Hello, my name is Jhames

Last night’s dinner was one of those impromptu meals where you have leftovers in the refrigerator you’d hate to see go to waste: roasted spaghetti squash with plenty left after our initial meal; carrots from the farmer’s market in the crisper drawer; and a large bag of onions. I decided that the best fate for these vegetables was to make patties—a homemade Gardenburger® if you will. Carrots can be spiced in any number of ways but I find that squash has its limits. Thankfully, curry works well with both carrots and squash. With a little ingenuity, and a lot of stuff in the cupboard, I put together the following recipe for curry patties.

Ingredients

• 1 spaghetti squash, roasted
• 2-3 medium carrots, peeled
• 1 medium onion, grated
• 1 15 oz can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
• 1/4 cup garbanzo flour
• 1 Tbsp tomato paste
• 1 Tbsp curry powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp coriander powder
• olive oil

Directions

1. Roast the spaghetti squash (if you haven’t already):
   • preheat oven to 350°F
   • cut the squash lengthwise in half and scrape out the seeds
   • place each half face-down on a rack
   • place rack on a baking pan
   • add 1 1/2 cups water to baking pan
   • roast squash for 30-45 minutes until you can easily squeeze the outer wall of the squash
   • allow the squash to cool then scrape the flesh using a fork
2. Use a zester – not a grater – to create carrot strings; chop down the strings into 1/4″ – 1/2″ pieces.
3. In a medium bowl, mash the cannellini beans with a fork until you have a paste consistency.
4. Add the squash, carrots and grated onion to the bean paste; mix well.
5. Add the cilantro, garbanzo bean flour, tomato paste, salt and spices to the mixture; mix well.
6. Form the mixture into a large ball, cover with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for one hour.
7. Remove mixture from the refrigerator and start forming patties using your hands. I make my patties as large as my palms and about 1/2″ thick.
8. Heat a skillet on medium heat and generously coat the surface with olive oil.
9. Cook patties until the edges are brown; flip and repeat.
10. Place cooked patties on a paper towel to absorb any extra oil.
11. Serve immediately.

Tips

This is where you can go crazy with substitutions!

• If you don’t have cannellini beans, use garbanzo beans or navy beans or black beans. Anything but kidney beans, their exterior is mighty tough to mash—know how you sometimes leave papers in your pants which get caught in the lint filter of the dryer as massive amounts of paper flecks? Yeah, that.
• If you don’t have a zester, use a grater for the carrots. Be sure to squeeze out any carrot juice so your mixture doesn’t turn into sludge.
• If you don’t have garbanzo flour, use vital wheat gluten flour or buckwheat flour.
• If you’d rather not fry the patties, use the oven!
  1. Preheat oven to 350°F
  2. Place patties on a baking sheet (don’t worry about keeping them close to each other as they won’t spread whilst baking); bake for 10 minutes.
  3. Flip each patty over and drizzle a bit of olive oil on top; bake for 10 minutes.

I served these patties with mango chutney and homemade garlic naan. I followed this recipe for naan but substituted soy milk in place of milk. The naan didn’t rise as much as I had hoped, I suspect it’s because the soy milk and baking powder didn’t react as well as regular milk. When I next make naan I plan to add a couple tablespoons of apple cider vinegar to the soy milk.