Two roasted beet salads

BEETS! In an old Nickelodeon show 'Doug,' Quail Man had a line that beets were "nature's candy." I couldn't agree more. Doug's favorite band was also incidentally named The Beets. Beets are uber-nutritious and delicious (providing vitamins A, B1, B2, B6, C, and a compound that helps detoxify the liver. Add the beet greens and you also get a butt-ton of iron)!

Beets can be used in numerous ways, from roasted as a side to a fresh ingredient for juices and smoothies to a hearty addition to a salad. You can also use the bitter greens and cook them in the same way you'd cook spinach or swiss chard. Since it's still summer, I decided to give you guys beet salad two ways. Enjoy!

ROASTED BEET & GOAT CHEESE SALAD

Ingredients:
- 1 small beet, roasted or boiled then diced (I like roasting them better because it keeps a lot of the flavor intact, whereas so much color and juice leaks out into the water if you boil it. That said, boiling is a tad bit faster)
- 2 cups greens (I used a baby spinach/baby arugula mix)
- 1/8 cup shaved red onion (white's okay, though)
- 1.5 tbsp goat cheese, crumbled (optional for vegans, but otherwise I think it offsets the aggressiveness of the raw onion really nicely, so don't skimp)
- 2 tsp olive oil
- salt to taste
- Sprinkle with crushed pistachios (optional)

Put it all together. Toss. DONE.

MOROCCAN BEET SALAD

- 1 large beet, roasted and diced
- Juice from 1/2 a lemon
- Parsley
- Salt to taste

Put it all together. Toss. DONE.

And remember - if your urine or poo looks like there is blood in it a day or so after eating a lot of beets, it's probably because you ate a lot of beets, not because you have a kidney infection. Pink pee is hilarious. When talking about this to my friend Emily, we decided that all women pee magenta-colored pee all the time in the minds of men...just like we also burp glitter and fart rainbows.

Items not donated or dumpstered: salt, goat cheese, parsley (from garden)

Vegan Quinoa Hippie Burgers

It's not really a secret that I'm a little bit of a hippie dirtbag deep down inside. I was vegetarian for 8 years, 2 of which I was vegan for. Although I now eat meat again, I still have a soft spot for the old classics of my vegan days.

Enter the vegan burger.

There's a lot of different ways to make vegan burgers. Most of the time, changing up the base ingredient is what makes each one special - people use things with lots of protein like black beans, lentils, pinto beans, kidney beans, or quinoa (a grain that is a perfect protein). I like using quinoa the most, since I'll make up a batch as a side dish for dinner and then have leftovers that I want to transform into something else...

VEGAN QUINOA HIPPIE BURGERS

Ingredients:
- 2.5 cups cooked quinoa (I cooked mine with freshly chopped rosemary to give it a little extra flavor)
- 1 cup roasted red pepper hummus (you can also substitute cooked chickpeas and a little water, or any other flavor of hummus, but it's not as tasty) (p.s. EXTRA BONUS PROTEIN!)
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 2-3 tbsp soy sauce
- 2-3 tbsp flax seed meal (harder to dumpster, but I lucked out with a 3 lb. bag one time, so I'm set for life)
- 2 cloves garlic
- Crap-ton of fresh basil (to taste)
- 1 tbsp fresh thyme
- 1 tbsp lemon juice (this brightens up the flavors of the spices and hummus)
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp paprika
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 4-5 tbsp wheat flour

Mix everything up in a bowl. Taste it to see if the spices balance in the way you'd like.
Make into big meaty patties.
At this stage, you can freeze the patties for use later by sticking wax paper between them and putting them in an air-tight container - they'll last up to about 3 months.
Fry on high heat in the olive oil so they don't fall apart and get super-crispy (the crispy texture is crucial or else the hummus can make the texture a little weird and the patties will fall apart).
Serve!

Wasn't that easy?

I'm was a total ex-vegan and put goat cheese and spring greens on mine, but you can add anything from avocado to homemade scented aolis (again, bad vegan) to tomatoes. I don't have any bread in my house either right now, so you'll have to use your imagination as to how these would look freaking amazing with burger fixin's on a bun (although, if you're gluten-free, never mind).


These are really great (and easy) to make for BBQs when you have friends who don't eat meat. I can tell you that being on the receiving end of a BBQ that has no substantial food options for you is a bummer ("What?! Just corn on the cob and fruit salad again? Awesome!").

A lot of folks assume that being vegan is really tough, but as long as you have an arsenal of high-protein, nutritionally balanced food, it's actually pretty doable and delicious.

Items not donated or dumpstered: Quinoa (from the Beet Food Co-op), garlic, rosemary (from garden), thyme (from garden), basil (from garden), cumin, paprika, salt & pepper