I blame my Auntie Donna. Lovingly, of course. She came to visit this past Friday for Patrick’s graduation.

When my mother threw some tasty looking steaks onto the grill, she quietly slipped out of the house and picked up some spicy black bean burgers from the grocery store.

Apparently, she hasn’t eaten beef or pork in years. Sticks mainly to chicken and seafood, and didn’t want to have a dinner of rice and vegetable medley.

She grilled up two of the four patties and enjoyed them at the table with us. Later that evening, her and my grandmother left to head back to Maryland. The remaining two patties were my lunch on Saturday and suddenly the container of black beans in my fridge became fodder for creating my own spicy black bean burgers.

Up until setting out to make my own black bean burgers I had just been tossing handfuls of beans into salads, and occasionally throwing some into my mini food processor to experiment with bean dip recipes. So far I had discovered a few things — I like my black beans with some heat, and curry makes an excellent accompanying flavor.

So, armed with a recipe I had found on the Washington Post’s website, I set to turning my four cups (conveniently!) of beans into ten chipotle curry black bean burgers.

A few tips on making these chipotle curry black bean burgers, or any bean burgers for that matter:

• Don’t puree all of your beans. I don’t care how much you want to get the most use out of your food processor, or how much fun it is to watch them all whirr around in there. Your burgers will have more substance and bite to them if you leave half of the beans whole. And, much like some fruit is left in tact to show guests how much painstaking work you put into your homemade jam, you’ll want anyone eating these burgers to know you worked hard on ‘em… even though they’re real easy to make!

• A device like the Tupperware burger press shown below will come in handy. If you haven’t got one, do your best to form the patties free hand. Although you could probably pick a burger press up for just a few dollars, I hate trips to the store just to pick up a nonessential kitchen gadget. Put it on your list for next time and make due with your hands. Enlist the aid of a child still enamored with Play-Doh, or channel your inner child and go to town. Don’t go much over 3 inches in diameter, although if you’ll be eating these on some big honkin’ rolls feel free to make them as big as you like. As for thickness, I would recommend staying around one inch.
  
• You’ll want to place a sheet of wax paper between each burger to keep them from sticking to one another. Since you’ll likely cut more squares of wax paper than you need, just use the extras to keep the burgers from sticking to the cutting board and burger press, if you’re using one. Nonstick spray works fine too, but you get funny looking mid-process scenes like this if you use wax paper.
• If you’re stacking your burgers like I did, don’t stack many more than three or four at a time. I mean it. Even your best efforts to keep the burgers level will not prevent them from eventually toppling over when the stack gets too tall. Trust me. I know. So does most of the neighborhood… Oh the yell I let out when I realized what gravity was doing.
• Do all of your taste testing BEFORE you add in the eggs. Given the recent squabbles over Nestle’s cookie dough, I would hate to let it go unsaid that you shouldn’t eat any of this stuff until after you’ve cooked it. It’s a no brainer, but can’t hurt to offer a friendly reminder.
• And on that note, season a little at a time. My idea of just right with the spices may elicit a “Tch, what a wuss,” or a “Gosh darn that’s too hot,” from you. This is another no brainer, but it’s a real pain trying to un-spice something.
• Even if you’ll be freezing these to reheat later, like I did, lightly fry them before you do. They’ll survive the freezing process a little better if you do. In fact, as you’ll read in the recipe, you want to chill these at least 15 minutes before they even hit the pan. It helps them hold together once they do. You can fry them without oil or butter, as the WaPo recipe suggests, but I couldn’t help myself and used a light layer of nonstick spray on the griddle. No harm, no foul. If you want more of a crust on the outside, oil and butter away!
• Be patient when cooking these burgers. You can’t fidget, poke and bother these guys every few minutes once they’ve started cooking. I practically had to set a timer and banish myself from the kitchen. They need to just sit and sizzle — read: firm up — for at least 4 to 5 minutes before you get in there with your spatula. Even then, be gentle. It also couldn’t hurt to throw a lid on the pan for a minute or so while you’re frying/reheating these to ensure they cook/reheat throughout. Nobody likes a burger with a chilly center. Or salmonella.
• If you like a juicier burger, vegetables are your friend. I prefer my onions and bell peppers sauteed to the point of sweetness, but I would imagine that cooking them less or not at all would mean they release more juicy goodness into the burgers while you’re frying them later. I didn’t use them in this recipe, but some diced tomatoes, or corn would also be great ways to add moisture.
• Get creative with your fixins! I already have a delicious looking recipe for Avocado and Corn Salad from Mark Bittman’s “How To Cook Everything” picked out that I’m going to make when I reheat one of these. I’ll heat the burger, chop it up and throw it in with the salad with some shredded cheddar since I’m not a huge fan of buns. Maybe add a few dollops of sour cream… Anyway, my point is not to feel too confined to eating these the way you would traditionally eat a burger. Or with conventional condiments.

