Mushroom Veggie Burgers

Most meatless burgers are sad, sodden affairs, necessarily camouflaged by all the condiments, lettuce and tomato that will fit on a bun. As a former macrobiotic hippie (it must have been the California/Colorado air) I have not-so-fond memories of veggie burgers made with beans and brown rice and lumpen loaves laden with lentils (yes, that was alliterative in the extreme). "Diet for a Small Planet", anyone? Growing up in a household of nine, I remember Mom sometimes using TVP in the interest of economy to stretch hamburger in chili, meatloaf, etc. I always thought it smelled suspiciously like dry dog food. A recent cholesterol screening has sent me back to the older regime, somewhat modified. Tom, the piratical chicken farmer/Vietnam vet with an eye patch, no longer has my patronage, and I am missing his free-range eggs with the bright yellow yolks. I'm also cutting back on the economical chicken legs and thighs that had been a regular feature of the simpler meals Mom will eat these days. Cheese, my constant craving, has also been pared back to lower-fat varieties. Trader Joe's no longer carries a wonderful jalapeno jack that was zero fat, but I look for parmesan and anything lower than 9 percent. One thing I do like is falafel, but its fat content depends on how much oil is used to fry it. Also, it's not one of Mom's favorite things. She does like cumin, however, and it is laden with fiber and protein as well as flavor. I decided to experiment with a veggie burger variant using falafel mix adulterated with TVP and dried mushrooms to make a veggie burger. To begin, I soaked 3/4 cup each of unflavored TVP and falafel mix plus 2 T. dried onion flakes in 1/2 cup of low-salt chicken broth for 10 minutes. I crumbled in 2 dried morels, 1-1/2 T. dried chanterelles, and 1/4 cup dried shiitake mushrooms, and added 1 teaspoon each of onion and garlic powder, plus 1 teaspoon smoked salt, 1 teaspoon dried parsley, 1/2 teaspoon of Bragg's amino (or use soy sauce), and 1/2 teaspoon Spanish smoked paprika. After it sat a few more minutes, I added half an 11.5 oz. can of low-salt V-8 juice, which adds flavor, nutrition and a pleasing reddish hue. After letting the mixture set for a half hour, covered, in the refrigerator, I formed it into 3/4 inch patties and fried them in a little olive oil in a non-stick skillet. A slice of tomato, a little lettuce and some ketchup on a whole wheat bun made Mom happy. I refrigerated the other half of the mixture and tried some more patties a couple of days later. It had plumped a little more and was totally texturally satisfying. I popped a leftover patty under the broiler a day later and discovered it added a lovely crunch. More falafel mix is on the shopping list. Another shopping note: I buy the dried morels and chanterelles from Heidi at the local farmers' market, but Trader Joe's has resumed carrying a dried mushroom mixture that would work nicely. Sliced dried shiitakes crumble quite easily and are less than $2 a package at an Asian grocery in Vancouver. (That would be WA, not BC. There is a growing Asian contingent across the Columbia from Portland, and the prices are excellent.)