I’ll preface this by saying I do not like beans, but Kit does. We’re trying to do more meatless meals, for a variety of reasons. Which means I knew I had to find an alternative protein source and thus the need to explore beans and cook them in such a way that I would be willing to eat them. And could thus persuade my kids to try them, too.

So, experimenting has lead us to black beans, after we tried my sister’s black bean soup that I really liked! Then I found the black bean burgers from Safely Gathered In though I made a lot of changes. And I need to still try Isa and Beverly and Abby’s bean recipes (thanks for sending those!)

Here are our black bean recipes. First, I soaked a pound of beans overnight and then threw them in the crockpot until soft and Kit salted them to taste.

I took out 1 cup or so and threw them into our tamale pie for dinner, along with a cup of rice. This was in place of the ground meat and it was great - Kit and I preferred the recipe meatless and with rice and beans, it counts as a complete protein!

Then I took out 3 cups for the burgers, and what was left I put into a freezer container for soup later this week. One pound of beans provided enough for 3 meals for our family!

Black Bean Burgers
With the three cups cooked beans I mashed them and then added 1/4 cup bread crumbs and seasoned as if it was ground meat. Onions, garlic, pepper, worsteshire sauce, and some ketchup (to sweeten it up for our kids.) I patted them (with Christopher’s help) into five patties and layered in wax paper and froze to fry up later this week. We let Christopher sample it and much to my surprise, he said it was really good! I think covered in cheese and mayo and ketchup and mustard it will be yummy, and our kids already like veggy burgers so they may go for it.

Does it look as unappetizing as raw meat? If it does then I think it passes the test.

This is not at all related, but cute and on the same photo import. I was letting Joseph “air out” mid diaper change and Bennett saw. He stripped off his diaper and laid on the blanket and said, “I a baby like Joseph!”

If you click on the picture of the boys it will show you the large size one and you will see Joseph’s current eye color. Kit gave Christopher a brief lesson in genetics this evening to explain our baby boy’s eyes.

Update: The black bean burger really looks like a burger, eh??

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