Mom in the Mtns

Hi everyone!  As many of you know, my kitchen is a bit of a hot mess right now.  My roof leaked into my kitchen about 3 weeks ago and since then we haven’t had access to an oven and our cooking abilities are pretty limited.  This made for a much tougher time with eating healthy!  This also happened to put a damper on my very first product review opportunity, but I went ahead and did the best I could with what I had.  *Disclaimer:  I was given free burgers thanks to Sweat Pink and Sunshine Burgers, but all opinions are mine!  I would not lie about liking food so the following opinions are all honest*

So what new food item am I trying this week?  Sunshine Burgers!  They are awesome plant-based burgers that are much healthier than typical hamburgers.  As soon as I heard about them I was dying to try them out!  They are organic, non-GMO, and vegan so they’re perfect for everyone!  I loved that they had healthy ingredients hidden inside (like whole grains and veggies) but they look like a burger so you don’t realize you’re eating healthy!  Sunshine Burger was nice enough to send me many varieties of burgers to try, but this one stuck out to me right away:

I’ve been dying without the chance to make homemade tacos recently, and since you can’t really cook ground turkey in the microwave I figured I had to give up all hope until my kitchen was fixed.  But after seeing these loco chipotle burgers I had a really simple but exciting idea:  what if I made tacos using these burger patties?  So here is my very simple (like your 5 year old kid could make this) recipe for Sunshine Burger Tacos!

1.  Heat up the burger patties in the microwave.  This step only takes a few minutes vs. actually having to cook meat on the stove!

2.  Place the burger in a tortilla, and then cut it up!  It seriously looked like ground meat at this point and I probably could have tricked someone into thinking they were eating meat.

3.  Top with your choice of toppings!  My choice was cheese since I was going for an original taco taste:

While my husband chose to top his with fresh mango pineapple salsa!

4.  Roll up and eat!  Simplest recipe ever!

I’m glad it only took a few minutes to “cook” this recipe because I have been glued to the TV lately watching the Winter Olympics!  My husband even sat down to watch ice dancing with me last night since there was “nothing else on” but we enjoyed seeing the US take their first gold medal in that sport!  It’s also inspiring watching these athletes because you know they need to fuel their bodies correctly in order to get through their tough workouts, and eating Sunshine Burgers made me feel like I was doing something good for my body too!

If you’re interested in learning more about Sunshine Burgers, check out their official website and learn where to find them in your town here!

So how did Sunshine Burgers score on my Try New Things scale?  They got a 4 out of 5!

Pros:

• Healthier than eating meat, plus I got lots of healthy servings of whole grains, beans, and veggies.
• They tasted AWESOME!  I don’t have a big tolerance for spicy foods and I thought these had the perfect amount of spiciness.  It didn’t taste like meat exactly, but it did taste like I was eating a taco filled with beans, rice, and yummy spices so it tricked my mouth into thinking it was a taco!
• Super easy to heat up AND you don’t need an oven!  Anyone living in a dorm room can appreciate that!
• You don’t have to just use them in burger form!  I turned mine into “ground beef” and was able to create a really yummy dish that didn’t involve a bun.
• Tons of different flavors that fit everyone’s tastes!  I loved the fact that they came pre-seasoned and there was a variety of flavors for me to choose from based on what I was in the mood for.

Cons:

• It’s not meat.  That’s not a huge con, but as a (lean) meat eater I definitely missed the taste of turkey in my tacos.  If you go into this thinking that it will totally replace your burger you’ll probably be disappointed.  But if you realize that you’re eating a healthy replacement to your usual meat and are getting a ton of nutrients and yummy flavors you’ll think it’s worth it!

Overall I would definitely buy Sunshine Burgers again, especially the Loco Chipotle flavor!  I’m excited to see how they’ll taste in a real recipe that involves the oven  🙂  If you want to check out all of their yummy recipe suggestions go here!

Have you ever tried Sunshine Burgers or any other plant-based burger?  What flavor would you be most interested in trying out?