A few food disasters this week

This has been a strange week. Not least because we have had visitors around since the 26th, so it has been a vacation from the norm. We have therefore been eating out a lot / getting takeout and having wine. The take outs haven't been too bad though - I've been sticking to Thai and Indian instead of pizza, for example.

We also went to Savannah for the weekend with some friends. It was great but of ourse you have no control really over what to eat. Its hard then to stick to the diet when you are eating out a lot - especially somewhere like that where a lot of the food is fried and there's not a lot of vegetarian options. I just try to make up for it by having healthier sides like rice or potato salad instead of fries and I had a greek omelette yesterday which had spinach and feta cheese, instead of the veggy one stuffed with regular cheese. Its not much but makes me feel better about having an omelette instead of the oatmeal I probably should have had.

In between visitors and going away I have experimented with some more new dishes but have been fairly disappointed by the results.

I have a Jamie Oliver recipe book that I hardly use as there's a lot of meat dishes in there but he had a recipe for Sweet & Sour squash. The picture looked lovely. Needless to say my version did not turn out like mr olivers. I definately cooked the squash too long and it came out rather mushy. So, not content with ruining that I decided it would be great to eat it with some rice noodles. Well, you couldn't have gotten 2 textures that went together least! I am lucky that David will pretty much eat anything I put infront of him and rarely complains.

Then a couple of days later I made some Chilli Bean Burgers. I love making burgers as you have complete control over what goes in them. Bean burgers are especially nice. This was yet another recipe from the Moosewood low fat book. They were really nice. They have mustard and ketchup in them though so may not be for you if you are really trying to cut out all processed food.
The book said to have it with their Brazilian rice which sounded lovely but was in fact pretty tasteless, so much so that I didn't even bother saving the leftovers. There is one burger left though that I will be eating for lunch...

Chili Burgers

1 cup chopped onions
4 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
2 tsp olive oil
1/2 cup peeled and grated carrots
1 1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin
3 cups cooked pinto or kidney beans (2 15-oz cans, drained)
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp ketchup or 1 tbsp tomato paste
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
salt and ground black pepper to taste

Saute onions and garlic in the oil for about 5 minutes until the onions begin
to soften. Add carrots, chili powder and cumin and cook on low heat for 5
minutes. Set aside.

Mash the beans in a large bowl with a potato masher or the back of a spoon.
Add the mustard, soy sauce, ketchup or tomato paste and the sauteed
vegetables. Mix in the oats. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Form the burger mixture into patties. Cook burgers in a nonstick skillet on
medium-low heat for 5 to 8 minutes on each side.