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Sunday, March 8, 2015

Georgeburgers!




When I was a kid I used to pedal my bicycle past Blair's store six days a week. Most of the time there would be this wonderful smell drifting out the front door.  Mrs. George makin' vege-burgers.  Those things were great. She'd fry them up on this heavy iron griddle with some carmelized onions. The patties were already chock full of onions. Now, when I was a kid I hated onions, but somehow, Mrs. George made all those onions delicious.

Mrs. George would never tell anybody what was in her vegeburger mix. It was her big secret. By keeping that recipe under her hat, she remained the top vege-burger maker in Keene, Texas, my hometown, for some 50 years. Keene is an Adventist college town and everybody there was either a vegetarian or at the very least, a semi-vegetarian. Vegeburgers were to Adventist kids, what Big Macs were to everybody else. I used to save up two or three days' paper route money to buy one of those imminently delicious things hand made things. When Blair's closed, Mrs. George went on to work at the Railhead and several other short-lived cafes and burger joints around Keene. She never gave away her recipe, till she finally told it to Melba Bruce, March 09, 2004 as she sat in Mrs. George's living room. Mrs George passed away a few weeks later. It's like she saw it coming. A special thanks to Melba's son, Stanley Bruce who collected a copy of the recipe and shared it on Facebook. God bless him.


- Tom King

At last - the secret is revealed:

Ingredients

1.One 16 oz can Loma Linda Vegeburger
2.Three eggs
3.Two medium sized onions finely grated
4.One tablespoon garlic powder
5.One teaspoon sage
6.Salt to taste
7.½ cup quick oats
8.Flour
9.Oil

Instructions:

1.Open vegeburger, add to mixing bowl with grated onion, eggs, garlic powder, sage and salt and stir.
2.Add half cup of oats
3.If the mixture is still too thin, add a little flour. The vegeburger mix should not be runny nor should it be too dry and thick.
4. Fry the patties in a small amount of oil. Never bake them.

Making the Actual Burger:

1. Heat the buns in the oven or on the grill
2. Add still sizzling patty and pile on the fixings.
3. Eat while making soft sounds like “Ooooooh” and “Aaaaaah” and “Mmmmmmmmm”

(c) 2011 by Tom King

9 comments:

  1. Thanks Tom, I was hoping to find a recipe that might taste like Mrs. George'so. Exactly what I was looking for.

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  2. I leave out the oats but, sooooo delicious! Thank you!

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  3. Dad and I made these this weekend on a Pathfinder camp out, he was excited to have found the recipe. Irish

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  4. I was excited when Stanley Bruce passed it along.

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  5. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    Replies
    1. Is this Metabolic Cooking stuff now part of the Potluck Vegetarian Blog? I keep seeing this comment for Metabolic Cooking all over the PV blog now. Maybe Me Pei should start their own blog instead of "advertising" their recipes and links on someone else's blog, as it seems kind of rude to this blogs owner, (Mr. King), and it is confusing to the readers, (at least to me). Just a thought!

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    2. Nope, it's spam. I'm trying to cut these out as much as possible.

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  6. do you have any ideas about a beef substitute to use in sukiyaki? I grew up with adventist meat substitutes but I don't remember which ones were like beef. there is a book and bible house here in portland. I saw swiss steak and some others like that. Thanks, Joe

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  7. For a substitute for ground beef, my favorites are Morningstar Grillers Recipe Crumbles, followed by Redi-Burger and then the various canned Vegeburger. For a more steak-like sub, there's Vegetable Steaks in the can. The Book and Bible House (now called the ABC) should have it. Some you can get at Walmart or via Amazon.

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