Eating by colours – orange burgers

I have written before about how much I love to have a wide range of colours in every meal. A variety of colours signifies a healthy meal to me, as well as a beautiful sight. So today is an unusual post in which I have thought about if I was serving meals of only one colour.

When I think of making food of one colour I think of the colourfully iced novelty cakes I have made for kids. However, if I have a beige meal such as this one, my natural inclination is to serve it with a salad of many colours. Or I might add a contrasting garnish to a soup or stew of one colour. Though I do love an occasional mono-color dish if it is bright and cheerful or dark and mysterious.

I decided to take on this challenge after discovering that a fellow Melbourne blogger, Neil of At My Table, was supporting World Autism Day today by asking bloggers to join him in making a dish of one colour. He is doing this to support parents whose autistic children decide they will only eat food of one colour. He notes that it can be a nightmare for these parents to come up with nutritional ideas, and I can imagine this is so after racking my brains for one-colour dishes.

Neil has a very personal interest in Autism Spectrum Disorder. He has a young daughter with autism and has written a very moving post about what it means to be the parent of an autistic child. For more information you can also go to Autism Victoria. I haven’t met Neil, despite being at Eat Drink Blog Conference with him recently but I wanted to support him because the conference made me want to make more of an effort to connect with local bloggers.

Thinking about dishes of one colour has helped me explore the variety and nutrition that can be found in just one colour. I have looked at my index and selected some foods to group under each colour. I struggled a little with pink and didn’t come up with any ideas at all for blue. Quite a few dishes were borderline – especially some of the beetroot dishes, which could have been red or purple, depending on your perspective. I have seen blog events that focus on foods of just one colour but the only one that I can remember is A Taste of Yellow by Barbara at Winos and Foodies.

As well as thinking about colours, I was aware that children can be very picky about strong and/or new flavours and some children like my niece Quin prefer that food isn’t all mixed up like in a stew. But it did occur to me that, even for a sauce or gravy, neutral coloured foods like white beans, white sauce, cream, and tofu present a great opportunity to blend in a coloured vegetable to make a more nutritious coloured food. My suggestions are all vegetarian, in line with my diet. I am not sure how helpful they will be to others but they have helped raise my awareness of this issue.

At the end of the colourful lists I have included a recipe for some tofu carrot burgers that we ate this week. It was a burger where I just threw in whatever was around and interested me, but I tried to keep the flavours simple so that Sylvia could eat it. I served it with corn on the cob and cauliflower and broccoli baked with a cheese sauce. It was a most pleasing me for the adults.

Sylvia ate quite a bit of the burger and even some broccoli and cauliflower in a plain white sauce (made before I added vintage cheese and baked it) on the first night. On the second night I thought I might go all orange and add pumpkin to the leftover cheesy white sauce and vegetables. She turned up her nose. I could only be glad that if one dish fails, steamed broccoli is always gobbled up. It was also good to comfort myself that the burgers were full of a whole range of nutrients.

Green

• Asparagus Sauce
• Green broccoli quinoa
• Green on green salad (broad bean, peas and rocket)
• Green lasagne with broccoli and rocket pesto
• Green pea sauce
• Green salads
• Fresh green pea soup
• Pea, mint and bean dip
• Pea and Garlic Soup
• Pea Pesto
• Pesto flavoured mashed potato
• Pesto and green pasta
• Pistachios
• Kiwi fruit, avocado and spinach smoothie
• Rumbledethumps
• Silverbeet soup
• Steamed broccoli
• Tangy Silverbeet
  

Brown

• Chocolate – all sorts of chocolate cakes and goodies (see index)
• Gravy (you could cook up vegetables, puree them and stir them into the gravy if you wanted to sneak other colours into this meal)
• Fennel, lentil and rice soup
• Fried mushrooms on brown bread
• Lentil and Chestnut Soup
• Mushroom and Lentil Ragout
• Mushroom Sherry Stew
• No Tears Onion Soup
• Nutroast
• Stews flavoured with brown lentils, tempeh, mushrooms, chestnuts, brown onion, molasses, soy sauce, nuts
  

