Bean "Burgers"

Sometimes I can hear myself talking, and in my head I am screaming "shut up already!", but the words keep pouring out. I have become the person I have always dreaded being. The person who talks about the amount of calories food has, and talks about going to the gym all the time.

Before, if I ever heard someone say "do you KNOW how many calories cheese has?", I would roll my eyes and loathe them. And now I am "that guy".

This time last year, if someone said to me "what did you do last night?" My answer would have most likely been "watched TV while sitting on my giant behind". Now my answer is "I went to the gym" or "I went to yoga". I think it's funny how things change. On my wish list at this point last year were these:

Now I would love to get my hands, uh...feet, in these:

I haven't had a complete lobotomy though. Even though there's a gym right by my house, I prefer to travel to the one that is further away because the cardio machines are set up so you can see the eye candy if you're working out on one of them. Might as well enjoy the sights while working out, right?

The other night I was flipping through a Cooking Light cookbook, and I saw a picture of a burger and it looked delicious. However, I cannot actually call it a burger. A burger, to me, contains meat. This one did not, so I will refer to it as a sandwich. When I pointed it out to C, she said that the Southwest Pinto Bean Burgers with Chipotle Mayo did not look delicious. I disagreed, and made them, and frankly, they were very very good.

The patties are made with pinto beans, bread crumbs, jalapeno, onion, corn, cilantro, hot sauce, cumin, egg, salt and pepper. I used white kidney beans instead of pinto beans, and panko bread crumbs instead of regular breadcrumbs. My grocery store didn't have any jalapenos that looked healthy, so I used a habanero pepper instead. If you go that route, be careful as habaneros are very hot. I omitted the cilantro, since I am not a big fan of it. Lastly I used about a 1/2 cup of frozen corn that I thawed, instead of the canned corn.

The patties are pan fried in a small amount of oil, placed on toasted whole wheat buns, and topped with romaine lettuce and chipotle mayo. Chipotle mayo being mayo that is mixed with some chipotle in adobo sauce.

These were really good. Mine were a bit spicy, but I like it that way. I didn't even mind the corn, and ordinarily I hate having corn mixed in anything. The only problem I had with the patties is that they didn't bind together well, and fell apart easily in the pan. However, it was a small annoyance and I do plan on making these again.

For dessert I took a pineapple and cut off the peel, top and bottom, and sliced it into rounds. I placed the rounds on a baking sheet and topped each one with a small amount of brown sugar. I baked them at 350 F for about 15 minutes. I topped the rounds with sweetened coconut that I had toasted. (The coconut is toasted by placing it in a dry skillet over low heat until it is golden brown). Also very delicious!