Now then, here’s the WaPo recipe with my alterations noted in italics.

Spicy Black Bean Burgers
Adapted from “Recipe of the Week: Burgers” by Sally Sampson

Ingredients
4 cups cooked, rinsed and drained black beans (about 2 ½ 15-ounce cans)
1/2 cup Japanese-style panko breadcrumbs (If you’re adding anything that’ll increase the liquid, you’ll want to adjust this. Generally, the burger mix should be stiff enough for a spoon to stand up straight in it and resist gentle prodding. Real scientific, I know.)
2 large eggs
4 scallions, both white and green parts, minced (I just used half a medium onion, and added half a bell pepper too)
3 tablespoons (a small handful) chopped basil or cilantro, or a combination
2 teaspoons each chipotle chile powder, paprika and curry powder
2 heaping teaspoons red pepper hummus
2 tablespoons horseradish mustard
2 tablespoons hot sauce of your choice
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2-2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
1-2 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Method
Place 2 cups of the black beans in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until chunky.

Add the hummus, onion and bell pepper. Pulse a few more times.

Transfer to a large mixing bowl. Add remaining whole black beans, plus panko, eggs, scallions, fresh herbs, garlic, cumin, oregano, extra spices, hot sauce, mustard and red pepper flakes and mix until well combined.

Using a dough cutter, portion mixture into patties about 1 inch thick. Suggested diameter: 3 inches; otherwise, the patty will be difficult to flip when cooking. KOD extra step that’s worth doing: Place patties on a plate or tray and chill for 15 minutes so they can set up.

When ready to cook, remove patties from refrigerator or freezer and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place a cast-iron skillet over high heat, without any fat; when it is hot but not smoking, add burgers to dry pan.

Cook for about four minutes on first side or until well seared and with a flipping spatula, turn onto second side and allow to cook for an additional five minutes, over medium heat.

Serve immediately with fixins’: Monterey jack, cheddar or queso fresco, lettuce, fresh tomato slice, pico de gallo or jarred salsa, sour cream, avocado. Good on a soft bun or by itself.

Makes four to six burgers. I got ten good sized burgers out of this recipe, but obviously this recipe yields more or less depending on how large you’d like to make your burgers.

As always, enjoy!

“Stacy,” you’re probably saying, “what moved you to break out the microplane so early in the morning? And for ginger root!?”

Fear not. The mini workout of grating a piece of ginger into your blender will turn into the perfect way to start your day when you try this zinger of a smoothie.

In the spirit of my last post about making infinitely customizable granola, smoothies also lend themselves to the to-each-their-own philosophy. That’s why I choose to start my summer mornings with them so often — they’re chilly, energizing and leave room for lots of variety.

What follows is my version of Smoothies 101, then the recipe. Skip to the recipe, if you must, but the tips are here if you need them.

One of the first orders of business is acquiring several kinds of frozen fruit. I chose to start with blueberries, raspberries, mangoes and peaches. Be as creative as the freezer section at your local grocery store allows.

If you have access to fresh fruit, use it. In fact, there are some ripe strawberries in our fridge that I’m claiming tomorrow morning. However, relying only on fresh fruit for your smoothie adventures could put you in a situation where your ingredients start to rot before they meet your blender. That means wasted money and no smoothie — a double whammy!

Another benefit of using frozen fruit — You don’t have to worry about those pesky ice cubs. Sure, most blenders can handle ice… and sound like an industrial piece of machinery while doing so. Consider this carefully if you intend to make these for breakfast while maintaining healthy relationships with your family, spouse and/or roommates.

I use my hand blender to make my smoothies, but would never bet on that appliance up against ice cubes. Instead, I’ve found that frozen fruit keeps things a little quieter and saves you a bit of time.

So far, I have found frozen peaches and mangoes to be the hardest to blend smoothly. On several occasions I’ve left the house with a smoothie in tow and a nearly intact peach or mango hiding at the bottom of my mug. And no, they’re not straw-friendly at all.

