This morning I found a treasure of a revelation for my morning coffee. Usually I have either coconut or almond milk, but our local store had a bit of a stock limitation over the New Year period and so I picked up Hazelnut… popped it in my coffee just now and HELLO! it’s delicious. I’m thinking iced coffee for the summer now with this concoction.

I hope everyone is enjoying their New Year. I am itching to get my new camera to start learning more and practicing taking fabulous photos, it’s quite exciting. I’m already wandering around our little village thinking “yep, that would make a great landscape shot”, “oooh great sunset, wish I had my camera…” so on and so forth! This could get intense next month when I start bombarding you with all my photos… I’m kidding, perhaps just a small selection of my favourites shots.

So to the burgers we had a couple of nights ago, as you can probably tell, we both love veggie burgers and I always tend to make a decent batch so that we can have dinner and then burgers for lunch the next day as they keep perfectly well in the fridge for a couple of days. Martin spied this burger recipe on Jenn’s Peas and Crayons, they looked so tasty it would have been rude not tor try them! While I was doing a spice check I noticed I only had a tiny bit of Hot curry powder left and thought that these curried potato cubes would go well with the burgers, I was right!

Sweet Potato, White Bean & Chickpea Burgers Served with Curried Potato Cubes and Sweet Corn

Makes 12 patties

2 medium sweet potatoes

1 can white beans (cannellini) or kidney beans if you prefer, drained and rinsed

1 can chickpeas (Garbanzo) drained and rinsed

1 onion finely chopped

2 cloves garlic finely chopped

1 large hot chili finely chopped

2 red bell peppers finely chopped

1 tbsp cumin

1 ½ teaspoon basil

1 ½ teaspoon thyme

1 teaspoon chili flakes

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp garlic powder

3 tbs ground flax mixed with 7 tbsp water

2 cups rolled oats

Black pepper to season

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees and line 2 baking trays with parchment.

2. Prepare the flax eggs by mixing the ground flax with water and allow to sit for 5 minutes

3. Pierce your sweet potatoes with a fork several times and pop in the microwave on high for 10 minutes, until nice and soft, the remove, cut in half and scoop out the potato from the skins and pop in a big bowl.

4. Add the white beans and chickpeas to the potato and using a potato masher, crush the beans together.

5. Heat a non stick pan, add a tablespoon of water then sauté your onions, garlic, red pepper and chili for 5 minutes until nice and soft, the transfer to a blender and blitz for just a few seconds to break it down. Add this and all the remaining ingredients, including the flax egg you made earlier, to the potato and bean mixture and stir thoroughly. At this point you may want to add a little more oats if your mixture is too wet.

6. Using your hands, shape the mixture into 12 patties (9 if you want really big burgers) then pop on the baking trays and into the oven form 10 – 15 minutes, turning them over half way through – be very gentle with them, they can be delicate.

Original Burger recipe here

Curried Potato Cubes

4 small potatoes, peeled and cubed

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon hot curry powder

Pinch of black pepper.

Method

1. In a non stick pan heat the oil over a medium heat, then add in the cubed potatoes, let them cook for 30 seconds then add in the curry powder and mix together making sure the potatoes are all coated, allow to cook for a further 4 minutes, then transfer for a baking tray and pop in the oven about 10 minutes before you put your burgers in, they should be ready at the same time.

Serve with a side of sweet corn.