coffeeneuring #2, #3 and eggplant burgers

[bikingandbaking]

SO I AM BEHIND, anyone surprised? Nope. So I'll try to catch up a little.

These past two weekends have been Full Of Things; this has not been great for getting out on the bike, but the coffeeneuring challenge is great for making me find at least a few minutes here and there; in this case, going two places by bike when I might have borrowed dphilli1's car.

Oh, and the annual Eggplant Party. So there's a recipe or two here as well.



First up: last weekend. It wasn't until late Sunday evening when I had a few minutes to myself; I was headed out unexpectedly; I optimistically decided to see if my new water-bottle holder for the Brompton would hold a plastic tapered coffee thermos. (Answer: not really, but it'll be fine for actual bottles. There was less coffee when I arrived at my actual destination in there than when I'd started, and the bike has little splashes in random places, and it tried to escape on the way home as it was empty and thus lighter.)

This was more pastryneuring anyway. :)

1. Where: The Danish Pastry House.


2. When: Just before closing, ~7:30PM on Sunday, October 12th


3. What: A thermos-full of dark roast coffee, plus a poppy-seed marzipan flaky pastry. As I said, pastryneuring.


4. Bike Friendliness: There aren't any racks in the area, but as it's just next to Tufts there are bikes attached to random street signs as a general rule; I probably could have dragged the Brompton in with me as it was late and not crowded but I decided to lock it to a tree.


5. Mileage: Around 8ish for the entire expedition; the coffeeshop is maybe a mile and a half away?

This was definitely a ride I would not have done if not for the challenge, or if I'd done this errand by bike I wouldn't have stopped. Stopping was great. I pried out five minutes to just breathe, and riding in general did a great deal to clear my mind. I love people, but I needed a few minutes to myself, and wouldn't have taken them otherwise.

I'm still a bit twitchy at night after getting nudged last fall by a car; alas. But the ride was incident-free, and the streets were so empty I had to run a light on the way home that wouldn't change for me.

The intersection at College Ave and Boston Ave by Tufts is such a clusterfuck, though. Crossing College on Boston westbound it's uphill in the "waiting area" and oddly distended, long enough that I can get stuck in the intersection if there are cars waiting with me and I don't have the entire green to basically turn right, go ~4 car-lengths, and then turn left. Blah. At least that one did register me, and it was empty and so I had the entire light to do my thing.





This weekend was somewhat less Full Of Things, but I woke up cranky and tired and not at all in the mood for what had been my planned actual-ride expedition. Instead, I made coffee at home and went out for a walk in the Fells with dphilli1. As one does. But that did mean I was out of coffee...so, feeling less cranky than earlier, I did my grocery run by bike.

And broke out my packbasket, which is just amusing to use. I'm definitely tempted by the idea of having a cargo bike, but if I remember to keep shopping trips modest, the packbasket is great. If I fill it completely full of heavy things, it's a bit of a pain, though.

1. Where: Medford Whole Foods.


2. When: 3-ish on Sunday, October 19th


3. What: Espresso Sierra roast, ground at the store percolator-size for use in my drip machine with the reusable filter; it gets sludgy if I drip-grind it. I.e. my usual brew.


4. Bike Friendliness: Alas, just an old-fashioned wheel-bender up against a shopping-cart rack so that you can only use one side. I could put the Brompton on the other side, though because tiny bike is tiny. The bagger really got a kick out of my packbasket, though.


5. Mileage: I was worried this was not going to hit the 2-mile minimum, but mapping it out, it turns out my usual route there and back by bike is 3.4 miles. In fact, my walking route there is 2.3.

Continuing the theme of technicalities count were my eggplant party dishes; both used the eggplant more as filler than as primary ingredient, although you could taste it in both if you were looking for it, and it was a significant textural component.

The burgers were based on this recipe from The Tolerant Vegan, whose site I'd never seen before but looks like it has a lot of delicious things. I wanted something bean-heavy but not lentil-based -- lentils are hit or miss for me. So this one, with its white beans and hummus sounded great.

