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Nature's Pride really liked my Cilantro-Lime Black Bean Burger recipe that they tweeted it! They called the recipe "pretty amazing". YAY!

Cilantro-Lime Black Bean Burgers on Nature's Pride Whole Wheat Buns

I'm ready. I'm ready to strengthen my cooking muscles. I'm ready to enhance my kitchen abilities. I'm ready to take my culinary skills to the next level. How am I going to do that? Start inventing more of my own signature recipes.

When Foodbuzz and Nature's Pride sent me some of Nature's Pride 100% Whole Wheat Buns, I wanted to challenge myself and not only make something I've never made before but also try coming up with something new. Lo and behold: Cilantro-Lime Black Bean Burgers. These are so tasty, you don't even need any seasoning. The combination of onion, garlic, cilantro, lime and black beans is so flavorful that adding any salt or pepper would be criminal. These burgers are healthy. Black beans provide good protein. The Nature's Pride 100% Whole Wheat Buns are sturdy and hold up well. You can definitely stack a couple burgers easily in one bun. They taste delicious too.

These burgers are simple and unique. They'll knock your everyday beef burger out of the park! Try it out. What are you waiting for?

Ingredients

1 small onion chopped

2 cloves of garlic

1 29 oz. can of black beans, rinsed and drained

zest and juice of one lime

3 tablespoons (small bunch) of cilantro leaves

1 egg

1/2 cup of breadcrumbs (less to taste)

Sliced plum tomatoes

dollops of sour cream

Nature's Pride Whole Wheat Buns

Makes 6-8 burgers

In your food processor, add your onion and garlic. Pulse until minced. Then add black beans, lime zest, lime juice and cilantro. Pulse until smooth.

In a bowl, add the bean mixture, one egg and breadcrumbs. Mix until the egg and breadcrumbs are incorporated.

With wet hands, form the black bean burger mix into patties. You can get 6-8 out of this mixture, I happened to make 7.  Heat up your grill pan and add a drizzle of light olive oil. When the pan is hot, grill  each patty until its crispy on both sides. These are delicate burgers so be careful when flipping.

Toast your Nature's Pride 100% Whole Wheat Buns. Each package comes with 8, so if you make 8 burgers you can use the whole bag! Add your burger to the bun and top it off with a couple of slices of tomato, a dollop of sour cream and some cilantro. Enjoy!

Cilantro-Lime Black Bean Burgers

Mango-Ginger Lassi

When I used to live with my parents, I had free access to their food processor and blender and would make Mango-Ginger Lassis on a regular basis. My tiny apartment kitchen has no space for a blender and can barely hold the new Cuisinart I just purchased. So needless to say, I really missed these Lassis since I couldn't make them at home. To break in my new Cuisinart, I decided that it was time to revisit this delicious drink. If you have a blender, please use that instead of your food processor but I'm using my Cuisinart because that's all I got.

Ingredients:

6-8 ice cubes

2 small containers of plain low-fat yogurt

1 mango

1 2-inch piece of ginger, peeled and grated

2 tablespoons of honey

Instructions:

Peel and grate your ginger.  Remove the meat from the mango. 

In your blender or food processor, add the ice cubes and pulse until they are somewhat crushed. Do this to get the drink started so that you don't end up with chunks of ice in your Lassi.

To your blender or food processor, add the grated ginger, mango, yogurt and honey and pulse until smooth. Serve immediately.

It's the perfect combination of sweet and spicy!

Sunday Thoughts ~ Cuisinart Love

After long last, my kitchen finally has a food processor. And not just any food processor. It's a Cuisinart Prep 9, 9-Cup Food Processor.

Lo and behold the beauty:

She's got one button labeled "Pulse" that does all the work. It came with a regular blade, a dough blade, a slicing disk, a shredding disk, a spatula, a DVD and a user's manual with recipes. A very nice package at a very nice price.

I have been contemplating buying a food processor for many months now but have always found excuses to put it off. The biggest one was money. I just couldn't shell out $100-$200 for a food processor without something else having to give. And surprise bills popped up almost every single month taking whatever excess cash I had to put aside for the purchase. However, since the company I work for has been doing well, share-owners got a nice dividend payment. I pretended like I didn't have the money and put everything down, with the addition of a few extra dollars for this Cuisinart. Thank you dividend payment! If it wasn't for that, I'd still be procrastinating.

Why did I chose a Cuisinart? I asked a few people on Twitter which food processor they thought I should get. One tweep replied that he loved his Cuisinart so much that he wishes he could make love with it. WOW. That's one helluva recommendation. Others, not so quite enthusiastically, recommended Cuisinart so that's what I got.

Having a food processor means a lot of things. Less space and more cleaning. This Cuisinart is large and bulky. I don't have any space for it right now so it will sit on top of my microwave and I'll clear my countertop to use it. I'm moving at the end of August and the kitchen there will be much bigger, with a lot more counterspace so my darling Cuisinart will have room to breathe.

Having my food processor also opens up the possibilities of making a lot more dishes that I couldn't do in the past. I broke in my Cuisinart with a Mango-Ginger Lassi (recipe to come) and how divine it was. That machine can sure crush some ice. Now, instead of looking away from recipes that require a food processor, I can embrace them with open arms. And I hope that means lots of variety, lots of experimentation and lots of recipe posts on this blog.

Excuse me while I go kiss my Cuisinart. <3