Millet Burgermeister

A lot of my readers ask me how I keep from getting bored on the macrobiotic diet.  Grain, bean, greens.  Grain, bean, greens.  When you're using the same ingredients and you have a hard time finding food at restaurants, it's really easy to grow bored with this diet.

What I would stress to you guys is that making some of the "harder" recipes... the ones that take a little more time or a little more skill... is worth it.  It is a commitment.  You're taking an hour and a half, in this case, and dedicating it to food preparation.  But the reason we do it is to force growth.  When you make something beautiful and new, like these millet burgers, your brain and tastebuds light up and get excited.

And at the end, you have something fun, tasty, and new to look forward to :)

- - millet burgers - -

Combine 1 cup of millet with 3 cups of water.  Bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer for 20-30 minutes until soft but moist.  Set aside for later.

Tiny-dice all your ingredients.  I cut my carrots in half.  Then I cut them into thin strips.  Then I line up the thin strips, and chop tiny dice down the line.

This is how tiny your dice should be.  This makes the carrots cook faster.

Here are my tiny dice.  I've tiny-diced carrots and red onions.  Then I chopped my scallions into thin strips. Then I minced fresh curly parsley.

Look at all the goodies I'm going to throw in the freezer to use as soup stock later!

I took a bag of frozen corn and poured 1/2 cup into a bowl.

I then heated a saucepan of water to a rolling boil and quick-blanched my carrots and frozen corn, 30 seconds each.

Lay out your seasonings.  Above you can see my umeboshi vinegar, black pepper, sea salt, olive oil, and fresh chopped parsley.  Follow your own dietary restrictions for this part.  If black pepper is too much for you, don't do it.

Combine your chopped veggies with your millet.  The reason I didn't specify a specific amount of vegetables is that you should play it by ear.  You can see the little blue bowl, which is where I put the leftover chopped vegetables that I didn't want to use.  There's a little bit of everything in there.

For 3 cups of prepared millet, I used about 1/2 to 1/4 cup of each vegetable so that there was a 60-40 millet-vegetable ratio.  The millet is keeping these burgers together, so there always needs to be more millet than vegetable.

Add approximately 2 tbsp. olive oil, a pinch of sea salt, a dash of pepper, and a dash of ume vinegar.  I added about 1/4 cup minced fresh parsley.

Take a lump of millet burger dough roughly the size of a golf ball, and pat it into shape.

Gently roll the ball in corn flour and place on a baking pan to await frying.

Millet, awaiting the skillet.

Fry your burgers in oil over medium-high or high heat until golden brown on each side, approximately 3-5 minutes.  Monitor them closely so they don't burn!

TA-DA!

I served my millet burgers with homemade kale chips, sweet parsnips, homemade daikon pickles, and placed a big dollop of whole-grain dijon mustard on each one!