Le Grande Veggie Burger du Canada

1. Caramelize the onions. Chop onion into small pieces and add to a heated fry pan with butter and pepper. Cook on near-high to reduce down to translucent without burning them. Once translucent turn heat down to medium-high and simmer for about 45-50minutes and should be brown-sugar brown.

2. Once you have the onions started prepare everything else. Chop garlic and add it to a bowl. Rough chop the mushrooms and add it to the garlic. Add rosemary to the bowl, along with roughly chopped cilantro.

3. In a steamer, steam down the spinach to make it pliable.

4. Add spinach to the bowl with everything else. Add chickpeas to the steamer for about 20 minutes until they almost feel like cooked peas.

5. Add bowl of garlic, etc. into the onion mixture and continue to cook down the mushrooms and garlic on medium. This will really help get the garlic flavour through the mixture.

6. Once the chickpeas are steamed add them to a mixing bowl and roughly mash with a fork or potato masher. If you use a food processor only give it a few pulses. It should leave a few chickpeas almost whole.

7. Add the onion mixture to the chickpeas with a wee bit of salt for taste. Now mix. Add two eggs and breadcrumbs to the mixture to help it stick together. Tip: Beat the eggs separately first then add to the chickpeas while quickly stirring so the eggs do not cook.

8. Form the mixture into hamburger sized patties while adding the olive oil to the onion fry pan to heat up.

9. Fry the patties in the pan on medium-high until golden brown on both sides. As the chickpeas and all ingredients are already cooked you needn’t worry about anything “raw”. Just make sure they are thoroughly heated through and through.

10. Warm or toast hamburger buns and add your favourite condiments. I really enjoy fresh goat cheese and alfalfa sprouts with some hot mustard on mine. Play around with it! You’ll love ‘em! Being vegetarian never tasted so good!