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Monday, November 24, 2008

Recycling cornbread into veggie burgers

Cornbread makes the best bread crumbs. I’d forgotten that. I never buy bread crumbs -- I couldn’t do it even if we had unlimited wealth. When there’s bread all around the kitchen, why should I buy bread crumbs? But I rarely take the time to shake the few paltry crumbs out of the empty breadsacks, and I haven’t made bread for awhile, and so we’ve been low on breadcrumbs -- which was annoying, because then I couldn’t make veggie burgers. Not without buying breadcrumbs.
Tonight, staring at a leftover pan of cornbread in the fridge, I suddenly remembered how wonderfully crumbly and coarse and flavorful cornbread crumbs are. And so even though I was tired, having gotten into work at 3:30 this morning, I felt compelled to start a batch of veggie burger while the french toast and scrambled eggs cooked.
I love that about mixing up your own veggie burgers. Instead of slaughtering a cow, just recycle some cornbread and add it to some TVP (textured vegetable protein) you can store in your cupboard without burning up electricity just to keep it in stasis, and next thing you know you’ve got veggie burgers. Well, I add some boiling water, and a couple of eggs, and some olive oil and spaghetti sauce or ketchup. But having experimented with various veggie burger recipes over the last 15 years, I’ve had the best success with this simple concoction. These days I just pop it in the microwave, either loose or in patties, and pull it out and check it every so often until it gets to the desired state of edibility. Two of our kids love these burgers, including the family carnivore. The other two don’t -- but they don’t like real hamburgers, either.

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