Beetroot Burger Bonanza

I am totally behind with reading my Vegan Life magazines and checking out the recipes. When we came back from Portugal I had two waiting for me and I had almost caught up when I discovered the June edition through the door this afternoon.  I'm by no means complaining as it is wonderful to have so much vegan infused wonders to read and try.

We've still been attempting to catch up in the garden recently too and one of the things still growing from last season is beetroots.  We really didn't know how good they would still be as they had kind of been doing their own thing all winter. Expecting a certain 'woodiness' to them I was pleasantly surprised to discover when I harvested them that they were still okay; small but okay.  With other things to plant out we decided they'd really had as much of a chance to grow as we could give them so out they came. Then I remembered a recipe for beetroot burgers I had seen in the March edition of Vegan Life. It was part of the signature dish of Peter Axworthy, chef at Offbeat in Hampshire.  

This would be a chance to use up our old beetroots, and gain some great nutritional benefits, as beets are a great source of antioxidants, with anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties.

We weren't ready to commit to the full dish for the 'Totally Beet Naked Burger', which also involved making Smoked Caraway Beetroot Hummus, Pear and Cranberry Chutney, Orange and Thyme Steamed Golden Beetroot and Roasted Chickpeas.  As mouth watering as that all sounds (and as lovely as it looked in the magazine photo), we were just interested in trying out the burger recipe on its own.  This is a thyme and chilli beetroot burger incorporating quinoa and a few other stock cupboard ingredients that most people would have to hand.  The only exception may be some chickpea brine (aquafaba) but what vegan doesn't have a can of  chickpeas to hand?  It just so happens that Phil had made a chickpea dish the night before so we had planned and saved the brine for this very recipe.

I have to say it was lovely.  The wonderful earthy flavour of the roasted beetroot entwined perfectly with the thyme, chilli, onion and garlic, and the quinoa added a lovely wholesome texture.   A homemade burger like this far surpasses any shop bought version in both taste and healthiness and is even more satisfying if made predominantly from produce from your very own garden. We have a few more beetroots to use up and I think it is fairly predictable that we will therefore be repeating this recipe again soon.

Now unfortunately I cannot really share this recipe on here due to respect of copyright but if you do have the March 2016 edition of Vegan Life, turn to page 51 and you will find it in all its glory.  Failing that, I did find loads of beetroot burger recipes on-line just by searching for 'vegan beetroot burgers', an example of which is this one from Nava Atlas.  Now my world has been opened up to the idea of beetroot burgers, I'm sure I will be exploring lots of different recipes on this theme in the near future.

Better get some more beetroots growing in the garden then!