Quinoa is an amazing source of protein. Its also the lazy foodists shortcut to healthy food because using it to make all sorts of variations is so very simple. Great thing about quinoa (pronounced Keen~wah) is that is gives the burger a really nice texture.

If you suffer from restless legs making sure your iron levels are topped up is vital. For me a dose of the fidgets can be one of the first signs that my iron levels are getting low. Being adventurous I decided to get my iron from kidney beans and a protein boost from some quinoa.

I mixed three cups of cooked quinoa with a tin of drained and roughly mashed organic red kidney beans. To this mix I added one finely diced and fried onions, two cloves of fried garlic, a spoonful of English mustard, a good pinch of nutmeg and cinnamon, salt and pepper and stirred well.

I let the mix sit for half an hour while I made peeled and cut potato chips and sliced tomatoes etc. Then I formed the burger patties and sauted them in a wok in real butter. I prefer using a wok because the burgers can sometimes be a bit fragile, with the sides of the wok as support it makes turning them much easier than a normal frying pan.

Once the burgers are a nice golden brown let them sit in a warm oven while you lightly toast some burger buns.
Add a filling of choice. In these I added fried onions, spinach (more iron) and tomato. Add your burger and serve.

Ingredients

4 cups of cooked quinoa
1 tin organic red kidney beans
1 medium onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 spoon English mustard
2ml ground nutmeg
1ml ground cinnamon
salt and pepper to taste

Burger filling

3 slices of Tomato
1 handful of fresh spinach leaves
1 tablespoon of fried onions

4 buttered wholewheat roll