Coconut Quinoa Burgers With Grilled Pineapple

Tonight's dinner was pulled off the bench early. I needed a meal to pinch hit for me, and I needed it fast. We were supposed to eat this on Friday, and then I realized my four-year-old niece is spending the night on Friday. She loves fruit and veggies, but I didn't think it would be wise to try to con a munchkin into eating Coconut Quinoa Burgers. Not if I want to remain on her good side, anyway. My husband, on the other hand, can be persuaded into eating all sorts of things with a little wink and a smile. I also discovered I needed more time than anticipated for a few baking projects for the girls at my church tonight, and then a storm rolled through and killed the natural light in my kitchen, just as I was starting dinner. So what you have here are the pictures taken with furious and frantic speed as I threw this meal together. Excuse the less-than-lackluster photography today. Eh. Epic fails are part of daily life. Eat some chocolate and move on.

On a high note, these meatless burgers had me over the moon. I scarfed mine in less than 5 minutes, and hubby enjoyed his a lot too. They were a perfect weeknight meal. Even if you are a meat-eating family, I think you can easily tempt your children with promises of sweet, grilled pineapple. I definitely took this recipe from Brooke at Cheeky Kitchen, who posted a completely veganized/plantie version of this a few weeks ago. I am not a vegan. Oh lawdy, do I love bacon way too much to ever even consider it. Bacon is meat candy. Swoon. Despite my love of saturated fat laden pork products, I am happy to make a lot of my meals meatless and plant-based for a variety of reasons. They are cheaper. They are healthier. They help me to use my weekly bounty of produce from my local food co-op, and they encourage me to experiment and try new things. Let's be honest. If I had a choice, the rest of my life would probably be spent consuming bread and cheese. I could literally live in the cheese case at Whole Foods and be happy forever. Drat. I am experiencing some major A.D.D. today. On to the recipe.

These babies are delicious. They are healthy. They have fabulous flavor and texture. They whip up fast. They make you want to dance and sing and puddle-jump outside of your house in a warm spring rain. Healthy quinoa is mixed with fiber-packed chickpeas and sweet, decadent coconut milk, spices, and panko bread crumbs, and pan-fried in olive oil and coconut oil before being put to bed on some fresh lettuce, ornamented with grilled pineapple, dressed up in a little mayonnaise spread and enveloped in hearty whole wheat. Who doesn't want to eat something described like that? So I took Brooke's vegan meal and turned it into a vegetarian meal that fit what I had available in the house. Hers was flavored with curry, I opted for cumin. I hate curry. Hate it. I lived in a house in college, and some of the people in the house cooked with curry every day. For every meal. Our house smelled like curry all the time. All of my clothes smelled like it. I just can't do curry anymore. So after a few adjustments here and there, and we ate a meal fit for a sometimes health-conscious and amazingly lucky king. Make this. Now. You will love it.

Grilled Pineapple and Coconut Pepper Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Today was the kind of day where I wanted to sit on a beach and sip a strawberry-mango drink as waves lapped over my toes. Yeah, I indulged that fantasy for all of thirty seconds before I was slapped back into reality by the cruel hand of the pile of laundry that sat in front of me, fantasizing about being folded and put away. So I settled for a tropically flavored dinner.

Grilled Pineapple and Coconut Pepper Chicken Lettuce Wraps. Whew, that's a long title. But this is so delicious and nutritious, that I had to include allllllll of the extremely yummified ingredients to tease you and tempt you into making this. The best part is, you will eat seconds and thirds of this and be completely guilt free! This was a meal I whipped up in a few minutes using goodies from my Bountiful Basket this week (see this post for a BB explanation), and boy, am I glad I did! My husband, who is definitely an "all-American man food" sort of guy, expressed satisfaction with this meal. We kept it light and didn't do any sides with this, but some fresh veggies, or a brown rice infused with saffron or other magical spice would do well with this. These wraps are summery, light and island-tropical. They are the perfect get-away when you are unfortunately trapped in your own home and can't just hop a flight to Maui. Get yourself some pineapple and make this as soon as possible. Your mouth, belly and family will thank you. I will recommend some other options in the recipe commentary to spice this little gem of a recipe up.