Edamame Gyoza with Chili and Ginger

Since living with Mr Hef, I've been finding it hard to come up with meal ideas that we will both like. I'm a proper lentil eating hippy vegetarian and he is the meat eating king of beige foods. I've been throwing in a few things that I thought he wouldn't like, such as falafel and greek salad, lentil and sweet potato shepherds pie and the occasional tofu dish and to my absolute surprise he loved it all! There are a few things we both really love though and one of those is sweet potato katsu curry. We usually have it with edamame beans on the side, but this time I thought I'd put them in little parcels of joy.

Ingredients

200g edamame beans (defrosted and shells removed)

3 spring onions trimmed and chopped

1 tsp chopped red chili 

1 tsp grated ginger

10-15 wonton wrappers

1 tbsp vegetable oil 

Soy sauce to serve

1. Stick the beans, onions, chili and ginger in a food processor and give it a good blitz, until its blended together. 

2. Lay out the won top wrappers, take a tea spoon full of the mixture and pop in in to the middle of the wrapper. 

3. Wet your index finger and run it round the outside of the wonton wrapper, then fold in half and pinch the excess pastry (is it called that?) together to seal it. 

4. Once you've made your gyoza, cook straight away by heating the vegetable oil in a frying pan, and quickly frying until brown on both sides. 

5. Pour 100ml of water over the gyoza and cover to steam until the water has evaporated. 

6. Serve nice and hot, with soy sauce for dipping. 

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Chili and Lime Black Bean Burgers

IT'S SUNNY! Well at the time of writing this post it was anyway, who knows about tomorrow. So that means one thing, it's time for a beer and a burger. My main reason for wanting to make this was that I wanted to make a burger with avocado on top. A few weeks ago I couldn't stop eating avocados and just as I thought I'd gotten over it, my manager was also recently struck with this horrible affliction (not really, avocados are great). Seeing her eating them brought back my terrible avocado cravings and I can't stop eating them again. Anyway, I decided on a black bean burger and wanted to bring out the flavours you'd get in a lovely fresh batch of guac, so added lots of lime and chili. It's really tasty, refreshing and not too heavy (I ate a HUGE one) so perfect for the hot weather AND it's vegan... hooray! 

For 2 rather large burgers or 4 smallish ones you'll need:

Olive oil 

1/2 a red onion finely chopped 

1 clove of garlic finely chopped 

1 small red chili finely chopped

1 can of black beans

1/2 a lime 

1 slice of bread 

Salt and pepper

2/4 burger buns

Fresh salsa 

1 avocado sliced 

1. Chuck your onion and garlic in to a frying pan with a little oil and soften on a low heat for around 10 minutes, add the chili and heat through for a further few minutes. 
2. While the onions are softening mush the black beans up with a fork in a large bowl until they're nice an squished. 
3. Pop the slice of bread in to a food processor and turn it in to bread crumbs then add it, along with the onions, chili and garlic to the black beans and mix well. 
4. When the mixture is combined, divide it in to 2 or 4 balls and squish in to patties on a floured surface. 
5. Heat some oil in a frying pan and pop the burgers in, cook on a medium heat until nice and browned on both sides then transfer it to the burger bun. 
6. Top it with fresh salsa and sliced avocado, serve it up with some sweet potato wedges and salad and enjoy!

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