Black Bean Burgers

So in an effort to use ingredients I already had I decided to make homemade black bean burgers. It's something I've wanted to do for awhile, I was just a little intimidated. I looked at a few different recipes online and then just kinda winged it from what I had on hand. This is basically what I did:

1. Cooked brown rice
2. Drained a can of black beans and smashed them with the back of a spoon (This took forever.. there has to be a better way!)
3. Sauteed an onion, a couple cloves of garlic till they were brown. I seasoned it with cayenne pepper, more garlic, oregano and basil.
4. Lastly I added a cup of the brown rice and the onion/garlic mixture to the bowl of smashed beans. Then I just mix it as thoroughly as I could.



This is what it looked like


It wasn't staying together too well so I tried to refrigerate it for 20 mins to see if that would help. I made a ball in the shape of a burger and cooked it on the stove top with some olive oil. All seemed fine until I tried to flip it and it just completely fell apart. I just kept trying to put it back together as best as I could but it wouldn't really hold the shape.

I still ate that "burger" on an english muffin with tomato and some homemade bbq sauce, and though it was messy, it still tasted really good.

To try to salvage the problem for the remaining mixture I mashed up a bunch of ritz crackers and made "bread crumbs" and then made five more balls out of the mixture and froze it. I'm hoping the combination of the crackers and cooking from frozen will keep them together.

So all in all, it tasted good and I didn't have to go out and buy anything I didn't have so I am going to say it was a success. However, I didn't feel confident enough to bring them to the Memorial Day BBQ I was going to that night which was sort of the original plan. Next time I'm going to try to drain the beans better. I also need to figure out a better way to smash them without some fancy food processor.

I'll still enjoy them today for "Meatless Monday" which I almost forgot about since it's Memorial Day!!


Update** They were delicious the next day. Not sure if it was the freezing or the crackers that did it, but they held together perfectly the next day. I made mini burgers and ate them open on top of a toasted english muffin with salsa and hot sauce. Great Success!

My horoscope

Well, I was thinking that I would write a long post about this week and how emotional it's been, but then I saw my horoscope. I'm not a huge believer in this kind of stuff, however, this particular horoscope I read in the morning and it's scary accurate (sometimes...) So this was mine this morning-

Leo
By Rick Levine
It's one of those days when you are hyper-aware of the difference between the events in your life and your inner processing. You understand what's appropriate now and are able to move through a situation without having to bring up what's troubling you. Keeping conversations simple is a good idea. The fewer words you say, the less likely you'll open a can of worms.


Hmm. I better save my thoughts :)

I'm just walkin'

I found this blog this morning. It's written by a guy who is walking from New York to Oregon. It's really interesting and reminded me of a similar adventure that my friend Carl's brother went on. His brother biked from Seattle to upstate New York I think.

Anyway, this guy just really loves to walk and just kinda hit a 20 something crisis where he didn't know what he was doing with his life. So, he came up with this idea as a way to recharge. I can relate in the way that when I need to recharge or clear my head I like to go on long walks. I could never do this though!

http://imjustwalkin.com

K wang wit it

I promise a more indepth update later, but to give ya'll a good laugh I'm posting the dance that I'm doing with 10 other teachers tomorrow for the reading celebration. Reading Celebration is an all day carnival for the students who read 25 books all year. And know that the kids who don't read their books (and do book reports) on time stay inside and do homework. For real. There's a bunch of things going on, and part of it is some dances that the teachers do.

The dances we are doing are a step, Mary J Blige's "Just Fine", Cotton Eyed Joe, and K WANG WIT IT. Video here-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJq4_MUXPF4&feature=related

Please watch and laugh. Everyone knows I have no rhythm. More to follow.

Ps- MOM, to watch the video you have to select the url up there, press copy, then open a new window and paste it in your browser. :)

Weekend

I had a great weekend this past week. On Friday Katy and her boyfriend came over to the house. My roommate Michelle cooked a delicious vegetable curry, I made a salad and Ashley made cupcakes. It was nice to have a relaxing night.

On Saturday I took Eccence and her sister to a block party in a local neighborhood that just won an award for "green" construction. There were house tours, live music, food and games for the kids. We had a lot of fun! Then later that day I went to the Riverdogs game. The Riverdogs is the local minor league baseball team. We won the game in over time after being down by six runs, so it was a very exciting game to be at.

Then on Sunday I spent the day at the beach. After that a friend and I went to a picnic at the Angel Oak tree on Johns Island.


Isn't that gorgeous? It must be one of the most interesting trees ever. I don't really know much about it, but they put a gift shop next to it to make it a little tourist spot.

Later that afternoon I had a double header softball game. It was about 95 degrees and sunny out. We won one and lost one. But I really like the group that I play with because although they want to win, we still have fun if we lose!

Chili Update

The consensus is that soy crumbles are good, but you gotta put it in something with a lot of flavor. Figuring out what else to make with this will be a nice little challenge for me! The chili turned out pretty well. I forgot to mention that I used a can of plain tomato sauce in the chili (the 44 cents can) I probably could have left out the 1/2 cup of water because it's a little runny, but all in all it's very good. My dad was skeptical about the soy crumbles because they have almost no fat, and he thought that the fat added flavor that the chili needs. However, I think that because it's on the spicy side, the flavor is still there.

