Vegan Mofo #13 - Jenny & Heather's Southwest Black Bean and Corn Mini Burgers with Smoky Paprika Cashew Cheese...

Vegan Mofo #13 - Jenny & Heather's Southwest Black Bean and Corn Mini Burgers with Smoky Paprika Cashew Cheese

The Book - Spork-Fed
The Author - Jenny Engel & Heather Goldberg
The Recipe - Southwest Black Bean and Corn Mini Burgers with Smoky Paprika Cashew Cheese
Page # 79-80
Difficulty - Easy
Duration - Roughly 30 minutes - longer if you prefer to bake your burgers as opposed to frying them

I made these for two reasons 1) I was really craving a simple bean and grain sort of veggie burger, and 2) I’ve hardly used this cook book since I first purchased it. The promise of a smoky cashew cheese didn’t hurt either I might add.  I wasn’t sure how these burgers were going to turn out, and since my husband does not like beans very much I wasn’t sure if he’d like them, turns out I needn’t have worried because these mini burgers are incredible! They’re so good in fact that my husband loved them and went back for seconds! He even liked the cashew cheese!

What I really appreciate about these burgers is their simplicity and their emphasis on simple whole food ingredients. These burgers are a mixture of black beans, corn, garlic, onion, bell pepper, salt, pepper, chipotle powder, lemon juice, agave, rolled oats, and bread crumbs. At first I thought the addition of oats was a little strange but It’s actually one of the things I ended up liking best about these burgers. The oats give the burgers a great taste, and wonderful texture. They’re hearty, and grainy but in the best way possible. These burgers actually taste a bit like a regular burger, I bet you could even give one of these to someone and they wouldn’t know the difference.

The Cashew cheese is also really simple and utilizes pantry staples like cashews, garlic powder, sea salt, agave, smokes paprika, vegetable oil, lemon juice, thyme, soy or almond milk and black pepper.

I think I may have played around with the spice amounts for both the burgers and the cheese to suit my personal preference but otherwise I followed the recipe by the book. Except I chose to bake these rather then fry them to avoid excess oil. I actually think baking them was a great idea, it really melded the flavor.

To serve I put them on pretzel slider buns with a bit of vegan mayo, a lot of arugula, a dollop of the cashew cheese and some pickled jalapenos. The pickled jalapenos really bring it to another level although if you don’t like heat you could easily serve it with some tomato instead.

This is pure good food, just the way I like it!