New Favorite: Sweet Potato Pecan Burgers

So, I'm back. I have a new baby and a new recipe. Life has been hectic, of course, but that doesn't mean I haven't been cooking. Pre-baby I spent days in the kitchen making meals to store in the freezer and post-baby I spend less time in the kitchen, while still trying to make healthy meals. I rely a lot of our favorite "go-to" meals, and I'm going to try to post those here interspersed with recipes from classic cookbooks.

This recipe for Sweet Potato Pecan Burgers is from Cooking Light, though if you wander over to that sight you will find the reviewers mostly found it mushy and not tasty. I disagree. My husband and I both really like this and I have made it twice in the last month. I don't know that the caramelized onions are necessary but they are a nice addition to the burger. This is a new favorite in our house and will be added to the regular rotation. I hope you enjoy them!

Sweet Potato Pecan Burgers
This is from Cooking Light. I changed the recipe a bit, including microwaving the sweet potatoes instead of boiling them and greatly reducing the amount of onion from 2 1/2 cups to 1 cup.

Onions
1 tsp canola oil
3 cups sliced onion
2 Tbs balsamic vinegar
1 tsp sugar
dash salt

Burgers
2 1/2 cups sweet potato
cooking spray
1 cup chopped onion
3 garlic cloves
1 cup regular oats
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 cup chopped pecans, toasted
1 Tbs canola oil, divided
lettuce leaves
6 whole grain buns
chili sauce

To prepare onions, heat 1 teaspoon oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add sliced onion to pan; sauté 12 minutes or until browned, stirring occasionally. Stir in vinegar, sugar, and 1/8 teaspoon salt; cook 30 seconds or until vinegar is absorbed. Remove onion mixture from pan; keep warm. Wipe pan dry with a paper towel.

To prepare burgers, microwave sweet potatoes until cooked through (about 8 minutes). Take the skin off and discard. Mash sweet potatoes. Heat large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add chopped onion and garlic to pan; sauté 5 minutes or until tender. Place potato, chopped onion mixture, oats, cumin, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and pepper in a food processor; process until smooth. Place potato mixture in a large bowl; stir in nuts. Divide potato mixture into 6 equal portions, shaping each into a 1/2-inch-thick patty.

Heat 1 1/2 teaspoons oil in pan over medium-high heat. Add 3 patties to pan; cook 4 minutes or until browned. Carefully turn patties over; cook 3 minutes or until browned. Remove from pan; keep warm. Repeat procedure with remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons oil and 3 patties. Place lettuce leaves and patties on bottom halves of buns; top each patty with 1 tablespoon chili sauce, about 3 tablespoons onion, and top halves of buns.

Most Used Recipe: Baked Brown Rice

If you come here only to read classic recipes and can't bear the thought of a new recipe, avert your eyes.

For those of you still with me, I am going to share my most used recipe: oven baked brown rice. Many people have sung the glories of rice cookers to me and I'm sure they are very nice and do their job very well. But I have a galley kitchen in a condo and really don't have the space to have any one-hit wonders kitchen appliances (yes, I know I have an apple peeler-corer-slicer but that belongs to my husband and it's teeny).

I found this recipe in the Cook's Illustrated The Best Light Recipe Cookbook and really can't believe we used to eat the mushy brown rice I used to cook in a pot on the stove. We have brown rice once a week or more so I often double the recipe and reheat it as necessary. In the summer, I don't like heating up the kitchen for this long so I sometimes use the Pampered Chef rice cooker in the microwave but it's got nothing on this recipe. Follow the directions exactly and you will have a pan full of perfectly cooked individual grains of brown rice.

The picture above is of our dinner last night a simple stir fry made with Brussels sprouts, tofu, and red peppers. My friends will tell you I wear a lot of brown, I am boring like that, but a picture of brown rice is even more boring so you get this festive picture that has little to do with the recipe below.

Oven-Baked Brown Rice
Adapted from The Best Light Recipe. This is one recipe I follow exactly (except I use a stone baking pan, not a glass one). Normally, brown rice calls for a 2:1 ratio of water to rice but not here. Trust me...just trust the Cook's Illustrated people.

1 1/2 cups brown rice
2 1/3 cups water
1 Tbs olive oil
salt

Heat the oven to 375. Spread the rice in an 8" square glass dish. Bring the water and oil to a boil in a saucepan. Stir in a little salt. Pour the water over the rice. Cover the baking dish with a double layer of foil. Bake about one hour.

Remove the dish from the oven and uncover (there will be a lot of steam). Fluff the rice with a fork, cover with a clean dish towel and let stand for five minutes. Uncover and let stand for five more minutes before serving.

Smells Like Christmas

The first time I had these cookies was at a holiday party about seven or eight years ago. After biting into one, I found the hostess and started babbling about how great they are, how the spices are just right, and they are soft and chewy, and on an on. Now that I think about it, it's a little embarrassing. I mean, it's a cookie. These cookies are perfect to make and mail to friends and family or just to have sitting around during the holidays, since they require aging of at least one week and do well sitting in a tin for a month or so.

The woman who gave me this recipe is really...neat. I don't know how else to describe her. She is an emergency room nurse, and seems equally at home talking about grody emergency room stuff and the finer points of baking. Her husband is the kind of guy who has a special room to smoke his cigars and drinks hard liquor on the rocks and listens to old jazz records, in a classy, not a stuffy way. When I asked for this recipes she wrote it down for me on a little card which I laminated and dang-it, I'm glad I did since I pull it out every year. You'll do the same, I guarantee.

Lebkuchen
White whole wheat or whole wheat flour can be nicely substituted in this recipe, though I suggest you use about 2 cups whole wheat flour and 1 cup all purpose flour for a lighter cookie. Chop, chop, chop the fruit peels; it's a messy, sticky business but worth it. I use almond meal in place of the chopped almonds. You'll notice this cookie has no oil or butter, so it's actually a very low fat cookie, though I haven't calculated the nutritional value. These cookies pack nicely in tins and can be mailed or just sit around your house for the holiday season. They only get better!

1 egg
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup dark molasses
3 cups flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cardamom
1/2 cup finely chopped almonds
1/2 cup finely chopped mixed fruit peels
Lemon glaze (recipe below)

Beat egg in a small bowl on high speed about one minute. Add brown sugar and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in honey and molasses. Stir together flour, cinnamon, soda, cloves, ginger, and cardamom in a large bowl. Add beaten mixture and stir by hand to combine. Stir in almonds and fruit peels. Cover and chill dough three hours.

Preheat oven to 350. Divide dough in half. Roll on a lightly floured board to make a 12" x 8" rectangle. Cut into 2" squares and bake on greased cookie sheets at 350 for 8-10 minutes. Cool on cookie sheet for one minute. Transfer cookies to a cooling rack and brush with lemon glaze while still warm. Age cookies in a tin for at least one week.

Lemon glaze: Combine 1 1/2 cup sifted powdered sugar, 1 Tbs melted butter, and 2T lemon juice. Add enough water to make glaze drizzling consistency.