Hi there my amazing Steemian friends. Do you know what day is it today? It is the amazing Fruits and Veggies Monday created by an even more amazing friend Lena Vegan Living. I believe I had said this before and I think I will repeat it many times in the next weeks Monday's as well. Lena is amazing, good-hearted, gentle soul, and she deserves all the success here on Steemit and generally in life. Do me a favor and show her profile some love from time to time. And, I promise you she will return the same love to you. Because she really is that amazing.
So now that I have written all these compliments, I expect to win this contest this Monday. lol I am just kidding of course. I am always about letting the best, most creative, delicious, healthy, and amazing recipe win. And, the competition is getting bigger every week. So many amazing, healthy, and delicious recipes shared every week. So I decided to do the only thing I could. Get better, get out of my cooking comfort zone and try something new. I had a day off after my basketball game yesterday night so I decided to cook myself a great lunch.
Creating Relaxing And Positive Cooking Atmosphere
I always say cooking is all about using your imagination, creating your own recipes, and having fun while doing it. So here is my getting out of comfort zone and having some fun recipe for today. I always usually buy patties and veggie burgers from the store and honestly, they are not cheap. So I decided to make my own today. Like always in all my submissions I want you to turn on some music and relax. Create that amazing cooking atmosphere. My choice of music today is Bob Marley and the amazing "Don't Worry, Be Happy" song.
Feeling little more relaxed? Awesome, let get into some cooking now. Are you ready? 3,2,1... LET'S GO. :)
Ingredients
- Chickpeas
- 2 Sweet and 1 white potatoes
- Onion
- Red pepper
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 tomato
- rice
- Chickpeas flour
SPICES - paprika, pepper, Himalayan salt, olive oil, rosemary, oregano.
This recipe is merely a guideline. So you add the ingredients, and spices you like. Cooking is fun. So have fun with it. Make the recipe your OWN. :)
Preparation
- Start with warming up the water in the pot. While water is warming up clean the potatoes and cut them into the cubes. I cook mine with skin on and just wash them thoroughly before cooking. After you have cleaned and cut them dump them into that preheated water. It should take about 15-20 for them to be done. Cook them little longer like you are going to make mashed potatoes from them.
- So while the potatoes are cooking clean the onion, red peppers, garlic and cut them into tiniest pieces you can manage to cut them. Place them in a separate bowl.
- After cut the tomatoes and place them in your blender together with chickpeas. Blend until you get one solid mass. Add some water in a blender so it mixes little easier. I have a cheap 20 euros blender here and it does great job blending stuff like this. When it is all nicely blended add the mixture to the bowl with onion, garlic, and pepper you cut before. Wait for the potatoes to be done.
How is that Bob Marley working for you? I love his songs. So many amazing messages in his songs. Not to mention the amazing relaxing tone of his voice and music creates a perfect atmosphere for cooking. :)
- After the potatoes are done, drain them, and add them to the mixture in the bowl. Add little olive oil and all the delicious and amazing spices to the mixture. I did not have a potato masher so I used a fork to mash everything together. Soon you are going to start sensing all the amazing flavors mixing together. DO NOT START EATING IT. It will be TEMPTING. lol I know I was tempted. lol
I also saw I have some sesame seeds so I added those to the mixture as well... Sorry, it is just my cooking imagination working. So if you have some you can add them as well to the mixture. Like I said my recipe is a guideline and I encourage you to make this recipe your own.
Start preheating the oven to 300F/150 C.
Once you are done mashing it all up together start adding the chickpeas flour to the mixture to make even more solid mass so you can shape them into the patties. The mass will always be sticky a bit, but keep adding flour until you think it is solid enough to shape the patties from them. Now, get your hands dirty and shape those patties between your hands. You can splash some flour on your palms to make it easier to shape. Once you shape them place them on the aluminum foil and toss them in the oven. Turn up the heat to 200C/400 F. It should look something like this before you place them in the oven.
Easy right? Because cooking is easy and can be fun. The only thing you can mess up now is to burn them.. lol Cooking is all about NOT burning stuff and not over spicing things. Once you "master" that everything else is easy. I actually almost burned my apartment here in Italy trying to cook chickpeas one day. lol You can read about that story by clicking here
- While the patties are baking cook the rice in between. It should take about 30 minutes of baking the patties so they get a nice brownish crust on top. So you have plenty of time to cook the rice or any other side dish you want. I leave this choice to you. Cook the rice or something else. And, yes, don't forget to RELAX and ENJOY yourself. You are almost done. Turn the volume up on Bob Marley.Sing along with the songs no matter how bad you sound. And, trust me I sound bad, but I do it anyway. It relaxes me. I am telling you the more relaxed you are the better "taste" your dishes will have. Have fun.
Finishing Touches
Once the patties and rice are done it is time to serve them on the plate. So this is what I added in the end. I saw I had some cherry tomatoes in my fridge so I decided to use them. I cut them in the half and squeezed their juice over the delicious patties. And, I dropped couple more drops of olive oil on top of all the crusty and delicious looking patties and the rice. It gave them little extra flavor.
So it looks good right, but how does it taste? Because that is the most important thing of all right? I was actually amazed how good it tasted. The amazing blend of sweet and white potatoes mixed with veggies felt like you are having lunch and dessert at the same time. So many flavors for my taste buds. I mean incredible guys. The craziest thing of all this is my first time trying to make something like this. And, I can safely say it was a great success. I had fun cooking it all and it turned out to be one amazing and delicious lunch. Not to mention this meal basically all the vitamins and minerals my body needs on daily basis to endure basketball practices and games. Do you guys mind if I give myself a well-deserved tap on the shoulder for making this one? lol
Final Words
The only problem I had with this recipe was that I made too much and had a hard time to stop eating. lol But, this is all healthy so even if you overeat a bit it should not hurt you at all. I love this recipe as most patties and burgers in the stores also contain some chemical things inside of them to make them last longer which are not good for our bodies. Not to mention they are expensive. If I went to the store and tried to buy something like this it would probably cost me over 20 euros just for patties or veggie burgers. So definitely "worth" my time making this dish.
So by making this recipe from scratch I saved some money, eliminated almost all the chemicals and preservatives, and had an amazing time preparing and cooking it all. Everybody in my family cooks, but I believe I am the first one on the journey to becoming a full-vegan. Let's just say that did not go well with people in my town. My hometown in Croatia is famous for smoked ham. lol But, I believe this is the best decision I made for my body recently.
I hope you guys are going to try this recipe and make it your own. Add your ingredients to it, and have fun while doing it as well. Cooking is not complicated, and it sure can be simple, delicious, and healthy as this dish. Cooking for yourself is one of the most rewarding things you can for yourself and your body. That is if you don't burn it. lol Invest time in your health my friends. Your body will thank you for it. :)
Thank you all for reading, have an amazing day all, much love,
dbjegovic 💓 💗 💖
