Powerhouse Plus Veggie Burgers

Here's one of my very favorite recipes for a amazingly healthy burger to make, bake and freeze a few! The photo to the right here is how they look just before popping them in the oven. This particular recipe makes about 18-20 Powerhouse Plus Veggie Burgers. I think you'd be hard pressed to find anything else that comes in such a small package and packs such a huge nutritional punch! Take a look at the ingredients -- it covers your carbs, protein, veggies and your B12! You'd be smart to make these and tell your kids they are tofu cookies :) These taste great cold (at least to me they do) and are therefore the perfect little item to eat on the go. In fact, if you're going out shopping for a few hours pack a couple of these in a lunch bag and you'll be glad you did. They'll give you enough energy to shop longer than you thought possible! These burgers are popular with my crew here. Hope you all love them as much as we do!

Recipe
4 x 175 gm (24 ounces total)
Soyganic Super Firm Tofu, grated (medium)
*1 cup chopped frozen spinach, thawed*
1 cup finely chopped, cooked mushrooms (about 10-15)
1 medium onion, minced finely (about 1 cup)
4 cloves garlic, minced finely
1 cup mashed sweet or white potato
4 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1-1/2 cups quick oats
1-1/2 tablespoons veggie powder
2 tablespoons paul bragg
3 tablespoons ketchup
2 teaspoons sage
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
salt & pepper to taste

Grate all your tofu into a very large bowl. Season with your dry spices and mix through with your hands, kneading well. If you like your mixture to be smoother yet ... you can take 1/2 of the kneaded tofu and whirl it through your food processor and then mix the two together. I've done it both ways and both ways turn out just fine. Depends what type of texture you like. Drain the spinach -- press any excess water using back of spoon. Add spinach to your tofu mixture.

Saute onions, garlic and mushrooms in olive oil until softened and very lightly browned. Cool slightly and add to above mixture. Add the oats, nutritional yeast, ketchup, tomato paste, paul bragg, and mashed potato. Mix really well using your hands. Taste and adjust seasonings as required. Now is the time to turn on your oven to 350F so it will be ready for you once you have completed the final step in the making of your powerhouse plus veggie burgers. Keep reading here and soon you'll be putting your burgers in the oven :)

Use a 1/3 cup measure to make uniform size burgers. Scoop out your 1/3 cup and form into burger size patty -- don't flatten it too much. See my pic above for what the burgers look like before I baked them. This should give you about 18-20 burgers. I put parchment paper on my baking tray (with sides) and bake them in two batches as I only like cooking one tray of stuff at a time in my oven. Set your timer for 20 minutes -- then flip the burgers over and bake for another 20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. Enjoy a few for supper and freeze the leftover for a quick meal when you need it. They freeze and reheat well so if you are really ambitious double the recipe!

Veggie Prairie Girl Rambles
I had a request to show the baked burger -- good thing I remembered before I ate the whole thing! It might look a bit lopsided because I had to use one burger plus another one cut in half because this was a jumbo bun. Just enjoying it today with all the fixings -- tomato, pickles, veganaise etc. on a pan-fried bun (so yummy that way). This isn't the best photo (looks a little messy from my crumbs from half the burger I ate already -- plus I see the veganaise isn't looking the most attractive sliding down the tomato and burger) but hmmmm it was delicious!






One note here: I wouldn't pan fry these from the raw state -- they're somewhat fragile, as a lot of homemade patties are, and they honestly do a lot better just baked in the oven. Once they have cooled off and you either put them in the fridge or freezer and then take them out again -- then you can re-heat them by pan frying a bit. They're much sturdier then and won't fall apart on you. I personally don't even re-heat them when eating as a burger with all the fixings -- I just throw them cold on my bun. If you were eating them with mashed potatoes and gravy well then I would heat them.

*1 cup of finely grated carrots could be used in placed of the spinach. As would probably just about any other vegetable that you think might work.*