blossom green

1- 12oz Can Cannelini beans- no you can’t substitute them with other white beans, don’t even try! The buttery-ness of canellinins is perfect.

1/4 cup of diced sundried tomatoes in oil (the dry ones, are too dry, and I don’t like the texture when hydrated in water)

3 tbsp of the oil from the sundried tomatoes

5 or so tbsp of oil for frying

2 cups button mushrooms, diced into pieces

1/2 cup diced onion

2 cups of panko (Japanese style bread crumbs) You can use fresh made breadcrumbs or Italian style too.  I prefer panko.

1 egg (optional, but sure helps keep it all together)

2 tbsp fresh chopped basil

1 tbsp fresh chopped thyme

1 tbsp dried oregano

Sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste.  You’ll want to taste your sundried tomatoes to see how salty they are.  Sometimes they are salty and you need either no additional salt or very little.

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Saute’ onions in 1 tbsp sundried tomato oil till translucent. Add more oil, then add mushrooms. Saute’ until cooked lightly.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

In large bowl add rinsed cannelini beans.  Be sure you don’t have too much liquid from rinsing still in beans (drain well).  Add mushroom- onion mixture, herbs, sundried tomatoes, and egg.  Mix with your hands and mash some of the beans but not all.  You want a nice sticky texture.

Taste and adjust seasoning adding more herbs, salt or pepper as needed.

Put bread crumbs on a large plate and use a spoon to set 2 tbsp sized balls of bean mixture on top.  Set several on to the bread crumbs before picking them up.  Use some pressure to roll the bean mixture into the bread crumbs to create your bean cakes.  It takes experimentation to figure out how much extra bread crumbs need to go into the mixture.  Sometimes I add  a bit to make the texture firmer.

Fry in oil till browned on all sides.  If you want to save them for future use, roll in bread crumbs and freeze uncooked.

I like to make them on the small size and add to salads, but you can also use them as a ‘burger’ with a bun. 

enjoy!