After much frustration, I’ve found a solution. If you let the fruit sit at room temperature for just a few minutes, it’ll succumb to your blender without putting up much of a fuss. DO NOT put your frozen fruit in the microwave. You’ll wind up with hot smoothie. Unless that’s what you want. In which case, go right ahead.

Fun tidbit: I mentioned my flickr photo of this smoothie earlier today on Twitter, and wound up meeting @smoothieweb. He runs Smoothie Recipes, an extensive collection of recipes. Also, if you’re on Twitter, follow @stacyannj … it’s me!

For those of you that would like to add protein powder into your smoothies (I add whey protein to mine), I have found that adding the powder after you’ve blended all the other ingredients works best. Otherwise your blender gets hung up on navigating through hunks of powder and you’ll need to keep stopping the blender to shift things around or give it a shake.

Adding the protein powder last also makes for a lump-free treat. Nothing ruins a smoothie quite like biting down on a pellet of chalky protein. Yech.

Milk, soy milk, water, juice, yogurt, chai tea concentrate, nectar, coffee. All are acceptable ingredients when it comes to making your smoothie drinkable. Err on the side of not enough first, and add small amounts until you reach a consistency you like. For me, that’s usually something similar to soupy ice cream.

I prefer to use vanilla soy milk, since my smoothies usually include vanilla protein powder too. In this recipe, I paired the soy milk with orange juice for an extra flavor. As for yogurt, I only occasionally use it since I’m not always keen on the tangy after taste that it leaves in my mouth.

And now, without further ado, my recipe. Remember, this entire recipe is approximate and can be easily altered to suit your tastes. I’m just sharing this particular combination because I think it’s a real good ‘un that you’ll like too!

Mango-Orange Ginger Smoothie

1 C. frozen mangoes, slightly thawed

1 in. piece of ginger, peeled and grated

1/3 C. orange juice

1/2 C. vanilla soy milk

35 g. Whey protein powder (Optional)

1. Allow frozen mangoes to thaw slightly at room temperature for 5-10 minutes. 
2. Add slightly thawed mangoes, orange juice, soy milk to blender. If you’re using a hand blender, use a large plastic cup that allows enough room for things to blend without overflowing.
3. Grate ginger into cup using a microplane. If you don’t have one, chop it into very small pieces before adding.
4. Blend until smooth. If you are excluding the whey protein, you’re done. Enjoy!
5. If you’re including whey protein, add it. Blend again. Add extra soy milk/orange juice if too thick, blend and then enjoy!

Phew.

Heck of a last semester at Rowan, but I am finally a college graduate! This hungry student now has her B.A. in journalism, a minor in psychology and an honors concentration. In fact, I’m now a hungry grad student: I’ll be pursuing my M.J. in online journalism at University of Maryland – College Park this fall! I’ve also been toiling away on StacyAnnJ.com, my professional portfolio and blog.

As my inaugural “Hey, I’m Back!” post, I present you with some homemade granola. In fact, as this recipe yields so much, I’d be happy to ship some to anyone interesting in sampling my creation. It’s very tasty, and like all granola recipes, completely customizable.

I found a good starting place in this recipe at Eat Real. Sandy also includes some excellent recipe notes about why you should bake your granola low and slow, and how to tailor your granola so it suits your tastes perfectly. For mine, I decided to add some vanilla, cut back on the nuts by half and substitute some apple oil for the vegetable oil. 

The apple oil, pictured below, added a really nice extra layer of flavor. Count on seeing me use it in other baked goods!

Once you realize how easy and cost-effective making your own granola is, you’ll scoff at the small and pricey packages your supermarket sells.

Cranberry Almond and Walnut Granola

3 C. Rolled oats (Not instant)

3/4 C. Almonds, chopped

1/2 C. Walnuts, chopped

3 Tbsp. Apple oil

1/4 C. Brown sugar

1/3 C. Honey

2 Tbsp. Sesame seeds

2 Tbsp. Sugar

1/2 tsp. Almond extract

1/2 tsp. Vanilla extract

1 tsp. Cinnamon

1 tsp. Salt

1-2 Tbsp. Butter (optional)

