Meatless Monday: Spicy & Sweet Morningstar Farms Black Bean Burger Stir Fry

Yesterday afternoon, we watched a friend's son and my daughter and he chose macaroni and cheese for lunch.  Since I can't have dairy due to my nursing son's milk allergy, I had a great excuse to get creative.  I am a BzzAgent which means I get to try all sorts of yummy products for FREE in exchange for my open and honest review of them.  I recently got into a Morningstar Farms BzzCampaign and purchased the Spicy Black Bean Burgers free with the coupon I got in my Bzzkit.

I pulled those out of the freezer along with some other items and decided I was making an East meets West stir fry.  Here's what I did:

Morningstar Farms Spicy Black Bean Burger Stir Fry

yum!

Ingredients:
1/2 cup white rice
1 cup water
1 tablespoon frozen chopped onion
1 teaspoon minced garlic
3 tablespoons olive oil (separated into 1.5 tablespoons x2)
2 Morningstar Farms Spicy Black Bean Burgers
1 cup oriental stir fry frozen veggie mix
1 tablespoon Smoky Chipotle Paprika Seasoning Mix
2 Teaspoons Cinnamon
Sea salt and ground pepper

1. Pour 1.5 tablespoons of olive oil into a medium sized sauce pan over medium-high heat.
2. Add garlic, salt, pepper, and frozen onions.
3. Stir until the onions defrost and add the rice.
4. Heat these in the oil until the rice is translucent and starting to tan just a little.
5. Add water and stir.
6.  Bring to a boil.  Once boiling, cover and drop heat to low.
7. Continue cooking rice on low for 15 minutes.  Then turn off heat, leave top on, do not touch for another five minutes.  DO NOT remove the top to your rice.
8. While your rice simmers, add the remaining oil to a frying pan or wok on medium heat. 
9.  Carefully add vegetables (water in the frozen veggies likes to pop!) to the heated oil.

Generic Frozen Veggies... cheap, quick, easy

10. Sprinkle Seasoning mix, cinnamon, and a little salt and pepper on veggies.  Saute veggies until they are defrosted.
11.  Microwave patties at 50% power for 1 minute to defrost them.
12. Cut patties into eighths (like a pizza).

Don't mind the sesame street plate...

13. Add veggie slices to veggies and oil.
14.  Here I bumped the heat up to medium-high ... almost high... and sauteed the mixture for another 5 minutes to get things a little crispy on the edges.

Sizzlin

15.  Serve over rice!

Yummy!

And a close-up... because it's artsy...

The seasoning mix I use:

We love this stuff.  $5 at Marshall's!

Ingredients... if you can't find some, make your own!

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Review: riceworks: Gourmet Brown Rice Crisps Sweet Chili flavor

So, it's 4 PM and I need to pump.  Pumping means a couple of other things: I will be insanely thirsty and hungry immediately following.  Since I'm at work, I keep snacks on hand, but nothing is sounding good.  So, I venture out to the vending machines.  Since I work in higher education, we have quite a few, and I choose to go to the "healthy, natural" machine rather than the one that sells fritos and cheetos.  I notice these brown rice "crisps" on the top row and go for a curveball and try them.  I buy this:

riceworks: Sweet Chili packaging... fiery.

I scamper back to my office to take pictures and try them for the first time.  Judging from the packaging, one would think there's a kick to these "crisps."  I mean... there are chili peppers on the front with a background that sort of resembles fire.  I'm glad they showed a "crisp" on the front as well, because upon opening the bag, I'd have thought they accidentally filled it with chips.  The bag touts its inhabitants many achievements: Gluten-free, All natural, Wheat-free, whole grain, vegan and celiac friendly, no trans fat, no cholesterol, no preservatives, and I think something about shaving whales. Anyway, I open the bag, and I'm saddened to see this:

my ration of "crisps"

Apparently riceworks is trying to help me watch my girlish figure... The "crisps" are dense.  I pick one up and inspect it... it's light, but thick.  It's covered in flavor stuff, but the ingredients list is significantly shorter than their chip counterparts.  I continue inspecting... I taste a "crisp."  My teeth crunch through the brown rice to find a sweet, slightly zippy flavor as bold as what you'd find on "chips" but this is a "crisp"... obviously.

I probably should have used a banana to show size, but I forgot and it's a little late now.  Visualize it.

All in all, the flavor was good, they hit the spot for a quick snack, and they were only 180 calories, but there are other things I could choose next time for less calories, more flavor, and less money.  I would say that if I were grabbing a sandwich and these were a chip option I will totally choose them, but for an after pumping snack? I'll pass next time.