Sunflower Seed Veggie Burger

Today's lunch has a homemade veggie burger that I made trying to copy one of my favorite storebought burgers. I brought a yummy Sunshine Burger in my lunch in a previous post and I have been on the lookout for a recipe that might let me make a similar burger at home since then. If you've never had a Sunshine Burger, they are really different, in a good way. Well, for one thing they are green, which kinda' turns some people off. But they are quite delicious and have ended up being probably one of my favorite veggie burgers.

They only contain a few ingredients, the main one being sunflower seeds, and after searching around on the internet, I finally came across this recipe, which was exactly what I was looking for. I altered the recipe a little bit. For one thing, I skip the roasting the nuts in the oven part (I did it once and it just seemed like extra work that didn't seem to affect the finished result much), I also leave out the cashews because they are much more expensive than sunflower seeds, plus a Sunshine Burger doesn't have any cashews in it anyway. I only make these in a half batch each time, that gives me 12 burgers and they freeze really well. The Sunshine Burger contains herbs also, but I don't know which ones, so I just started throwing 1 Tbsp. of dried basil in. It tastes really good. The best thing I can think of to compare the taste of this burger to is Stove Top Stuffing.

To go along with my burger, I brought some more Rosemary Roasted Potatoes. I've almost always got some hanging out in the fridge because I make them so often. Plus, I am starting to really prefer these in my lunchbox over french fries because the french fries always end up a little soggy after you microwave them whereas the roasted potatoes are just fine.

There were just a few baby carrots left in the bag that I had in the fridge so I threw those in too.

For dessert I brought the last of the Peanut Butter & Chocolate bars that I made the other day from the recipe in La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer. These are so delicious and I highly recommend making them.

Well, that's lunch for Thursday. I'm already thinking about tomorrow and I can't decide if I want to go out and eat somewhere or try this new veggie burger recipe that I found. Yes, I might have veggie burgers two days in a row, but this new recipe that I want to try is nothing like the buger I brought today. It's a recipe to make veggie burgers that are the texture of the storebought burgers like Boca burgers. I would love to be able to copy the texture of storebought burgers, plus, by changing the seasonings around and breading them you can even make them into chicken patties. That's really what I am interested in since there are no vegan chicken patties here where I live anymore. The Boca brand ones were vegan here for a little while but then all the stores switched to a different version which is not vegan. If I want a vegan chicken patty now I have to drive all the way to Asheville, NC to buy the Health is Wealth brand. So being able to make my own chicken patties would be a lifesaver. I guess I'll probably try the recipe in it's original veggie burger form first though. I guess we'll see.

Thanks for stopping by. See everybody tomorrow.