Veggie burgers. Black bean burgers. Even the elusive Santa Fe burger. Veggie burgers have many names (and lots o’ recipes), yet I had never tried one.

So I decided to take the veggie burger plunge and use my humble cooking “skills” to craft a mouth-watering black bean burger. But first, an eco-footnote…

It takes a LOT more resources to get a pound of hamburger meat than to make a vegetarian bean burger. GoVeg (a completely unbiased website) had this to say on the matter…

It takes 5,000 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat, while growing 1 pound of wheat only requires 25 gallons. A totally vegetarian diet requires only 300 gallons of water per day, while a meat-eating diet requires more than 4,000 gallons of water per day. You save more water by not eating a pound of beef than you do by not showering for an entire year.

Gadzooks! Even if those numbers are skewed some, getting meat uses a heck of a lot of water.

Alright, enough with the eco-footprint lesson. Moving on to the…

Black Bean Burger Recipe

This simple veggie burger recipe (which makes 4 servings) calls for…

• 2 peppers (jalapeño, cayenne, or banana)
• About 8 teaspoons of olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 shallots
• 2 cups of cooked, drained black beans (a 29oz. can is a just about right)
• 2/3 cup quick-cooking oats
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

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