Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Garbanzo Bean Burgers

I heard a very interesting story on NPR about Cleveland this morning.

Basically, they said that Cleveland should be a perfect place for young, tax-paying professionals to flock to (and for many, to come home to). The cost of living is incredibly low, you get the arts, the night life, incredible parks, a [decent] public transit system, even though it may not seem like it, there are actually jobs here.

BUT

They said that Clevelanders are Cleveland's own worst enemy. It's not that we don't believe in a Cleveland revival, we're just very skeptical. So like, when someone actually does move to the area, people ask "why?" instead of welcoming them!

As a (semi) recent Cleveland transplant, I know this to be 100% true. When I first started meeting new people in Cleveland, and even now as I meet new Clevelanders, one of their very first questions is always "...so, why the hell did you move here?!" 


No lie.

Not to mention, the most popular tourism video(s) makes fun Cleveland, and points out all the reasons why someone would NOT want to move here. I hope, for Cleveland's sake, that we can all change our attitude about that. This place has so many good things going for it. I know we are [mostly] all 100% behind our city, and I know everyone is really just being sarcastic when they as me why I'm here.

BUT

A lot of truth is said in jest. If we're going to change everyone elses' less-than-positive view on life here in CLE, then we have to first change our own. We should be telling the world how wonderful it is here. It shouldn't be "why would you move here?!?" but "It's GREAT that you moved to Cleveland! It's such an awesome city! Welcome home."

Ok, I'm off my soap box.

The real topic of my post today was to show off some pictures and an awesome summer recipe...
IMG_2407

These are a genius invention of Heidi Swanson's (yet again, I am swooning over her recipes!) It's a vegetarian bean burger but she had the brilliant idea to use it as the bun, instead of the burger.

You can find Heidi's recipe here. My only changes were green garlic and green onions instead of cilantro, because that's just what I had. 

I filled my garbanzo burgers with avocados, sprouts, tomatoes and cheese (oh! and hot sauce!)

IMG_2399
(don't judge my brown-ish avocados! They are totally still good!)

Some other filling ideas:
  • typical burger fillings; tomatoes, lettuce, onions
  • fried eggs (mmm, or poached with a runny yolk!)
  • if you're not anti-meat: chicken breast or sausage
  • strawberries and peaches, topped with some honey (disclaimer: I have never tried this, so I can't attest to it's deliciousness. Though I don't know
IMG_2401

So go on...get your garbanzo burger on!

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