Hi. My name is Emily, and I'm a vegetarian.

Ok, you got me. I am not a long term veggie head, just for the month of February.

My brother came home a couple months ago with a proposition; A few of his school friends had suggested that for the month of February they all go without meat. I questioned the reason behind this, just cause I was curious. It sounded like a good idea to me, I don't eat much meat anyways, some of it makes me sick, some of it we just don't buy for budget reasons...

I never really got a straight answer as to why my brother's friends wanted to do this, I guess because they just wanted to try it out? Anyways, February rolled around and 2/3rds of my family decided to go with it.

Menu wise, I know my mom is stressed. Most of our dinner time meals consisted of Chicken, rice, some sort of sauce, and a spoonful of veggies on the side of your plate. I wish I could say that since deleting meat from the menu our dinners have been very exciting, but that would be lying. Actually, I really can't even remember anything we've eaten...it's like we haven't. Eaten, that is.

But last night I helped my mother prepare a pretty darn tasty meal. Black bean burgers and zesty carrots! and it was pretty darn delicious.



Preheat oven to 475.

Drain and rinse your beans, then pour into a smallish/medium sized bowl and mash them till they're kind of sticky.


Next, pour in in 1/2 bell pepper (the recipe said to use green, but I thought the red added a prettier color), 1/2 onion, and 3(or more if you'd like) cloves of garlic, all of which you've minced and diced and thrown in a food processor before adding to the mashed beans.





In a small bowl crack an egg. add 1 TBS. of chili powder, 1 TBS cumin, and 1 tsp Hot sauce.

Whip it all together, and then add to the bean mixture.

*******

Once the spices and beans are well mixed, pour in bread crumbs. The recipe called for 1/2 cup, but I ended up using a little more.

When the mixture is sticking together enough to support itself, form 4-5 patties and place on a baking sheet.

Place in your 475 degree oven for 10 minutes on each side.

They were a little dry. VERY flavorful, but still dry. The only thing I would do differently would be to drizzle a little olive oil over the burgers before baking.

You also could grill these, 8 minutes for each side.

chop 1 1/2 cups of clean, grated carrots.

Cook in 1/2 cup of water for about 5 minutes. The longer you cook the carrots, the softer they will be, so if you want softer carrots...continue cooking.

When carrots are done cooking, drain them, BUT SAVE 1/4 CUP OF THE WATER!!!

For the sauce, combine the saved water (1/4 C.), 2 TBS grated onion and juice, 1 TBS prepared horse radish, 1/2 C. Mayo., 1/4 C. (or more, to taste!) grated cheddar cheese, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper. Mix together, add carrots and mix some more :)

Spoon into a buttered, 2 quart casserole dish.

Then, in another bowl, combine 1 C. fresh breadcrumbs, 1.4 C. butter(melted), and 1 tsp paprika.

Sprinkle over carrots and bake at 350 for 20 minutes.