Chickpea Veggie Burgers

Tendonitis. Or, as I've seen it spelled, tendinitis (looks so odd that way though!). I have it. Not only do I have it in one place, but I have it in two. My wrist and my foot. :( The wrist tendonitis has been going on since early November, and the foot tendonitis only for a couple weeks, but it's become more severe over the past few days. If you've ever had tendonitis, you know how frustrating it can be. For the wrist, I've been wearing a brace, and for the foot, I've been icing and elevating it these past few days. No running for me! I am signed up to run a half marathon on February 19th, but I'm not so sure that's going to happen now...

Now, I suppose I should get to the point of why I'm telling you about my injuries before you get too bored or annoyed with me and my complaints. :) I suppose that one reason I'm telling you is to "vent" a bit. I'm a pretty active and busy person, so it's not necessarily the easiest thing to deal with injuries that slow me down (I keep telling myself it's a lesson to teach me to be more patient!). I am thankful for very good health overall though, and I realize this is just a bump in the road right now. Another reason I decided to share information about my current injuries with you is because they have limited, to an extent, the types and amounts of goodies I've been making in my kitchen. I have made an effort to scale back my cooking and baking, or at least try to make recipes that don't require too much extra effort on the part of my wrist (so, not a lot of chopping or twisting or stirring by hand or lifting of awkward pans - or whatever else you do in the kitchen while cooking and baking!). The hardest part of making these burgers for me was probably using the can opener to open the can of chickpeas! Otherwise, they were easy, and that's a reason I chose to make them. That, and well, they looked really yummy to me!

The recipe is from the wonderful blog, Daily Garnish. I adapted it slightly though. The original recipe can be found here, and the ingredients I used are below.

Ingredients:

-1/4 cup rolled oats

-1/8 cup sunflower seeds

-1 can (15 oz.) garbanzo beans (chickpeas!), rinsed and drained

-1 medium carrot, grated

-1/2 cup flat leaf parsley

-1 to 2 Tbsp. garlic hummus (or any flavored hummus)

-1 Tbsp. lemon juice

-1 Tbsp. olive oil

-1/2 tsp. minced garlic

-1/4 tsp. ground black pepper

Instructions:

Using a food processor, add the oats and sunflower seeds, and pulse until coarsely chopped. Grate a carrot and add it to the food processor. Add all the remaining ingredients, and pulse until mixture is roughly chopped, scraping the sides with a spatula a couple times. Be careful not to process too much, or the mixture will become too mushy.

Once mixed, transfer the mixture to a bowl and wet your hands. Form into four evenly shaped patties. Cook burgers over medium heat on a non-stick pan until they are browned on both sides.

Serve however you desire to eat them!

Of note, I used actual hummus in this recipe, but you may have seen on the original recipe that it calls for tahini. I had tahini, but I was a bit unsure as to its expiration date and whether it was safe to use still...so I just used hummus instead. Still worked fine!

I chose to enjoy my burger with some lettuce and tomato. Mike and I enjoyed these (yes, Mike really liked them even though he tends to be a meat guy!) on some whole wheat 100-calorie sandwich thins.

And we ate them with some delicious roasted blue potatoes on the side. My new potato obsession is blue potatoes. Love 'em! I buy them at our Whole Foods all the time...

I actually didn't put any condiments on my burger the first time I ate it because I wanted to taste it as is (and it's very flavorful!). But you could easily do ketchup, mustard, hummus, bbq sauce, etc...whatever your fav condiment is! You could add a nice slice of cheese too.

I brought one of the leftover burgers to work the next day for lunch. It was an awesome meal the next day too!

Since you lovely readers brought me good luck when it came to the Whole Foods pecan recipe contest, I'm going to ask if you don't mind sending me some more of that good luck of yours for my wrist and foot injuries...  I'm seeing a new specialist for my wrist this week, so hopefully we can make some better progress together. And as for the foot, well, for now, I'm trying to take care of it on my own by resting when possible, elevating and icing it, and taking some pain meds...but if need be, perhaps I'll see a specialist for my foot too. Either way, please send me positive "tendonitis go away vibes." Please and thanks. ;)

And on a completely different note, today, January 23rd, is National Pie day! This is ironic because I had a free pie delivered to my door today. What??!? I tried online grocery shopping with home delivery for the first time today through a Boston grocery store, Roche Bros. It was great! The only reason I tried it is because I had a great coupon for it. Anyway, for the first time you try their home delivery, you get a free apple pie! Yesssssss. I know what I'm having for dessert tonight!

Hope everyone's week is off to a great start!