Mushroom and Barley Veggie Patties

We regularly eat frozen veggie patties for a quick weeknight meal.  They taste good; however, they come in a box which is packaged far away and are rather expensive for an individual patty.    I have been thinking about how to make my own veggie patties with all of the grains that we have from our Lonesome Whistle CSA and have explored a few recipe possibilites (including my friend Karen's Salmon and Barley Cakes--it's next on my list!).

While I have been contemplating making veggies patties, throughout the Willamette Valley communities are thoughtfully trying to address hunger and find creative solutions to use our farm resources to help. Food for Lane County has started contracting with local growers to grow more whole grains including high protein lentils.  Marion Polk Food Share has developed a Protein Patty which has 10 grams of protein and can be produced for only 10 cents per patty.  (There is a cute video of the production.)  These stories are inspirational, and provide a good reminder of some of the reasons that my family is trying to eat and cook many of our foods from local sources.

I therefore thought it was so timely when Eugene Local Foods recently posted a New York Times recipe for Mushroom and Grain Cheeseburgers from Martha Rose Shulman and suggested making them with purple barley.  These little patties have 14 grams of protein each and tasted great.  The patties are a little fragile, but I was able to carefully flip them in the pan and move them to our plates.  It was more time consuming that turning on the microwave for 3 minutes with the frozen pre-prepared patties (particularly because the barley needed to cook for about 45 minutes).  I would have liked to use some of our local beans, but I did not have any cooked so relied on a can of beans as in the recipe--next time!

The actual patties were easy to assemble, have fresh ingredients, and we all enjoyed them (toppings included ketchup, provolone cheese, and Yumm! sauce).  With one recipe batch, I was able to make nine patties, which means I will be able to put some of these into the freezer for another future quick weeknight meal.

First Asparagus of the Season

I was so thrilled when we bought our house to learn that it came with a mature patch of asparagus.  Every spring, I eagerly anticipate snapping off the asparagus shoots as they emerge.  Last weekend, we could just see the tips of the first shoots, and I was disappointed to see that some slugs or snails also seemed to be enjoying MY asparagus.

Today, four asparagus shoots (ranging in length from six to twelve inches) were slug free and ready to harvest--the perfect amount to add to our dinner.  It was also great to have my son help snap the shoots in the garden and talk about how they were going to be part of our dinner.

Then, I committed a cooking foul.

I burned the asparagus.  

Gasp!

After a moment of panic, I realized that since the shoots in our yard are really fat I could easily cut away the burned parts and still have enough to eat.

Gigantic sigh of relief.

The asparagus was so delicious.  Tender, melt-in-my-mouth delicious.  I LOVE fresh spring asparagus.

Skillet Asparagus 

Fresh asparagus
Grapeseed oil
Salt
Pepper 

Heat skillet with grapeseed oil on medium high.  Add asparagus (either whole or like today broken into bite sized pieces) and a little salt and pepper.  Cover and cook just a few minutes until asparagus are bright green (not black!).

And look, there are more shoots in the strawberry patch waiting to grow just a bit bigger this week! Yum, yum, yum!

Arikara Bean Hummus

Our recent Lonesome Whistle CSA included Arikara Beans.  I cooked them in the slow cooker like I have with Calypso and  Rio Zape Beans; however, I found that these are very mild and even a little bland in flavor when eaten plain.  We ate them in soup and burritos, but my favorite way to eat these beans was in a delicious batch of hummus I made.

Everyone in my family eats and enjoys hummus--especially immediately after it has been made.  We ate it on tortilla chips, carrots, bread and just plain by the spoonful.  My recipe is adapted from the Moosewood Cookbook for the ingredients; however, I never measure any of the ingredients--just add them to taste--and the recipe varies each time based on what we in the kitchen.

Hummus 

2 cups cooked Arikara Beans (from Lonesome Whistle CSA)
1 lemon juiced
cumin
4 cloves garlic
salt
parsley
tahini
olive oil 

Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend until the beans are completely mashed and mixed with the other ingredients.