1 C. Cranberries, dried

1. Preheat oven 250F. Spray a large, edged cookie sheet with nonstick cooking spray liberally. No spray? Use the optional Tbsp. or so of butter to grease it. Be thorough!
2. In a large bowl, combine oats, nuts, brown sugar, honey, oil, sesame seeds, sugars, extracts, cinnamon and salt. 
3. Use a spoon to gently combine all the ingredients until they are evenly mixed and gooey.
4. Dumb the contents of your large bowl onto the sheet. Use your spoon to spread the granola into an even layer that covers the whole pan.
5. Bake for 1 hr. 15 min. in preheated oven (250F). Pop in every 15 minutes to mix the granola, then smooth it back out with a spoon.
6. When you remove the granola from the oven, it will still be gooey. Let it rest on the pan for about 20 minutes so it can set into delectable little bunches.
7. The granola SHOULD come off the pan easily. If at this point you find that you haven’t greased the pan as you should have — Don’t worry. Happened to me too. — grab a spatula and get creative. 
8. If there are still hunks of granola that won’t budge, drizzle some dish soap onto the pan and cover it with hot water in your sink. Let it soak a few hours — overnight, preferably — and all the solids will be ready to release soon enough.

Enjoy!

No, in my absence I haven’t resorted to snapping photos of Saladworks creations. This, my dear friends, is a lobster salad with a homemade avocado cilantro-lime dressing!

The lobster and dressing are leftovers from a wonderful Valentine’s Day dinner that my boyfriend Shawn cooked for me. By the way, I can’t imagine that it surprises anyone that I’m dating someone who loves to cook.

This salad is eeeeasy to throw together with some mixed salad greens, chopped carrots, grape tomatoes and leftover lobster meat. I’d wager that you could throw leftover chicken or shrimp in here too and wind up with something just as delicious. Shawn has been less than forthcoming with his recipe for the salad dressing… but, I’d put my money on it looking something like this -

1 haas avocado, peeled, & in pieces
2 handfuls of fresh cilantro, washed & dried
2 heaping Tbsp mayonnaise (I used canola mayo)
¼ c. fresh lime juice
10 shakes Tapatillo hot sauce
2 Tbsp. macadamia nut oil

I found this on a DiscussCooking.com forum. I’d say this is really close, since I snuck a few peaks into the kitchen and saw the mayo, cilantro, limes and avocados hanging out with my blender before it came together in a whirrrr. Of course, it’s really easy to tweak this to your liking so tweak away! I like mine with lots of zing from the lime.

Originally Shawn’s version of the salad contained orange slices, and let me tell ya, they took the dish over the top. That bright, sweet citrus combined with the tangy dressing and chunks of lobster… sooooo good. However, I didn’t have any oranges left in the house by the time I recreated it for dinner last week.

Confession: I don’t have photos of the food from my dinner, really. I tried. But the lights were out and the coffee table was aglow with about 20 little tea lights. A la this…

So, after snapping a few more pictures like this in between courses I set my camera aside and enjoyed — oh, and did I ever – the food and Shawn’s company.

The meal started with a ginger carrot soup garnished with a bit of cilantro. The soup’s silky texture was courtesy of my *new* immersion blender! A very fitting Valentine’s Day gift indeed.

I’ve been wielding that thing in the kitchen like a light saber, looking for things to puree, blend and soupefy since last Saturday. Smoothies come together in seconds! Really! I couldn’t love this thing more.

The second course was a rendition of the salad you see above, yummy citrus included. And then! The finale course! Was Chinese five spice sauteed red snapper over some portabela mushrooms in a port reduction with spicy sweet potato fries on the side.

I haven’t gotten many details about the recipes out of him just yet. Trying not to spoil the mystique, I suppose. But, I can tell you that we find a reason to cook every time we see each other on the weekends and the meals are always oh so gooood.

If I have it my way, we’ll be getting a lot of mileage out of my brand new copy of Mark Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything.” It’s the kind of comprehensive mammoth of a book that could make any culinista weak in the knees and ready to throw dinner parties at the drop of a hat. I picked up a copy of the vegetarian version of his lengthy tome for Shawn, so it looks like Bittman will be joining us in the kitchen often.

I can already highly recommend Bittman’s take on cheesecake, which includes a vanilla/sour cream layer on top. It’s an incredibly forgiving recipe. The day after we made it, we realized we hadn’t left it in the oven quite long enough. So back in it went and came out tasting — once it had been chilled — phenomenal.

Anyway, here’s to a not so hungry student and an always eating and cooking couple.