Roasted Beet Burgers + Eat Like You Give a Damn cookbook review + GIVEAWAY

With a bold title, Eat Like You Give a Damn, it seemed fit to share this lovely cookbook around the holidays. With the American Thanksgiving/Thanksliving wrapping up and Hannukah/Christmas season quickly approaching, it should be a season for giving a damn. No?

Eat Like You Give a Damn is a vegan cookbook by Herbivore Clothing’s Michele Schwegmann and Josh Hooten and recently won Vegweb’s Favourite Cookbook of the Year.

ELYGAD is simple cookbook filled with vegan staples. If you are new to being vegan, this book has you covered. Why, what and how. Unlike most vegan cookbooks, there is a focus on animal welfare and why it is important for the animals to be vegan.

The recipes are approachable and twists on classic vegan staples. Hummus? Check. Roasted vegetables? Check. Red lentil soup? Check. Kale salas? Of course! Don’t misunderstand me. I actually liked to see a new variation on split pea soup and the barbecue-curry soy curl bowl was finger-licking good. At a first glance, it may seem too simple for a seasoned vegan but I liked the normal feel to the recipes.

It was nice to change up our own favourite recipes with something familiar but new. They use, literally, a hands off approach to tofu scramble making that I really liked. I enjoyed the classic tofu scramble but probably enjoyed the “Survivor Tofu Scramble” a bit more because it had different flavours (cabbage and fennel made for a nice twist).

A lot of people jump straight to veggie burgers once they want to eat vegan more often, but this wasn’t my case. This summer, while hosting a myriad of barbecues, I ate my fair share of premade burgers. Moreso to help streamline the meals than because I like to eat them. Most packaged burgers have weird textures and not that filling. When I saw this recipe, I knew I had to try it out, just to compare.

These burgers were not that difficult to make, especially if you have leftover whole grains in your fridge, capitalizing on roasting the vegetables and tofu to leech out the extra moisture. The mushrooms were deliciously earthy and while you can’t tell with my photos, I used beet in them, too. They just happened to be golden beets, so you don’t get the not-fully-cooked effect one would get from using red beets (see bottom photo, from the cookbook).

I topped my burger with hummus, which is nice and creamy. I found this to be mandatory for the premade veggie burgers as it adds a much needed moisture. These roasted beet burgers don’t need any help in the moisture department. They were quite fragile and definitely would not have held up to the outdoor grill. Right now, we have packed our barbecue away for the winter, so a recipe like this is perfect. Extra burgers can easily be frozen, although we ate them all before we could consider it.

I am so excited about this cookbook and thankfully, the publisher allowed me to giveaway the cookbook to a reader living in the United States or Canada. To be entered in the random draw for the book, please leave a comment below telling me about your favourite veggie burger (homemade/storebought – no judgements!) or whether you don’t like them at all. The winner will be selected at random on December 15, 2015. Good luck!

Other recipes from Eat Like You Give a Damn spotted elsewhere:

Chocolate–Chocolate Chip Zucchini-Banana Bread

Lentils with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

Only-Kale-Can-Save-Us-Now Salad

PS. I am sharing this with Meat Free Mondays.

Roasted Beet Burgers
Reprinted, with permission, from Eat Like You Give a Damn

Author’s note: Everything about these burgers is delicious. We’ve fine-tuned them that way through months of enjoyable recipe testing. Roasting the vegetables and tofu makes them taste incredible, and beets make the meatiest-looking veggie burger ever. There is no need to chop the vegetables uniformly or in small pieces, because you’ll be using a food processor to make the ground “meat,” so the prep work is super easy.

2 cups quartered crimini mushrooms
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped beet (see tip)
1/3 cup coarsely chopped onion
4 large cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1 pound super-firm or extra-firm tofu, drained and pressed
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons reduced-sodium tamari
2 teaspoons dried thyme
1 cup cooked quinoa, farro, or brown rice (Janet’s note: I used farro)
1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Put the mushrooms, beet, onion, and garlic in a large bowl. Using your hands, crumble the tofu into the bowl, making sure to break up the pieces well, and stir to combine. Add the oil, tamari, and thyme and mix well. Spread the mixture on the lined baking sheet so it covers the whole sheet. Bake for 20 minutes. Stir and spread out the mixture again. Bake for 25 minutes longer, until the beet is tender and easily pierced with a fork. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly.

3. Transfer to a food processor. Add the quinoa, nutritional yeast, salt, and pepper. Pulse eight to ten times, stopping occasionally
to scrape down the work bowl, until all the ingredients are well chopped and stick together. Return the mixture to the large bowl. Form into 6 patties, putting each patty on waxed paper as it’s shaped.

4. Mist a large skillet (cast iron if you have one) with cooking spray and heat over medium heat. When hot, cook the patties until crispy (in batches, if necessary), about 5 minutes per side.

Tip: Use a beet about the size of a baseball. Scrub it well so you can leave the skin on.

Recipe and photos from Eat Like You Give a Damn by Michelle Schwegmann and Josh Hooten. ©2015 Michelle Schwegmann and Josh Hooten. Used by permission from Book Publishing Company.

Note: I was given a copy of the cookbook from the publisher.  I was under no obligation to share a review. The opinions expressed are entirely my own.

Contest Rules: No purchase necessary. Contest period begins Tuesday, December 1, 2015 and ends Tuesday, December 15, 2015. For US and Canadian residents only. Approximate retail value US$24.95. Enter by writing a comment answering the prompt for a chance to win.  Entrants must supply a valid email address. Winners will be notified by email and must respond within 48 hours.