Portobello mushroom burger

All week I've made some E2L recipes either from, Eat To Live or from the Eat For Health Cookbook. 

Today I decided to try something different.  I made a portobello mushroom burger for my dh.

I, of course had to have one too.  hee hee  I also included some baked sweet-potato fries with the burger, and oh what a treat!  Both of these recipes are from, The Engine 2 Diet which my husbands been reading.  If you read yesterday's post, you know he just started eating a heathy diet on Monday.   The burger was very filling; I almost couldn't finish it. 

The picture above is a toasted whole-wheat thin bun, spread with hummus on both halves.  I topped one side with torn romaine pieces with a slice of tomato on top of that.  There's no sodium in the buns and only a very small amount of fat.  Not perfect, but not bad either.  My hfs doesn't carry buns or rolls, or if they did they weren't on the shelf.

The picture to the left has some carmelized onions atop the other half.  I water sauteed one onion which wasn't part of the recipe, but since my dh loves onions, I decided to add them to the burger for added flavor.  There was extra onion left over after topping both burgers so next time I'll probably use a small onion instead.

The recipe had you oven roast the mushroom.  I only used a little vegan worcestershire sauce and not the tamari sauce or the beer.  It came out of the oven with quite a bit of moisture, so I was glad I decided  to toast the bun.  I think next time what I'll do is marinate the portobello for a couple hours in some balsamic vinegar, onion powder, garlic powder, and whatever else strikes my fancy and then grill it .

The portobello is now on the bun.  I thought about what else I should add to the burger, but decided it was already going to be stacked high enough without being too cumbersome so I decided not to add salsa or avocado which I really wanted to do. :) Next time I will definitely be adding the salsa. 

If I and dh were at our goal weight I'd also add the avocado, but since we aren't, that would have been way too much since we add avocado every other day to our evening salad.

The sweet-potato fries were delicious, even though the texture wasn't crunchy like a fry.  But they were oh so sweet.  I could have made a meal with only the fries.  :)  The picture to the left is 2 medium sweet potatoes cut up into fries.  They just barely fit on the pan and that was the largest one I had. 

I baked them in the oven for a tad too long - the ends were a little over cooked.  Here again I altered the recipe a bit.   I added some seasoning to coat them for some added flavor.  The recipe recommended using a casserole dish, but I didn't think they'd cook right if I did that. So I sprayed a sheet pan with an olive oil spray to help the potatoes to not stick to the pan and it worked pretty well.

All in all it was a very tasty dish, and we both enjoyed it.  We will be eating this again with the added changes I mentioned. 
Portobello mushroom burger

4 Portobello mushrooms, rinsed
Low-sodium tamari
Vegetarian Worcestershire sauce
Splash of beer (optional)
Cracked pepper to taste
1 large red onion, sliced into thin rounds
4 whole grain buns
Dijon mustard or Healthy Homemade Hummus

Tomato slices, lettuce, spinach, or other favorites

1.Preheat oven to 450º
2.Snap the stems off the mushrooms.
3.Place the mushrooms face-up on a baking sheet.
4.Splash a few drops of tamari and Worcestershire (beer splash is optional) into each cap.
5.Place the stems into the caps.
6.Cook in a casserole dish for 10–15 minutes, until the mushrooms are soft and filled with liquid. Enjoy the stems as starters!
7.Cook the onion rounds on high heat in a sprayed skillet for 5 minutes, stirring often, until wilted and brown.
8.Spread the buns with Dijon mustard or hummus.
9.Place each mushroom on a toasted bun with cooked onion, tomato, lettuce or spinach, and your favorite fixings.
10.Serve with healthy fries.

Sweet Potato Fries

2 sweet potatoes with skins on, scrubbed and sliced into strips (I peeled mine - next time I'll leave the skins on and maybe they'll crunch up a bit.)


1.Preheat oven to 450º
2.Place the potato slices on a sprayed baking sheet and cover with aluminum foil.
3.Cook for 30–40 minutes, turning once.
4.Remove the foil after 20 minutes to allow the slices to brown.

6 Week Challenge

Many of us over at the yahoo discussion group decided to join forces and partner in the 6 week challenge.

For some it's their first time, while for others it's a decision to begin again, to begin fresh with the arrival of the new year.

There's been a lot of energy with so many beginning the first of the year.  There's been lots of questions, answers, struggles, victories, and, of course, loss of weight.  But maybe even more important, there are some friendships being made and a spirit of support and encouragement has rained upon the this special group of E2Lers.

I've been eating for health/eating to live for over 3 years now.  I've lost most of my extra weight, but would like to shed the rest and arrive at my goal weight of 123 pounds.

My Dh has been reading, The Engine 2 Diet and has chosen to get rid of all the meat, dairy, oil and unhealthy processed grains and starches.  We pilfered through the kitchen cabinets/pantry finding all the SAD (standard american diet) foods and gathered them all.  My shelves are almost empty.  :)  I'm thrilled!  Now my refrigerator and freezer are buldging at the seams.  hee hee

Monday, January 4 began with a whole wheat bean burrito with homemade salsa for my Dh, and for me - I started out with my usual green blended smoothie. 

Smoothie Recipe

3 large kale leaves, stems removed
1-2 cups frozen spinach
1 cup stawberries
1 cup blueberries
1 TB ground flax seeds
1/2 dropper full of dha
1 TB chia, hemp or sesame seeds
1/2 frozen banana
1 cup unsweetened soy milk
enough water for 64 ounces of smoothie

This is my usual recipe that I pretty much stick to.  Sometimes I'll add some broccoli sprouts.  And occasionally I'll change the strawberries to a tropical fruit mix and the blueberries to a mixed berry.

I have lots of parsley growing and thought I might throw some of that in the blender too.  I want to up my crucifers, so I might add some of the broccoli stalk too. 

If any of you want to do that too, just make sure you peel the stalk first.

So I drink half of this in the morning.  The rest I'll drink later in the day or for breakfast the following morning. 

For lunch I prepared Dr. Fuhrman's vegetarian chili recipe in the Eat To Live book page 222.  The only thing I did different was to use yellow onion instead of red, I didn't add raisins or dates either, but added 2 cups of frozen corn.  We ate on this for most of the week, and afterwards we ate either an apple or an orange.  Dh is eating more grains/starches than I am, so with his soup he ate either a whole-wheat pita, or a whole-wheat tortilla.

Thursday I made Dr. Fuhrman's Asian Vegetable Stir Fry.  You can find this recipe in his Eat For Health book page 205.  I've eaten this a couple times already, but it's my Dh's first time and we both loved it.  It was so delicious and very filling.  We almost couldn't finish the suggested serving. 

I pretty much followed the recipe.  I didn't have bok choy so I used cauliflower instead.  One thing I will change the next time will be to add the sesame seeds to the stir fry instead of adding them to the baked tofu cubes.  There was too much waste.  I don't know if you can see it in the picture, but much of the seeds were on the foil and not the tofu.  Either that or I'll use 2 tablespoons instead of 4 and see if that makes a difference.

We finished the stir fry today at lunch.  Tomorrow I'm making a portobello burger with sweet potato fries.  Dh saw this in the Engine 2 Diet book and asked me to make this recipe next.  I'll post pictures if I remember to take them and let you know how well Dh is doing with eating for health. 

He's always been a meat and potatoes kind of guy and for him to want to eat healthy is such a shock to me, but I am so excited and feel so blessed to be able to share a healthy eating journey with my best friend. 

Eat to live!  John 6:58