Quinoa Burgers

I have a new Internet addiction. As if I didn't waste enough time on Facebook, Twitter, and reading blogs, now I'm hooked on Pinterest. I've been seeing people post things and talk about Pinterest for months now, but the fact that you needed an invite turned me off to it. I'm not waiting to join a site! I don't have that sort of patience!

Well, I was reading someone else's old blog posts and I came across a link that lets you join instantly. Bingo!

And I was in.

I've been pinning all sorts of fun stuff. I love that I can not only pin stuff that I find on their site, I can also pin stuff that I might find while reading someone's blog. Best of all, you can sort your finds onto "boards." One of the boards that I have is for recipes that I find online. The first one I tried was this one for Quinoa Burgers.

Oh my goodness were these good!

Now, I'm not one for fake meat. I don't eat fake cheese (Kraft Singles are a sin) and I don't think that it's okay to give up meat because you love bunnies and then turn around and eat fake meat. It just promotes the idea and to me, seems to defeat the purpose. I don't wear fake fur or fake leather either! I know a lot of vegetarians disagree, and that's fine. Just one person's opinion. :)

That being said, I like that these don't taste like they're trying to be a meat substitute. Honestly, I don't know why they're even called burgers in the first place. They're more like a fritter if you ask me. Regardless of what they're called, we really liked them.

I will admit, I did change the recipe. I used Gruyère instead of cheddar because it's what I had in the house. Also, instead of two green onions, I pulled a handful of teeny baby onions from the garden, because again, it's what we had. I didn't think 3 tablespoons of flour was nearly enough and ended up using twice that amount. I think my patties were smaller. I used my largest disher to measure them so they'd be uniform in size. I definitely ended up with more than ten!

As you can see in the photo, I didn't serve these with tzatziki or fry sauce (GAG!). I made teeny buns (the patties were about the size of sliders) from my artisan bread dough. A little mayo and some arugula plucked a few minutes prior, and there was dinner.

I will definitely make these again, but with a few changes. For starters, I thought they needed more salt, but I think most things do. I'd recommend making one, tasting it, then adjusting from there. Also, I don't know if it was my baby onions, but I really couldn't taste them. Next time I will be using finely minced shallot instead, and plenty of it.

I look forward to having the leftovers of these for lunch this week. YUM!