California Black Bean Burgers with Sweet Potato Fries

Hello to the Russians that have been visiting. Not sure if you are spies, but if you are, I won't tell anyone. Promise. Hope you all enjoyed breakfast but now it's time to get back to cooking some dinner. The check from Goya has just cleared so I guess I am obligated by contract to speak of their wonderful, wholesome, nutritious products...such as Black Beans, hence the reason we are making Black Bean Burgers for dinner tonight.(I am not really sponsored by Goya, but with as much beans as I use in my recipes, you think they'd throw a few shekels my way, am I right?)

So I am coming off of an awesome four day weekend, however, I just found out that my two year old is stuck in a walking boot for another four weeks. Dampened the end of my mini-vacation, but I guess we will look at the bright sides here, and there are a couple. First and foremost, it's not a cast, which means my baby doesn't smell like solid funk anymore. I know that sounds mean, but if you caught the glares I would catch from angry citizens you would realize how much of an upside this is. They looked at me as if I didn't bathe my kid for a month, oh wait, that's right, we didn't. Oh well. Another upside is that his new boot looks like the shoes that John Leguizamo wears in the live-action Mario Bros. movie to jump super high. Yeah, not sure exactly what that movie was about either, but those boots were cool.

The movie was the biggest piece of rubbish EVER, but the boots were cool. I now expect my 2 year old to jump 25 feet high and smash turtles, using their shells for  taking out goombas. Yes, I went there.

Now that I have alienated about 98.6% of my audience with that paragraph, for the remaining 1.4% of you who are still with me, we can now dish.

For the sweet potato fry recipe, I recommend hopping on over to the following link ( before clicking, right click and choose open in another tab so you do not lose this recipe):
http://www.instructables.com/id/Perfect-Oven-Sweet-Potato-Fries/
Jessy Ratfink's Fry recipe is one of the best I have EVER found. It's not complicated, but there are a ton of steps, more than I felt like posting on here. Please visit the site, you will pour adulation and bouquets of flowers on me later for it.


Suggested music on Spotify: I was feeling especially 90's today for some reason. Break out the flannel and re-channel the teenage angst. Mom and Dad stink today because they just don't understand real problems like the problems that we are living.  We're listening to R.E.M. today. Any album is fine, but when you are preparing everybody's plate, you must throw on It's the End of the World. +2 points if you can actually sing all of the lyrics in the verses.

Suggested kitchen dance: Early 90's, hmmm, I guess if the rhythm calls for it, pogo the day away. I am also thinking some variation of Madonna's Vogue for some of the songs. Orange Crush comes to mind as a song that one could Vogue to.

Not R.E.M.

Suggested beverage: This America and in this great land burgers and fries call for a triple thick chocolate shake to wash it down. Single thickness is fine too, I guess.


Ingredients:
1 15oz. can of black beans rinsed and drained
1/4 cup onions diced
1/4 cup sweet peppers (I used Italian frying, but bell peppers are fine) diced
4 slices of bell pepper
1 egg
1/4 cup + 2 tbs olive oil, divided
1/4 + 2 tbs. flour divided
1/4 cup Italian bread crumbs
1/4 cup guacamole (I made mine from scratch, any online recipe will do as will store bought)
8 slices of wheat bread or 4 hamburger buns
1 roma tomato sliced
8 thin slices of cucumber
4 large leaves of romaine lettuce
4 slices of Monterrey Jack cheese

Directions:
1. Heat 2 tbs olive oil in skillet and add peppers and onions. Cook until soft. While peppers and onions are cooking, in a large bowl, using a potato masher, and mash entire can of black beans. Then add egg, bread crumbs, 2 tbs flour and bread crumbs. Once onion and peppers are finished, add to the bowl of beans and combine all ingredients.
2. Line a baking sheet with wax paper. Form 4-6 burger patties and place on wax paper. Place baking sheet with the burgers in the freezer and let sit for 20 minutes, or until hardened.
3. While patties are freezing, with oil remaining in skillet, fry the 4 slices of pepper and set aside.
4. Once the patties are solid, heat 1/4 cup of oil in skillet. Place 1/4 cup flour on a plate.
5. Coat both sides of each frozen burger in flour and cook in skillet for between 4-6 minutes on each side, or until flour on burger browns. Once both sides are cooked, place patties on a paper towel to remove excess oil from patty.
6. Put burger patty on one slice of wheat bread and top with cheese, guacamole, tomato, fried green pepper, and cucumber and the second slice of bread.
7. Eat it up.

After mashing the beans, they should look something like this. 

After everything is added, the mixture will look similar to this. 

They look like actual hamburger patties. 

After frying. They are juicy and delicious. I promise and so much better than  store bought veggie burgers.

I was in burger heaven.