I'm glad I like it since I'll be eating it every day for awhile! haha

Budget

So I haven't been doing super great with my budget the last couple of weeks. I've been in Summer Mode (only 2 weeks left till the end of the school year!!) We just completed the state testing and the attitude of the school is "We're done" You can feel it in the kids, feel it in the teachers, and feel it in the administration. Everyone knows there's no point in teaching kids anything new with only 2 weeks left before summer vacation and the feeling is definitely contagious.

I've been going out and socializing more, and everyone knows that socializing costs money. I've also been working out less and eating like crap. In my defense, when I am out socializing and starving, I feel guilty getting a chicken sandwich and fries for 10 dollars when I can just get a side of french fries for 3 dollars that will still fill me up. That combined with having little time to grocery shop or make food has left me eating unhealthy. It's not a huge deal and I know I can get back on track. I'm starting today! I went grocery shopping today and this is what I came up with:

Food Lion:

MorningStar Soy Crumbles- $3.50 (on sale from $4)
Iceberg Lettuce - 99 cents (sale from $2.99)
Chicken Breast- $6.99 (on sale from $12.99)
Red Kidney Beans- 79 cents
Carrots - 99 cents (on sale from $1.29)
No fat Cottage Cheese - $2.69
Tomato Paste- 44 cents

Total $17.98

Not too bad. I decided to make a huge thing of Chili in the crock pot, even though it's 90 degrees outside. I didn't follow any recipe because I've made chili a bunch of times. I've never tried to Soy Crumbles but Hungry Girl uses them a lot and she never steers me wrong. I had to admit that when I tried it today I was a little put off by the texture, but I'm hoping I won't notice it as much in the chili.

Basically this is how I made it:

Chopped up a whole onion, cooked it with about half a bag of the soy crumbles and a leftover taco seasoning packet I had, put it in crock pot.
Added a can of tomatoes with green chili, corn, and the kidney beans. Then I had about half a jar of salsa left over so I added that too. I added a half a cup or so of water. Then I liberally added chili powder , garlic, and red pepper flakes. I was gonna add hot sauce but I thought it might be a little too spicy with the other stuff, so I figured I could add more later.

I hope it's good because I made a whole huge pot and I plan on eating it all week. The whole thing must have cost around 10 dollars and I made enough to last at least a week. I'll let you all know how the soy crumbles work in the recipe!

Week Roundup

Following the fun weekend I had a very fun week! On Tuesday, my friend's Kelly and Celia had their recital for the improv class they'd been taking for the last seven weeks. This was their second class, so they are pretty much experts at that point. They were so funny! I think I can be funny but improv is challenging because you have to be able to think fast on your toes. The host asks for audience suggestions and they have to immediately go from there.



There's a shot of Kelly. I'm very impressed with her!

On Wednesday I met up with my Dad's good friend Richard "Pitch" Picciotto He was in town giving a speech. He was the highest ranking Fire Fighter to be pulled out of the World Trade Center when it collapsed. He wrote a book about his experience "Last Man Down" which was a NY Times Best Seller. (http://www.kepplerspeakers.com/speakers.aspx?name=Richard+Picciotto) I heard his speech when he spoke at Siena back when I was the speaker's chair. It's very inspirational.
On Wednesday night I met Pitch and the group at Boone Hall Plantation. It was cool because we got to tour the house and plantation. There was an open bar and a very delicious dinner. There was also bands and dance groups. We had a lot of fun and the weather was beautiful.




Pitch and I near the water




Pitch said these were the best oysters he's ever had.


Also this week, we received a notice in the mail that the show "Army Wives" would be taping in our front yard. Way to ask permission, right? But my roommate and I took the opportunity to be nice and nosy and the crew didn't mind. We got to see a scene be shot (it took forever) and poke around in one of the houses they tape in. It was pretty interesting. They even paid us $100 to use our driveway over night. Here's some pictures I took-







We didn't know who that woman was, but we figured she must be famous because someone was following her with an umbrella



Pretending I'm famous hehe

Family Time

I've felt different these past few weeks. I'm feeling a little lighter, a little happier. I feel like a pro at my job and I've been spending more time with the people I work with. I feel comfortable. It does make me wonder if it's normal to take 9 months to feel comfortable. Granted I did move to a new city, far away from home, by myself and started my first real job. But it still seems like a long amount of time.

I had a really good weekend last week. On Saturday I participated in the "Superintendent's Tennis Cup." Basically every school in the district made a tennis team and we got points for different things. We got points for making a billboard, for having a pep rally, and for other staff members to come out and watch us. We practiced once or twice a week leading up to the tournament. It was nice to do a different work out and I had forgotten how much I liked tennis! The tournament was really nice and although we didn't win, we had a lot of fun participating.






The next day I traveled up to Charlotte, NC for my mom's cousins son Christening. It was a really nice ceremony and great

to see some family. The Murphey's are always a good time and this occasion was no different. Tommy and Lisa had a very nice after party back at their house and I got to catch up with a lot of cousins. It was particularly nice to spend time with my Aunt Jane.