A Wonderful Weekend!!

I have had a busy weekend and I apologize for being missing in action but I am back. This morning a I had a little bit of pancake batter left in the refrigerator so I made up another batch of the zucchini and pecan pancakes. Love these and it kept me full for quite a long time. Me and hubby did the grocery shopping and I got home and decided I wanted to try to make my own bean burgers for lunch.

I am the type of person if I see something at the store and would rather try to make it from scratch than buy it. I searched online and came up with this bean burger recipe. Quick and easy just how I like it. It makes four burgers and since my daughter and myself or the only one who will eat them. I froze the other two for another time.

I put in on a Arnold thin bun and topped it with a little lite mayo mixed with adobo sauce, lettuce and tomato. Perfect I didn't even need anything else with it. Will definitely be making more of these.

The recipe is:

Homemade Black Bean Veggie Burger

1 (15 oz) can black beans, drained and rinsed

1/2 green pepper, cut into 2 inch pieces

1/2 onion, cut into wedges

3 cloves garlic, peeled

1 egg

1 Tb chili powder

1 Tb cumin

1 tsp hot sauce

1/2 cup bread crumbs

You can either cook them on the grill or in the oven. I cooked them in the oven. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and lightly oil a baking sheet.

In a medium bowl, mash black beans with a fork until thick and pasty. (I didn't want to do all the work so I put it in the food processor)

In food processor, finely chop bell pepper, onion, and garlic. (I just threw it in with the beans) Then stir into mashed beans. In a bowl stir together egg, chili powder, cumin and hot sauce. Stir in egg mixture into the mashed beans. Mix in bread crumbs until the mixture is sticky and holds together. Divide mixture into four patties. Baked about 10 minutes on each side.

I did end up using more bread crumbs to get the texture I wanted.

198 calories, 3g fat, 33g carbs, 10g fiber and 11g protein

Since my daughter and I are the only ones who don't eat meat we attempt to try a new recipe each week. When I was searching for the bean burger recipe I came across this recipe and I had to give it a try. It was called Tofu Parmigiana!

This was SO good!! My husband even took a bite and said he liked it. If you have never tried tofu this is a great recipe to try. It did take a little work but it was well worth the effort.

I had my serving with a side salad. This will definitely be added to our favorite tofu recipes. Every time I try a new tofu recipe it convinces me that I can be happy without meat! Very weird for me to say since I thought I would never give up meat. What a great journey this has been.

The weather was beautiful today! A great friend, Kim, texts me and invited me to take a walk with her. It was SO great. Nice to be able to catch up and do something great for our bodies at the same time. We walked about 6 miles in one hour and 20 minutes. A great cardio session.