Nick is the one who introduced me to Picky Palate. And the recipe he picked for us I remember glossing over thinking meat? burgers? gross. But in general, it's hard to go wrong with Cajun spices. So when he suggested using the spices from this recipe to make whole foods black bean burgers, I decieded I've give them one more chance.
After almost a month (over a month?) we were reunited!
We decided to make them at his place since he has a grill. He combined all the ingredients for the burgers. And came up with the idea to add corn (the sweet/crunchy addition was perfect).
In the meantime, I worked on the spice combination. We were missing paprika, which is a key part of the Cajun seasoning, I know. But I did my best to make a good combination without it. I ended up throwing these together:
We went the route of mini patties.
Then we broke out the mini grill. It made some strange noises, but eventually Nick figured out what to do with it.
While they were cooking we set up the rolls and condiments. Pepper Jack cheese, fresh tomato, shredded lettuce, and kaiser roles:
Then it was dinnertime! This was Nick's burger:
For some reason I never quite got around to taking a picture of mine. I might have inhaled it too quickly. I was blown away by how good they were. I didn't really enjoy it on the kaiser roll, so I made a sort of burger salad (tastier than it sounds, really). Me, the burger hater, ate two patties. Nick inhaled his too. With the help of our friend Liz, there were no leftovers whatsoever!
I'm so happy my view on burgers turned a little with this recipe. And it was a good way to sneak a little more protein into my day. Not to mention, it was super easy. I think I'd recommend it to just about anyone.
Nick's still away from the city for a while, but I made the drive up to see him yesterday and it wasn't awful at all (turns out the parkway only really sucks for the fifteen or so miles on either side of the tunnel). Hopefully we'll be posting joint recipes more often!
