Melt-In-Mouth Vegan Chickpea Burgers

I hate chickpeas. With a passion. In fact I hate all sort of lentils and beans but the thing is, I try to eat them, I really do but the texture always puts me off. But I love hummus.

So when I somehow decided that buying a can of chickpeas was a good idea, I was stumped with what to do with them and I've come up with a recipe that I actually really like (thank goodness for seasoning).

These are the most incredible melt in your mouth chickpea burgers. They're unbelievably filling and so filled with goodness that makes them far nicer than any of those high fat burgers we've grown accustomed to. They're such an ideal summer lunch type meal as despite being filling, they're really light, but they're so quick and easy to make that they're going to be a staple in my diet. This recipe makes four large burger patties:

• 250g can of drained chickpeas
• 3 tbsp tahini
• 2 tsp mixed herbs
• 1 tsp dill
• A sprinkle of salt and pepper
• 3 small red onions
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 tbsp lemon juice

Pre-heat Oven to 200°C.

1. Rinse the chickpeas in cold water. Then mash them up using the back of the fork. Don't worry about making sure they're all crushed, it gives them a bit of bite if they're not.
2. Add in the tahini and herbs, making sure they're mixed well.
3. Add in the lemon juice, a bit at a time - mix well.
4. Finely chop the onions and garlic and leave them to sweat in either olive or coconut oil in a pan on a low heat.
5. When the onions and garlic are almost transparent, mix them in with the chickpea mixture.
6. Shape the mixture into burgers and bake each side for 15 minutes until nicely browned.

Enjoy!

They're so wonderful and I really hope you enjoy them! I had mind with a load of hummus, smashed avocado, spinach, cucumber, tomato and a sprinkle of sesame. Have them with what you want but they go well with just about everything.  

Let me know if you plan on making these, anytime soon!

5 comments burgers, chickpea, food, lifestyle, manchester beauty blog, manchester food blog, manchester vegan blog, vegan

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What I Eat in a Day: The Vegan Student Edition

So, I'm vegan! It's quite a new development but I had realised that I had been using primarily vegan recipes and as I'm pretty much lactose intolerant, I decided to make the jump to veganism. But we're talking a plant based diet so no vegan cheese or anything like that. Before I launch into the main purpose of this post, the reason I decided to go vegan was primarily for health reasons so I'm not going to be posting anything about animal cruelty and the ethics behind it because it'll just open a whole bag of worms that I don't know enough to talk about! I'm purely vegan when I'm cooking for myself so if I go out or go to a friend's house for dinner, I might eat meat or animal products - just not in my own home.

But as I was saying, veganism is quite a tricky thing to conquer as a student as a lot of base ingredients are quite pricey so I thought I would share the kind of food I eat on a daily basis that don't cost the earth (and are super easy to make).

Breakfast is such an important meal and I often find if I skip brekkie, I find I'm starving by about eleven o'clock and find myself snacking. If I'm at uni, I love almond milk porridge loaded with flaxseeds, chia seeds and berries (I use frozen as they're cheaper - just get them out to thaw the night before). Because I'm also gluten free, I use gluten free oats but normal oats are so cheap they're an essential! But if I have a bit more time in the morning, I love smashed avocado with lemon on sourdough bread and an Alpro soy yoghurt. So filling but so good.

Lunch is always a tricky meal for me as usually I used to reach for a bag of crisps and a ham sandwich of sorts but I've been really into sushi bowls lately. The name makes them sound so much more complicated than they actually are but they're just made up of rice (I prefer brown rice as it will keep you full for longer), chopped up veg or fruit (I tend to go for tomatoes, cucumber, occasionally avocado and spinach) and then a drizzle of tamari (gluten free soy sauce) and then I mix it all together and it's so good! I've been having this almost daily and it's also really great as a packed lunch (sans avocado) as it keeps me going till dinner. I tend to bulk cook brown rice and then leave it in the fridge to make this easy to do on a daily basis.

Snacks are definitely the easiest part of the day. I reach for fruit or carrots and hummus because hummus is incredible. Let's be honest, I've been tempted to spoon it straight from the container.

Dinner as a typical student tends to consist of pasta or frozen meals partially because it's cheaper and far easier than making a meal from scratch so this was probably the trickiest meal to conquer but I think I've just about sorted it. Roasted vegetables will be your new best friend. They take about an hour in the oven at around 200 degrees but they're otherwise so simple! I buy bags of chopped up sweet potato, courgettes, cherry tomatoes, red onions and any other vegetables I have in the fridge. They're really filling because of the sweet potato and so good for you because they're all vegetables! I have this so much because I love it and it's easy to take to work with me in the evenings.

So I hope you've enjoyed my first What I Eat in a Day. Let me know if you'd like more of them and generally what you think!

13 comments food, lifestyle, manchester beauty blog, manchester fashion blog, manchester food blog, manchester style blog, manchester vegan blog, meals, vegan

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The Gluten Free Bake: Buttermilk Buckwheat Pancakes

Over the past couple of months, I've been trying to cut back on gluten (and lactose) in my diet and have been playing around with an assortment of different flours such as buckwheat! Contrary to the name, buckwheat flour is completely gluten free and has such a similar texture to standard wheat flour that it is fairly interchangeable. Now, whilst this recipe is not lactose free, I have included a substitution for almond milk if thats more your thing.

This recipe came about because it was a Saturday morning and I wanted pancakes. There is nothing more that I love than pancakes and I was going to make the standard version but the only flour I had was buckwheat flour, hence the recipe.

A word of warning, these are monster pancakes and are incredibly filling - I could barely manage one and a half so I would definitely not go overboard!

The Recipe (Makes about 5 pancakes):

• 1tbsp butter
• 2tbsp maplesyrup
• 1 cup buckwheat flour (finely milled)
• 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4tsp baking soda
• 1/4tsp salt
• 1 cup buttermilk (If you're lactose free, 3/4cup of almond milk) 

First, pop the butter and maple syrup into a pyrex jug and then microwave them for about 20 seconds and then mix them together. 

Then mix the dry ingredients together, then add the egg and buttermilk. Mix it together and voila, your pancake mix! I didn't use a whisk, I simply used a fork and although the mixture is quite thick, it was still fine.

I ate them with maple syrup and raspberries and they were absolutely delicious! Like I said, I only managed one and a half pancake so feel free to split the mix if it's just for one person.

Let me know what you think. 

12 comments baking, food, lifestyle, manchester cooking blog, manchester food blog, manchester lifestyle blog, pancakes

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