Veggie/Garden Burger - Another Flexible Recipe

This is a great recipe to get your kids to eat their vegetables. The veggie patty in this recipe includes lots of vegetables as well as soy granules. It is delicious and very nutritious at the same time. Patties are great recipes to use leftovers too. I like to experiment with ingredients in the fridge as well as different vegetables to come up new and innovative ways to make the burger patties at home. Any extra patties can be frozen for a couple of months. They are very handy on days when you are rushed to make a quick meal.

If you don't wish to use these patties in burgers or sandwhiches, you can also make mini-sized medallions as sides to your meal or even as an appetizer which can be relished with some ketchup or green chutney.

Ingredients
2 medium potatoes, boiled and mashed
1 cup of soy nugget granules
5-6 green beans, chopped
1 carrot, cut into fine pieces
1/2 cup broccoli florets
½  cup peas
Green chillies, to taste
1inch ginger
Salt to taste
2 bread slices
1/4 cup rava or bread crumbs
oil to shallow fry the patties

burger bun
onion, sliced
lettuce
tomato, sliced
pepper
salt
ketchup
mustard
cheese slice

Method
Boil the soy granules  in 4 cups of water for 10 minutes. Drain and upon cooling, squeeze water out of the cooked granules. Wash the green beans, carrot, broccoli, peas.  Place these vegetables in a vessel and pressure cook for 1 whistle. Alternately, you can also steam cook the vegetables till soft or cook in the microwave for a couple of minutes till softened.

Make a paste of green chillies and ginger.

Mix together the potatoes, soy granules, pressure cooked vegetables and peas.  Mash all the ingredients together. To this add the chilli and ginger paste and salt. Add bread slices if the resultant mixture becomes watery, else you can skip the bread.  Spread out rava or bread crubms in a flat dish. Roll out the mixture into a small ball and flatten it. Then roll it in the rava or bread crumbs. Shallow fry in a flat pan.

To assemble the burger, apply ketchup and mustard on one half of the bun. Next lay a cheese slice, a lettuce leaf, a couple of onoin rings, a slice of tomato and then the patty. Serve with chips or a fresh salad.

Tips
If you are using frozen peas, wash them and then cook them for a minute or two in the microwave. These are pretty soft already and if you cook them in a pressure cooker, they will turn mushy.
If it is just a little soft, you can add a little cornflour. Also, if you want to avoid wheat and not use bread, substitute cornflour instead of bread.
I have also used some lefover beans or lentils and rice in lieu of soy granules. You can also use a variety of vegetables in the patty.

Broccoli Cheddar Soup

The temperatures have dropped, the skies are grey and the weather is cold. This is the perfect weather to have a warm bowl of soup for lunch or dinner. I enjoy soups, especially during winter. The lighter ones serve as great appetizers while the heartier ones are complete meals. Broccoli cheddar soup is a hearty soup. Add a dinner roll and you don’t need to prepare anything else. I hadn’t tasted broccoli cheddar soup for the longest time, as I was under the misconception that there was a lot of cheese in this soup. It was after a few years that I found out that the base of the soup is a white sauce and doesn't really have much cheese. You can add as much cheese as you want, so you can even make a low calorie version of the soup by adding less cheese.

Ingredients
1 tsp butter
1 tsp olive oil1/2 red onion, diced
2 garlic pods, finely chopped
1 tbsp all purpose flour
1 broccoli, cut into florets
1 cup milk
1/2 carrot, grated
salt to taste
pepper to taste
cheddar cheese, to taste
water

Method
In a pan, boil water. Add broccoli florets to it and let them cook till they are bright green and tender, about 3-4 minutes. At this stage the broccoli will be partially cooked, and not mushy. Process 3/4 of the broccoli through the blender and process it coarsely. Keep a few small florets aside so you can eat them in the soup.

In a deep pot, heat the oil and butter together. To this add the onions and garlic and stir fry it, till it is cooked. It should get cooked through but not brown. Then add the flour to it and fry it. The flour should get cooked through and not smell raw. However, take care not to let it brown. Add a half cup of water, while stirring it continuously. The white sauce base is formed. Then add the broccoli puree as well as pieces. Next add the the shredded carrot. Add a cup of milk and bring the mixture to a boil. At this stage, if the soup is too thick, add additional water and boil. Now, add the cheddar cheese and let it melt through. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve piping hot.

Tips
You can vary the proportions of broccoli and carrot. The more carrot you add, the oranger it gets. In case you add more water and it gets too dilute for your taste, you can dissolve a tsp of corn starch/flour in a little water (about a couple of tsps) and then add it to the soup to thicken it up. To make the soup richer you can also add some cream.