Sloppy Joes, Now with Lentils!

I made these a bit before we left on vacation, but I didn't work my way towards a post before we left, so instead I'll use them as an "I'm returning from vacation!" post. The recipe can be found here on Vegweb.com, a favorite site of mine. I had seen this before, and passed it over since I never loved sloppy joes that much when I ate meat, and I had never thought to replace them with a meat free substitute. But then one of my favorite frugal bloggers, Cate, featured this recipe on her blog, and it looked so good I had to try it out. The shining star of this meal is the sloppy joe sauce, made totally from scratch. I think it would be fantastic as a marinade for tofu or portabella mushrooms, or if you eat meat it would work really well with chicken.

 I really cannot express enough how absolutely delicious this sauce was. The smell was incredible. This is right before I mixed it all together, I liked the way the mustard and blackstrap molasses looked swirled together. As a side note, blackstrap molasses is a nutritional powerhouse. In one tablespoon, it has 20% of your DV of iron, as well as 20% of your DV of calcium. It's also rich in potassium- 17% DV- and relatively low in sugar- 11 grams.

 After the sauce simmers for a bit to give the tomatoes a chance to break down and incorporate the spices, you dump in the lentils (pre-cooked, they boil away happily while you make the sauce and the timing is great) and let them simmer for about 10 minutes to soak up the flavors of the sauce.

 I served these with roasted sweet potatoes and fresh green beans, lightly tossed in olive oil and shaken around a pan just enough to soften a bit but still be crisp.

 The lentil sloppy joe mix was piled on top of a potato bun, and dressed with red onions and dill pickles. Even if you think you hate lentils, even if, like me, you're not particularly fond of sloppy joes to begin with, I would highly suggest making this. At the very least, make the sauce and keep it around to put on tofu, or veggies, or peanut butter sandwiches, or coconut ice cream... ok, not really. But really, it's quite good. OH, before I forget- the recipe calls for things like a splash of this, a healthy pinch of this, a dash of that. If you'd like more specific directions, follow the recipe as Cate has it on her blog. She gives very specific measurements, and I used hers the first time around just to get an idea for the flavor. I'm so grateful that she featured this VegWeb recipe on her blog, because I so foolishly passed it up the first time.

On Vacation

So, we had plans to leave for Egypt and Jordan February 1st...

If you watch the news, you'll understand why that was canceled. We replaced that trip with a trip to the Galapagos Islands and Peru, which is where I'll be for the next two weeks starting tomorrow.

I'll be back with more posts upon return, and probably more than a few pictures of travel food :)

Do good things,
Cortney

P.S.- I have a super lame, crushing anxiety surrounding flying, even though I've flown tons of times and lived overseas. Any happy vibes sent my way would be much appreciated :)

Prison Food

When I first made this peanut stew- recipe found here - I posted about it on FB. Just an offhanded reference in a status update about my day, and how I was excited to try a new recipe after a friend recommended this fabulous site. My father commented and said "Peanut stew? That sounds like prison food, haha". You have to imagine the image he conjured up in his head- a bowl of thin, watery gruel with two sorry peanuts floating in it. I laughed out loud because I could hear his voice in my head as he was saying it. Rest assured, this is not just watery gruel with two peanuts floating in it. I have picture evidence that it was fabulous. As usual, I tweaked this recipe beyond recognition but the basic bones of it are the same.
If this is prison food, lock me up and throw away the key. Ok, not really. But it was very good.
I also made carrot rice following a recipe from the same site. I wasn't as excited about the rice, but I'm generally not a rice person, so it's just personal preference.
I liked the rice much more when it was mixed with the stew. These two went together very well, but I wasn't quite done yet. Since I had to peel and chop sweet potatoes for the stew I figured I'd go ahead and make sweet potato cornbread from scratch as well...
This recipe is from the cookbook How it All Vegan. You can see the flecks of mashed sweet potato dotted throughout the bread, and trust me they make all the difference. I use brown sugar when making this, because I find it complements the sweet potato really well. This is also a great breakfast bread, smeared with butter or a vegan substitute, and sprinkled with a little bit of cinnamon. This recipe is a close approximation of the one I used, and looks like it can be easily modified if needed. These usually make really good muffins as well, and as I've said before I find them *much* easier to store, transport, and freeze that way. Do check out Holy Cow! Vegan Recipes if you get a chance, she's never let me down so far and her recipes are fantastic.