Quinoa Black Bean Burger with Cilantro Tzatziki Sauce

Earlier this week I had made Quinoa and Cheese, my way of making a healthier mac and cheese; then I had made a batch of black beans for Chocolate Chili. I still had some quinoa and black beans leftover. I have been trying to not waste any food by cooking  enough portions for what we eat, or by either making sure that I eat all of the leftovers and making new recipes with extra ingredients. I know that sometimes I have all these random, little bits of ingredients and they end up getting thrown out. This really bothers me.

I checked the fridge and found all these ingredients: quinoa, black beans, hamburger buns, cucumbers, cottage cheese, parmesan, eggs and greek yogurt. I decided to make quinoa black bean burgers and some kind of sauce. I went online and found a few recipes and decided to combine the different ideas into my own. Pintrest shows a lot of different ones if you just do a search.

I started to cook to quinoa. It always ends up coming out alright but I think I am doing something wrong. Recipes I have read and the package that the quinoa comes in all say to rinse the quinoa but I always end up losing a lot of the grains. Then at the end there is so much extra water. If anyone knows what I should be doing different I would greatly appreciate it if you could leave me a comment and give me any tips.

While the quinoa was cooking I chopped up half a shallot and two cloves of garlic. I sautéed them in a small pan with some olive oil just till they were translucent.

Then took my beans, cottage cheese, egg, and parmesan and blended it up in the blender till smooth. I had seen many pictures of these kinds of burgers and I didn't like how the black beans looked in them. So I blended them smooth and added salt and pepper.

After the quinoa was cooked I drained the water, again I must be doing something wrong  in my method of cooking them, I combined it in with the bean mixture in a big bowl. After mixing it all up it seemed so wet. I remembered we had some Panko breadcrumbs in the pantry so I added some to the mix. Along with some cilantro.

While everyone was putting the baby to bed I made the Tzatziki sauce to go with it. I didn't have lemon, mint or dill but I had limes and cilantro. I put greek yogurt, cucumbers, garlic, lime and a handful of cilantro and bended it up in the bender. It turned out pretty good if I must say so myself.

When everybody was ready to eat I put a spoonful of the quinoa black bean mixture into a hot pan with olive oil, pressed it down to make a patty and let it cook for four minutes on each side.

For Aleks' burger I put the Tzatziki sauce on the toasted bun and topped the burger with lettuce, tomato and avocado. He loved it. Especially the sauce. He thought that deserved its own blog. But here it is, sharing the entry with the quinoa burger. Maybe someday it will get its own entry. We will see.

Quinoa Black Bean Burger
1 3/4 Cups cooked Quinoa
1/2 Cup Black Beans
1/2 Cup Cottage Cheese
1/4 Cup Parmesan Cheese
1 Egg
1/2 Cup Panko breadcrumbs
Salt
Pepper
1/2 Shallot
2 Cloves of Garlic

Cilantro Tzatziki Sauce
1/2 Cup Greek Yogurt
1/4 Cucumber peeled and chopped
1/4 Cup Cilantro
2 Cloves of Garlic
1/2 Lime juiced