Hollylujah! Onion Rings

There's a burger spot in our neighborhood with vegan options, and my boyfriend and I like to go there after an active day, or when we're simply feeling indulgent. I love their vegan and portobello burgers, but their onion rings are the BEST, and probably the reason we go about once a month. They're beer-battered and deep fried and probably not even vegan though, so I've been jonesing to come up with a healthier alternative to make at home.

The idea to make them with almonds was always there, in order to lower the carbs and make the fats healthier. But I started off a bit over-zealous, planning to make the almond milk at home and dehydrate the leftover almond crumbles to turn into almond flour and a crunchy coating. This is exactly what I did, but it took forever, so next time I will probably simplify a bit. :) In fact, I have come up with a simple method, so I will share all of your options in this post, depending on where you fall on the zealous-ometer.

Note: I will continue to tweak this recipe and add more photos and an instructional video. But if you can't wait, give it a go!

On to the recipe...

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Lentil Walnut Burgers/Ninja Nuggets

The last few days before a vacation are a great opportunity for creative cooking. As I attempt to empty my fridge and pantry without having to buy more groceries, I always seem to discover or create new recipes that I continue to experiment with when I return.

I'm leaving for LA tomorrow, and I've already cleared out most of my perishables (hence the lack of exciting new recipe posts!), so I found myself experimenting with dry ingredients yesterday. I had a particular abundance of lentils and walnuts, so I started searching for a new burger recipe.

Enter Oh She Glows, one of my absolute favorite blogs, with a Lentil Walnut Burger recipe for which I had everything on hand. SOLD!

They look a bit like cookies, but they are delicious savory burgers, I promise!

I followed the recipe exactly, with one main exception: I didn't have bread crumbs. I had corn flakes, which I usually use as a substitute anyway, but I had something else I had been meaning to use up that would be perfect: almond pulp! This is the by-product of making almond milk: dry, crumbly almond bits that can be ground into almond meal or flour, and, so I've heard, used in place of bread crumbs in recipes. It's incredibly versatile stuff, so I like to keep it around.

So since that's the only sub I made, you can grab the recipe here, and substitute the bread crumbs, or not. The almond pulp worked great, and the recipe held together really well.

Oh, that brings me to this other thing I tried...I got these ninjabread men cookie cutters a while back, and have been meaning to use them. Since the batter was so solid and cookie dough-like, I molded some of it into ninjas. :) Ninja nuggets! I'm going to have to play with this idea a bit more and bread them next time. These were way too much fun to play with...

This is what happens when you put all of your ninja nuggets on the same plate...

And that's it! I'm off to pack for LA, and hopefully I'll have some delicious new posts for you while I'm gone. Have a great week!

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