Happy Father's Day! Black Bean Burgers & Peach and Berry Pie

This Father's Day, my parents, my fiance & I headed to my soon to be in-laws for a BBQ.  My favorite vegetarian barbeque recipe is my version of the black bean burgers from Tosca Reno's Eat Clean Diet Cookbook.  My tweaks include using one whole egg instead of two egg whites, kale instead of celery leaves and extra sunflower seeds instead of flax seeds.  I also leave out the curry powder, since I don't usually have that in the house.  The recipe is super easy - dump everything in a food processor, mix well and bake. They reheat exceptionally well in an oven or toaster.  Microwaving them might make them a bit soggy.

For dessert, I made a peach, blueberry and raspberry pie based on a peach & blueberry pie recipe in a cookbook we just refer to as "The Book."  "The Book" never fails to produce hit desserts.  It's actual title is Baking, by Martha Day.  The one catch is that all of the amounts are written in ounces, so you either need a kitchen scale or a desire to do a lot of math.  There are also websites that do conversions for you - just remember that there are different conversions for dry and liquid measures.

One different thing I did with this pie versus the previous pies was to make the crust in our brand spanking new 14-cup Cuisinart food processor.  Previously, I've made pie crust by hand using a pastry blender, as well as in our Kitchen-Aid mixer.  Having sampled multiple versions of my pie experiments, my family said the processor made the best crust, and I'd have to agree.  The blades help the butter incorporate much more evenly into the flour, and the ice water mixes in quite nicely as well.

Fresh fruit pies can be super juicy, so if you do make one from scratch, put a cookie sheet under it to help catch drips and spatters.  You also might consider wrapping the edges in foil or using a pie shield to prevent the edges from burning, especially if your pie takes more than a half an hour to bake.