment above. :-) And I omitted the salt, the sunflower seeds were salted and roasted I think.


Blend all that together and form into patties and fry in an oiled frying pan for 3-4 minutes on each side. I find that when I used my electric grill they stay together much better and besides how else are you going to get those cute little grill marks on them?!

So which ever way you decide to cook them serve them with a bit of BBQ sauce, the one I use goes like this:

4tbsp raw honey
4tbsp organic (HFCS free) ketchup
2 tsp cider vinegar
2tsp molasses and
just a splash of vegetarian Worcestershire sauce
Serve it with some veggies, a salad or a kick in the pants! Which ever you choose it's sure to be appreciated and delicious! YUM!

*In the picture it really looks like a ton of sour cream, it's really not that much, it's just spread out over the fluffed up potato underneath... I love sour cream, just not that much!