Last week I was at Sam’s club, like every Saturday morning picking up my weekly supplies perusing through the fresh produce section.  I was pushing my buggy (yes ‘buggy’ – that’s what us Yinzers call a shopping cart) through the aisles, taking my time looking at everything when I spotted the most incredible Portabella mushroom caps.  Each cap was literally the size of a dinner plate!  I have never seen them that big; I mean EVER! And for like $3.50 I was all over that!  So I brought them home but then kinda sorta forgot about them for a few days.  I got side tracked with other things to make that when I “re-found” them I was tickled pink!  Since my tummy was on the fritz and hating most meats (it does it every once in a blue moon) I figured it was perfect timing to use these face-sized mushrooms Alexander Hera.

Since it’s Lent now I try to come up with truly meatless dishes as even though most people eat seafood on Friday there are tons that hate seafood.  I took out the gorgeous portabellas (I wish I had taken pictures of them because they were MASSIVE!!!) and cleaned out the gills. Now you don’t have to remove them as they are edible. Most chef’s remove them as they will discolor your sauce and make it muddy.  For this dish, it’s totally your call.  I just do it out of habit.  Once I chopped them up I could have easily stopped there with the veggies and just added the binding ingredients and seasoning but I wanted protein and a more well-rounded flavor profile.  That being the case I opened up the fridge to see what other veggies I could add.  Garlic is a must and onion as the onion adds moisture. I spied some fresh broccoli and thought that would brighten up the dish not only visually but in flavor profile.  However what I didn’t have was protein. Sure the eggs were a great source of protein but I want more.  I opted to add black beans not only for color, protein and flavor but also texture.  They, unlike cooked broccoli, mushrooms and onions stay semi-firm versace bags.

These burgers just came together beautifully.  Since I had made black bean burgers in the past (that are friggen AMAZING!!!) I knew the best bet to really get these to stick together with as little filler (bread crumbs) as possible was to mash half of the beans.  That really helps to bind the stuff together without adding a lot of bread crumbs making it then almost meatloaf-like headphone amp.