White

• Cauliflower, parsnip and cannellini beans mashed or served in a salad or soup
• Cauliflower Cheese without much cheese in the white sauce to keep it white
• Cauliflower rice
• Cream
• Curried Cauliflower Mash
• Mashed potato
• Mayonnaise
• Parsnip Soup
• Pasta
• Potato gratin with nutmeg and cloves
• Rice
• Rice Pudding
• Vegan cheesy sandwich spread
• White bean and nut butter dip

Yellow

• Cheese
• Cheese and apple scones
• Cheesy cornbread
• Corn on the cob
• Corn pancakes
• Hokkien noodles, for example in a yellow curry coconut soup with pumpkin, carrot and sweet potato
• Polenta – soft or fried
• Pumpkin, Corn and Wild Rice Chowder
• Split Pea Soup
• Sugar Roasted Peaches
• Tofu scramble with turmeric
  

Orange

• Apricot chutney
• Apricot and Orange Glazed Tofu
• Baked beans out of a tin
• Carrot and tofu burgers – see below
• Carrot Miso Soup
• Carrot and Tofu Pâté
• Carrot sticks for dips
• Creamy pumpkin dip
• Dal Makhani
• Moroccan Carrot and Feta Dip
• Orange coloured capsicums
• Orange, fig and ginger smoothie
• Orange Vegetable Soup
• Pumpkin bread
• Pumpkin and Pecorino Pasta Sauce (serve with pumpkin gnocchi)
• Pumpkin scones 
• Pumpkin soufflé pudding
• Pumpkin soup (and suggested variations)
• Red Lentil Loaf
• Roast Pumpkin
• Roasted pumpkin and garlic hummus
• Smoky sweet potato and bean dip
• Sweet potato soda bread
• Tropical peach smoothie
  

Red

• Beet red salad
• Borscht
• Chilli non carne
• Muhammara
• Red fruit salad
• Red quinoa
• Roast Pepper and Tahini Coulis
• Simple Tomato Sauce
• Strawberry Soup
• Tomato chutney with cranberries
• Tomato Lentil Soup
  

Pink

• Creamy beetroot sauce or dip
• Pink cheese biscuits (coloured with beetroot powder)
• Raspberry and white chocolate scones
• Rhubarb Dipping Sauce
• Rhubarb and Raspberry Smoothie

Purple

• Beetroot risotto
• Beetroot sauce on pasta, like this one
• Blueberry, banana and oat smoothie
• Deep purple juice
• Finnish Blueberry Soup (Mustikkakeitto)
• Fried red cabbage, red onion, roasted beetroot, and kidney beans served on purple cauliflower rice, such as in my purple post
• Plum Chutney
• Purple cauliflower, purple potato and purple carrots are hard to find but a brilliant colour
• Raspberry banana and spinach smoothie!
• Roasted Beetroot Tofu Burgers
  

Carrot Tofu Burgers
Serves 4

• 2 carrots, grated
• 250g firm tofu, crumbled
• 1 cup dried breadcrumbs
• about 1 cup cooked basmati rice
• 1 cup (about 25g) cornflakes
• 1 tsp soy sauce (or to taste)
• half tsp ground cumin
  
• dash of Worcestershire sauce
• 2 eggs
• olive oil for grilling
  

Mix all ingredients together, except the oil. Take handfuls of the mixture and shape into patties. Mine were quite moist. Place on the grill tray and brush with olive oil. Cook under the griller (broiler) on medium heat until they start to look cooked and golden (maybe 15 minutes). Use tongs or an eggflip to gently flip them over. Cook on the other side til cooked (another 10-15 minutes?). I find that if I have time the best way to give them an even crispiness is to turn off the grill and leave them in the hot grill area with the door closed for a while (15 min?). Eat warm. They can be kept overnight in the fridge or frozen and reheated in the oven.

On the stereo:
Live at the Teatro Juvarra Torino, 25 September 2004: Current 93