Oatmeal Patties

As an Adventist I grew up in a vegetarian community; an SDA ghetto if you will in Keene, Texas. For a long time you couldn't buy meat hardly anywhere in the city. You had to drive five miles to Cleburne five miles away to get a hamburger.

My grandmother who was a cook at Southwestern Adventist college where she worked magic with vegetarian substitutes, some commercial and some the ladies just made up.  Any vegetable protein you could think of seemed to form the basis for local vegetarian cuisine. One ingredient in particular found it's way into everything from bread to "patties".  Oatmeal.

Oatmeal is an Adventist staple. Oatmeal forms the basis of many Adventist vegetarian main dishes. When I say oatmeal is versatile, I mean you can throw all sorts of stuff into a mixing bowl with oatmeal and fry it up. This version is a kind of clean out the leftovers version. If I'm out of vege-meat, these oatmeal patties are my fall-back. Here's how you make them:

Patty Ingredients:

• 3 cups rolled oats, instant or regular oatmeal (it all works)
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 large onion chopped
• 1/2 cup pecan meal or slivered almonds (optional)
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 package Lipton Onion Soup mix
• 2 eggs

Gravy Ingredients:

• Handful sliced mushrooms
• 1/4 chopped onion
• 1/2 package of Lipton Onion Soup
• Leftover oil from frying patties
• 4 tbsp. flour, (for the gravy)
• 1 cup Water

 Directions:

1. Pour the oil in a skillet and preheat it while you make up the patty mix.
2. Mix together all the patty ingredients in a mixing bowl. Note: you don't have to have pecan meal. If you have pecans or walnuts, just whiz them up in the blender till they are the consistency of meal. The pecan meal really kicks up the protein levels in the dish. You can add soy sauce or leave it out and just go with the pecan meal for flavor. I recently tried slivered almonds when I didn't have pecan meal and it's amazing. Really great flavor.  I've even added leftover cottage cheese and sour cream (or onion dip) and given them a little pizzazz. Some crushed Special K Cereal is nice too if you like. The recipe is very flexible. The trick is to get the consistency of the mixture right so that the patties don't fall apart. If you add too much extra stuff you should add an extra egg or some of that new Vegan egg replacement that just came out.
3. Once you've got the patty mix prepared, form the mixture into balls and place the balls in the skillet and flatten them with a spatula. Allow them to cook until brown and flip them over to brown on the other side. 
4. Set the patties aside. They make pretty good vegeburgers as this stage. To complete this as a main dish, you need to make the gravy now.
5. Turn down the heat a bit under the oil. Toss in the chopped onions and carmelize them by cooking them slowly on low heat. Takes about 15 minutes or so, but well worth the time. After the onions are about halfway done, add the mushrooms.
6. Next, sprinkle a handful of flour into the skillet with the oil, mushrooms and onions. 
7. Turn up the heat a little and lightly blend the flour into the oil until it starts to brown. Add Lipton Onion Soup and water, stirring constantly till the gravy forms. Stir until all the lumps of flour are absorbed.
8. In a Pyrex casserole dish, spread out the cooked patties and pour the gravy over the patties.
9. Place the dish in the oven at 350 degrees and bake until the gravy bubbles. 
10. Now you can work on the rest of the stuff to go with it while the oatmeal patties bake. 

Conclusion:

These go well with anything that would go with vege-burger, hamburger or most any vegetarian meat substitute. The wife usually makes mashed potatoes and corn. Baked potatoes, broccoli and a salad are also nice. Throw in some homemade bread or wheat rolls and you've got a lovely meal.

Leftover oatmeal patties make nice sandwiches or vegeburgers too. I love leftover oatmeal patty burgers.

Enjoy.

(c) 2015 by Tom king