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.