Since this was for the Eggplant Party (i.e. potluck), I made sliders instead of full-sized burgers. I also doubled the recipe and made a few modifications, but it's not that different from the original.

Baked Eggplant Sliders

1 large or two small eggplant, roasted (about 2 cups) and rough-chopped
1 large or two small red onion(s), diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
2 cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 can chickpeas/garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
2 Tbsp tahini
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
4 Tbsp pine nuts, toasted
8 cloves of garlic (1 small head of garlic), minced
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cumin
2 cup panko or other breadcrumbs
Olive oil

Slice the eggplant, brush with olive oil and roast for 20 minutes (flip halfway through) in a 450F oven, cool, rough-chop the eggplant. I prefer to remove the skin at this point, but you can use it if you want. Sautee the onion and bell pepper in 2 Tbsp olive oil until soft.



Mix the beans, and if you have the patience, pull the skins off the chickpeas. Take about 1/4 of the bean mixture, 1 Tbsp olive oil, the lemon juice, cumin, salt, and tahini and food-process until fairly smooth. Then add everything else except the bread crumbs and pulse until mixed and beans a little broken up -- should only take a few 5-second pulses.

(The separating and mixing substitutes for the fact that the original recipe called for using prepared hummus. Next time I might instead: do the same process-until-smooth with 1/4-1/3 of the bean mixture, and then add the rest of the beans and zap to chunky, then hand-mix in everything else. Means the eggplant and veggies need to be carefully diced, but less likely to overmix. Then again, the burgers were great as-is, I just wanted a bit more chunky veggies without having whole beans.)

Add breadcrumbs (if making batter ahead, add breadcrumbs just before making patties), make slider-sized patties, bake on parchment paper at 400 degrees for 40-ish minutes, flipping halfway through. (I think my oven is running low; it is definitely uneven, so there was rearranging and turning trays and switching oven rack levels, but get them golden brown on each side and not falling apart.)

Before baking:


After:


Makes ~32 slider-sized burgers, 16 medium, or 8 giant burgers. Larger might need to cook longer.

Serve with:
slider-sized buns (or mini-pitas)
lettuce
sliced plum tomatoes
thinly sliced small onions
eggplant muhammara-ish dip (below)
mint and cucumber lebneh (below)
or whatever.

(Okay, you can use full-sized onions and tomatoes and just cut in half, I was just being cute for the party.)

The burgers and the muhammara are vegan; the lebneh obviously isn't, and your buns will vary. The original recipe had several commenters using GF breadcrumbs with success; I stuck with panko.



Eggplant Muhammara-ish Dip

Muhammara is a red-pepper dip; this version has some eggplant added. This was made out of various things I had around, so the amounts were "what I had" more than anything else -- extra roasted eggplant and pine nuts from the burgers, walnuts left over from something else, etc., and it's traditionally just walnuts or occasionally almonds, from what I can tell.

1 1/2 cup roasted eggplant
3 bell or 6 red anaheim peppers, roasted, skinned/seeded.
1 1/2 cups walnuts, toasted
1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup pomegranate molasses
1 tbsp cumin
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 cup breadcrumbs (panko)
dash cayenne
salt to taste

Process in food processor until chunky dip texture emerges.

Mint-Cucumber Lebneh Tzatziki
lebneh (strained yogurt cheese -- it's got more cheesy taste than just strained greek yogurt, and it's even thicker than greek-style yogurt)
yogurt to thin it back out
fresh mint, cut finely
fresh parsley, cut finely
olive oil
cucumber, chopped
sumac
salt & fresh ground black pepper

This was just an "add stuff and taste" thing.


Next weekend, hopefully I'll get out for a decent ride on Sunday.

Comments

[ruthling]

those eggplant things were really good!

[bikingandbaking]

Yeah, I was really happy with how they came out! And they filled the "needs more protein" box at the party pretty well, too.