Mushroom and pecan burgers

**This is not a gluten-free recipe and was posted before I eliminated gluten from my diet. To make this gluten-free, substitute gluten-free bread crumbs and make sure your oats are certified gluten-free.**

Mom is visiting me for a few days, and that means that I have a chance to try out a few new recipes on her. We had a bit of a challenge narrowing down what we would cook because everything that I mentioned was answered with "that sounds delicious." We finally settled on a few things, including these mushroom and pecan burgers from the cookbook of the month.

Mushroom and pecan burgers (adapted from "Moosewood Restaurant New Classics")

1/2 Tbsp olive oil

3/4 cup chopped onion

1/4 tsp dried marjoram

1/4 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp dried dill

2 cups chopped mushrooms (about 5 oz.; I used baby bellas)

3 Tbsp pecans, toasted and chopped

2 tsp soy sauce

1/2 cup whole wheat bread crumbs (I toasted and crumbled one piece of my bulgur, oats, flax, and bran bread)

1/2 cup cooked brown rice

6 Tbsp rolled oats

8 oz. firm tofu

freshly ground black pepper

Heat oil over medium heat in skillet. Add onions and saute until tender (about 5 min). Stir in marjoram, thyme, dill, and mushrooms, and cook until the mushrooms are tender (about 5 more min). Transfer to a bowl, and stir in pecans, soy sauce, bread crumbs, rice, and oats. Mash tofu with fingers, and mix that in. Add pepper to taste. Shape into patties and place on oiled baking sheet. Bake at 350 until brown (about 30 min). Makes 5 patties.

I loved these, and Mom seemed to enjoy them as well. She had one of the left over patties and said it was even better than the one the night before. I really liked the way that the flavors blended together. I could pick out the mushroom, pecan, and soy sauce taste, and none of them overpowered the others. These were easy and may become a regular feature in my kitchen. Assuming you have some cooked rice on hand (and I always try to keep some in the freezer), it comes together fairly quickly. We ate it with some broccoli sauteed with soy sauce, and it was a great combination.