5-Veggie Vegetable Burger

Dear Reader, please meet my latest food addiction. Surprised that it’s not round, filled with chocolate chips and answers to my dear, sweet cookie? Me too. It’s a, get this, veggie burger. I ate four the other night alone. I need help or, at least, a gym. Actually, since it’s vitamin week, I think it’s o.k. to overindulge.

With peas (full of vitamins K, C and B6), carrots (vitamins A, B and C), sweet potato (vitamins A and C), zucchini and scallions (those count, right), they are a superfood grandslam. I can even attest to the fact that kids will eat them. Scarlett had two at supper recently. Maybe they’re her food addiction as well. Beats gummy bears any day.

As soon as this kid can read, I will be obsolete. (O.K. and manage a stove.) Scarlett really took on this whole recipe which I adapted from the Rodale Whole Foods Cookbook.  I did enlist the help of her dad just to make the process go faster since I intended to eat them for dinner. We started the process a bit late. The damn couch kept insisting we keep it company.

It was a total riot listening to Scarlett manage her Dad:

When the mashed sweet potato spilled on the counter…”Don’t worry Daddy. Accidents happen and if you don’t spill something you’re not having fun.”

As he tried to blend the peas and sweet potato….”You need to mix like this…”

As she licked the spoon that transfered the butter mixture into the bowl of veggies…”You’ve got to try this. It’s really delicious. And good for you too.”

We had to fiddle with the bread crumbs a bit because my sweet potato was the size of my head, so the mix was quite wet. Scarlett made mini burgers for herself while I made large size ones for the “grown-ups.” She loved how sticky her hands got, and I had to remind her to not eat what was on them. Once we added the raw egg, I didn’t want her to continue eating fistfuls of the mix.

You could easily bake these burgers, but I’ve got to say the pan frying really took them over the edge in terms of yumminess.

I made a little Russian dressing mix using soy mayonaise with ketchup and mustard. It’s one of Scarlett’s favorite condiments, and we ate them for a few days for either lunch or dinner.