We like to make a concious effort to eat less meat and more vegetable, but we do love a burger. So I thought I’d create a healthy meat-free burger that we could all enjoy. This week in the veggie box I got a bunch of beetroot.

Beetroot comes into season around this time and you can pick your own at Medley Manor Farm.

Usually I’d make beetroot into chocolate fairy cakes (see recipe here), but I thought for a change I’d make a dinner savoury delight. Beetroot’s are packed full of vitamins, minerals and protective antioxidants demonstrated by their beautiful colour. This recipe is super easy and can be whipped up in less than 5 minutes. Instead of a bun you can also use lettuce leaves, or get the mini buns for when you’re entertaining others children.

Here’s the recipe; Take a 150g tin of chickpeas, drain and mash them (or soak and cook your own – it’s much cheaper!). Add 200g of grated beetroot, 100g of flour (any flour works – for gluten free try rice or chickpea flour), 100g of crumbled feta, two eggs, 1 tbsp of horseradish sauce and handful of chopped coriander. Combine all the ingredients thoroughly in a bowl and then portion them into 4 burgers (or 8 little burgers for kids) with your hands. Grill the burgers for 5 minutes on each side and serve with a dollop of hummus or mayonnaise and some salad. Healthy and delicious!

These tasty morsels are deliciously wholesome and cheap to make. They are the perfect Summer picnic lunch or evening family meal. Jazz them up with a wholemeal pitta, salad and some mint and yoghurt dressing and kids will love them too.

Here’s the recipe

400g cooked chickpeas (1 can)
250g baked sweet potato (about 2 medium)
Juice from 1 lemon
2 cloves of garlic
2 handfuls of spinach
2 tsp cumin
1 handful of chopped fresh coriander or parsley
Salt and pepper

Bake the sweet potatoes whole until soft and tender (around 40 minutes). I soak my chickpeas over night and boil to cook, but you can also use a tin for ease. Bash the cooked baked potatoes and the chickpeas with a potato masher until roughly combined.

In a frying pan, cook the garlic in a little olive oil and then add the cumin and the spinach plus a dash of water. After a few minutes, when the spinach and garlic have cooked and you can smell the aroma from the cumin, remove from the heat and add to the sweet potato and chickpea mash mixing thoroughly.

Season with the lemon juice, salt, pepper and chopped coriander. Taste to make sure you’re satisfied with the flavour. Now form the dough into balls – I made 17 with this quantity. You can place the falafel on a lined baking tray, pressing it down ever so slightly, and bake in the oven for 20 minutes (gas mark 6). Or if you prefer them crispy like me, fry in a little olive oil for a couple of minutes on each side.

Serve with Tahini and yoghurt sauce made by mixing 2 tbsp of natural yoghurt with 2 tbsp of tahini (peanut butter works well here too), a crushed clove of garlic, 1 tsp of tomato ketchup, salt, pepper and chopped fresh mint. Summer heaven.

I did say I’d get round to making my own bread at some point! This recipe is very easy to make, though you do need to start a day ahead. It jazzes up any soup or salad dinner perfectly. You can vary the toppings with anything that you need using up.

I met Anna Pitt on Monday who is a big advocate of Zero Waste and she suggested I go through all my cupboards and to see if there was anything that needed using up, and sure enough, lurking at the back of the fridge I found a jar of Jalapeños – I must’ve bought them for a Mexican dish many many moons ago, and some lonely looking sundried tomatoes. They looked fine, and I thought they could make a wonderful topping for a spicy Focaccia to go with the parsnip and coconut soup I made on Monday.

Keeping in local and healthy

I love using wholemeal grains as they are so much more nutrient dense. Shipton Mill sell their own flour which is grown and milled just down the road in Tetbury, Gloucestershire. A Kilo is a bit more expensive than a Supermarket brand but the taste is second to none. Here’s the recipe – it’s adapted from Peter Reinhart’s wholegrain breads.

In a bowl, mix 250g of wholemeal flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 5g dried yeast, 240ml warm water and 1 tsp of sugar for 2 minutes.The dough will be sticky, but smooth. Add 1 tbsp of olive oil to the dough and mix for a few seconds. Now let the dough rest, uncovered for 5 minutes and then mix it again for another 2 minutes. If the dough is too wet, add a small amount of flour.

Line a tray with baking paper and add 1/2 Tbsp olive oil to grease the paper including the side walls. Place the dough in the tray. Rub the top of the dough with 1 tsp of olive oil. Flatten the dough a little using the palms of your hands. Don’t worry if it doesn’t cover the entire baking tray, it will once it’s risen. Cover the tray tightly with clingfilm and refrigerate overnight.

The next day take out the dough from the fridge and let it sit at room temperature for 4 hours. Remove the clingfilm covering the dough and drizzle on 1 tsp of olive oil. Using your fingertips, starting in the middle, press the dough so that it begins to fill out the tray. Loosely cover the pan and let it sit for 20 minutes. Repeat this procedure a second and third time. After the third cover the tray and let it sit for 2 hours.

When the 2 hours is nearly over, preheat the oven at gas mark 10 / 260 C/ 500 F. Sprinkle on your toppings – I used jalapeños, sun dried tomatoes and a grating of cheese, but just herbs, sea salt and olive oil would also be delicious! Reduce the oven temperature to gas mark 8 / 230 C/ 450 F and bake for 15 minutes. Turn the tray around 180 degrees and bake for another 10 minutes. Remove it from the oven and cool on a wire rack. Slice and enjoy!

Budget

250g whole wheat flour = 32p
Salt, yeast, sugar = 5p
Olive oil = 5p
Tomato = 10p
Cheese = 30p
20g Jalapeños = 10p

Total = £1.02 (25p a portion)