"B" is for bean burgers!

Just another romantic and elegant candle-lit dinner chez Aurora

 I confess I had more enthusiasm for writing this post close to a week ago, when these photos were taken, but one way or another it's been a busy stretch, and it's only today, as I am taking a "French Day," reading a trashy mystery and baking gingerbread to take my mind off the world's troubles, that I actually have time and focus to write this fascinating account of The First Time I Made Black Bean Burgers. It's likely to be heavy on photos and light on text.

The recipe is accurately if possibly immodestly called "Best Black Bean Burger" and it's from the Love and Lemons site where I've been finding a number of bean-based recipes. I started this one by cooking dried beans more or less according to that site's directions and then I mostly followed its recipe for the burgers.

The not-entirely-tidy preparation area at the outset

I opted to use some of the bread crumbs I already had rather than buying new panko crumbs and we had used up the last of the tamari sauce a few days earlier so I went without that entirely. I also discovered that grating onions--and then squeezing out the excess moisture--guarantees a lot of weeping. It was good preparation for the second half of the book I was reading.

I'm always a sucker for heaped-up ingredient shots.

The chipotle peppers in adobo sauce are hella-hot; I followed a suggestion in the recipe's comments section and scraped out and discarded the seeds before chopping them. In the final burgers, the heat was fine, even for us wimps. The plastic cutting board I used is still stained orange, however. 

Another thing I'm a sucker for: mashing anything

As noted in the caption, I love to mash stuff so I've been happy to find that more than one bean-related recipe calls for the masher. 

Formed burger patties

The recipe notes that you may need to chill the mixture to get it firm enough to form patties; that was definitely the case for me--and that was without the tablespoon of tamari. I couldn't/didn't so much drain the beans since most of the liquid had cooked out so maybe that was the source of the excess moisture. Regardless, after a half hour of so in the refrigerator, it was solid enough to be patted into eight reasonably sized patties.

Burgers on the grill!

We put four patties into the freezer and the other four onto the grill.  Scott brushed either the grill or the burgers with a bit of oil, as suggested in the recipe, to prevent sticking. It was pretty successful, though I'm not saying I didn't retouch the photo above a bit to make the patties look a little tidier here.

The final money shot

I'm hungry all over again just looking at this beauty. It was pretty darned delicious--as was the spare burger I reheated the next day.

Take me out to the ball game . . .

Today we went to a Mariners' game for the first time in several years. Ticket prices had become too crazy high for me. Scott had UW School of Medicine seats for his first Mariners game meaning that his first exposure was a few rows back just up from first base; convincing him of the charms of cheaper seats wasn't easy, and when even the cheaper seats meant spending more than a hundred dollars just to get in the door, I decided I'd just as soon watch the Dubsea Fish Sticks. (Full disclosure: I still heart the Fish Sticks more than the Mariners.) But today was a "value game" so we could get seats in the first row of the 300 level right behind the plate for $25 a pop. The forecast was for a bright sunny day in the low 60s so we committed to tickets and biked to what I persist in calling "Safeco" (even though I hated that name) though now, of course, it's "T Mobile Park." I went so far as to bring a sun hat and sunglasses, anticipating an afternoon in the sun.

Sweet view from the 300 level behind home plate

The first annoyance was the discovery that getting into a baseball stadium these days is more difficult than boarding an international flight; I had to transfer the contents of my purse into a clear plastic bag I fortunately happened to have with me and was chagrined to learn I couldn't carry my empty purse into the park at all. I stored that in Bessie's basket where, happily, it was unmolested all afternoon. Once inside, we ascended the stairs to the third level (being cheered on by the staff at the 200 and private box levels) and found our seats. Which were delightfully in the sun for about ten minutes. We were shivering a bit by the time the top of the 3rd rolled around so we migrated along the third baseline to some unoccupied seats in the full sun. It was bliss. Until the sun shifted enough to leave us in the shade again.

View from the third-base line, 300 level

Our third move was down a level and to the bleachers in the outfield for full sun and a view not really impeded by the foul pole, at least not after the people to our left moved elsewhere and we could slide over a few more feet. It was, I tell you, the perfect spot for watching Jonatan Clase score from second. Every news story I see makes vague reference to Mitch Haniger's RBI, but the real beauty of that score was Clase reaching second on a sort of hit-and-run (Julio Rodriguez, I think) though it's credited as a stolen base. The Mariners' fielding was all pretty beautiful as well; Luis Urías made a gorgeous stop at third.

 View from the outfield bleachers

Scott felt that the pitch clock resulted in a much zippier game, but my theory is that there just weren't a lot of pitching changes or bad plays to stretch the innings out. It was, regardless, an excellent way to spend a few hours of a sunny afternoon. And come the dog days of August, the shady coolness of those seats behind home will feel pretty darned nice.

 

 

Birds of West Seattle, April Backyard Edition

Schmitz Park was lovely; it has so many huge old trees and the light filtering through was truly magical. But it was nice to spend some time in the backyard after we got home; the light was also lovely there and the birds were so much more obliging about posing. Photos that follow are in no particular order.

Peeping gold-crowned sparrow

Song sparrow in golden light

Shadowed Steller's jay

Less shadowed but still slightly obscured Steller's jay

Male dark-eyed junco on the grapevine fence that serves as the backyard's red carpet

Male goldfinch in the magnolia

Gold-crowned sparrow on the red carpet grapevine

What can I say? I love the gold-crowned sparrows!

Male red-shafted northern flicker fresh from the bath

That flicker in the bath

Female (I think) dark-eyed junco on the red carpet

Hey Baby! Hey Baby! Singing male American goldfinch

 

 

Sweet little white-crowned sparrow--the first seen in the yard this year

Schmitz Park

 On Saturday Scott and I left our bikes in the garage and went for a stroll to and through Schmitz Park. It's been a few years since we'd been there, but it hadn't changed all that much. Once again, we heard about a million birds while seeing only a few, but the plants and light were pretty enough that I was still glad I had brought my camera which seemed inclined to work properly once more. In no particular order, some photos from the expedition:

Trillium, I think. I suspect these were planted rather than occurring naturally, but they are native.

Salmonberry blossoms, maybe, growing near a tidied-up tree trunk

Skunk cabbage is in bloom just now. Less stinky than you'd expect.

I'm sticking with salmonberry blossom for the ID, but I could be wrong.

A bit of nursery log in action--though I'm not certain this isn't a still-living limb.

One bird that was fairly obvious (well, Scott spotted it in flight initially) was a Cooper's hawk. It even sat in one place long enough for me to--eventually--get a photo of it:

Cooper's hawk in Schmitz Park

On the walk home we had a nice view of Mount Rainier so of course I paused on the corner to record it for posterity because I'm always just so pleased to live in West Seattle where the mountain seems so close and friendly all the time.

Mount Rainier (and Little Tahoma) over the West Seattle rooftops

Coming Soon: A mess of photos from the backyard where the songbirds were only too happy to pose after we got home from Schmitz Park. Those gold-crowned sparrows are quite the hams.

Marry Me Beans for Future Reference

Mostly a drive-by post for my own future use:

Truly a fine meal--and damned easy to boot. I cooked up a cup of mixed dry beans (including onion, oregano, fresh pepper, dried red pepper, salt, and a bit of vegetable broth concentrate with the beans) to use in place of the canned cannellini beans and added some chopped fresh spinach but otherwise followed this recipe pretty closely. 

Glories of the Spring

 I should really be getting some miles in on such a gorgeous day, but on such a gorgeous day it's all but impossible to escape the pull of the backyard:

Of course, the front yard is also pretty gobsmacking just now:

Tulip bed, April 3