or patties. Whatever you want to call them. I have yet to eat them in a bun with lettuce and tomato but it just might be good that way. And if you are going to compare them taste for taste with a hamburger, don’t! Unless having a hamburger is not an option for you for whatever reason. This is the recipe that I’ve been making. There are many other ways you could make them. If we were only doing vegetarian right now, I would add an egg to the recipe to help them hold together better.

Mix 1 small can (8 oz) of tomato sauce with 1 cup quick oats.

Mash 1 cup of cooked and drained black beans. I used a mini food chopper.

Saute 1 medium chopped onion and 1/2 cup of fresh chopped mushrooms in olive oil.

Throw the beans, onions/mushrooms and oatmeal/tomato sauce into a bowl. Add seasonings and mix well.

This mixture is a little on the sticky side and doesn’t form patties quite as neatly as I’d like. Drop a pattie into fine bread crumbs.

Coat on both sides and drop into 2 T. olive oil in a frying pan.

Fry until golden on both sides. I made them with and without the bread crumb coating. I preferred the non-coated but my sister preferred the coated.

We have a recipe to make a sauce out of tofu. It is called tofu “mayonnaise” but quite honestly it tastes closer to sour cream than mayonnaise. That is what the white stuff is on the burger pictured below.

I like also to spread the “mayonnaise” over it and then some fresh salsa. Quite tasty once you have gotten used to eating meatless foods. I thought they were better the second day than the first. Maybe for the same reason that we enjoy eating food we have not cooked. Anyone know why?

And one of these days I will post a non-vegan recipe again. I have one for Penne Rustica waiting in the wings. It has shrimp, chicken, cream and cheese in it.

 

EDITED TO ADD: I think it may be a 6 oz. can of tomato sauce instead of 8 oz!

This recipe comes from the blue Whispering Pines (Honea Path, SC) cookbook, and I believe it’s the second one they made. There are 2 recipes out of this cookbook that are among my favorite recipe collection. The other recipe contains cream cheese too!

I’ll give you the original recipe, and then the crust change that I did on it this time.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars

1 c. flour
1/3 c. brown sugar
5 T. butter
1/2 c. finely chopped nuts
1 – 8 oz cream cheese, softened
3/4 c. sugar
1/2 c. pumpkin
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. allspice
1 tsp. vanilla

Combine flour and brown sugar in medium bowl. Cut in butter to make crumb mixture. Stir in nuts. Set aside 3/4 cup of crumbs. Press rest onto a 8x8x1.5″ baking pan. Bake in 350° oven for 15 minutes. Cool. Combine cream cheese, sugar, pumpking, eggs, spices and vanilla. Blend until smooth. Pour over crust. Sprinkle rest of crumb mixture on top. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes at 350°. Cool before cutting.

I love ginger snap cookies, and especially love it combined with pumpkin desserts. So I made this one with 1 1/2 cups ginger snap cookies, finely chopped (in mini food processor), 1/4 c. brown sugar & 5 T. softened butter.

It was easy to blend with a whisk. Bake the same length of time as the original recipe.

I haven’t made regular cheesecakes very often but one tip I learned from my mom about them is to not beat the eggs hard once you add them to the rest of the stuff. Just enough to blend it together.

And a regular cheesecake, it may crack if you cool it too fast.This recipe is not very critical. I put it in the fridge within 20 minutes of taking it out of the oven with no issues.

The original crust recipe is very delicious too!! And it can be made without pecans. I think this is actually better a day or 2 after it’s made. Just need some chai (or coffee if you’d prefer) to go with this piece!

Happy baking!