Veggie sloppy joes

 

I really like sloppy joes.   They're sweet, spicy and tangy and they are (they have to be) on a soft roll so all of that flavor seeps into the bread. I haven't had the stuff in a can in a long time, but a few months back I figured out a sloppy joe sauce that I think tastes better than the stuff in the can, and Brian says that with bison it makes the best sloppy joe he's ever had.

Recently, at Good Dog, I had a vegan sloppy joe, where lentils were the "meat".  My mind was blown.   All this zesty goodness without the meat!  (I like meat, as in, I don't see myself going completely meat-free in the near future, but I really appreciate finding meals I love without it)

So this week I decided to try it at home.

Jalapeno Fail

I like spicy food.  I used feel like I was in a privileged class of people who could eat hotter food than most, but in recent years I've become aware of my limitations.  Maybe five years ago I burned my hand on a habanero and realized I needed to use gloves to cut some peppers. I guess that was the beginning of the end of me bragging about spicy food.

Then when we started eating banh mi, there were a few incidents.  There is one long slice of jalapeno on this sandwich, and maybe a tenth of the times I've eaten it, it's burned my face.  Burned my face, like caused me to mentally go through all those TV shows like Good Eats and Food Detectives (whoa, I can't find a clip of either, what's wrong with the internet?) that described scoville heat units and what to do to cool a burning mouth (milk, beer, sugar).  I finally settled on rubbing alcohol (not for inside the mouth, for outside the mouth) which I hear only works for some people.  So since then, I've typically taken the seeds out of the jalapeno, or torn the pepper into bits to distribute throughout the sandwich. 

So yesterday my shopping list included a single jalapeno, for a meal I was planning, but Trader Joes only had them in a box of ten (ten jalapenos for $1.59, compared to one jalapeno for $1.59 at Whole Foods) so I got the box.  Then I sat around thinking about what I could do with nine jalapenos.  I read a few canning articles, and scared myself again.  I thought about poppers but I don't really like them (but Brian does) and I don't have cream cheese, and how else do you get the cheese to stay in during breading?  And then remembered years ago some chain restaurant we went to had deep fried breaded jalapeno disks that we used to love.  So I went for it. Panko, egg, salt, jalapeno slices, and I was going to do it in the oven.

Oven Home Fries

I can't make breakfast first thing in the morning.  I want to eat within an hour of waking up, but I can't cook then.  So I do other things, but that means that when I'm hungry, breakfast isn't ready.  This is why I never make crepes anymore.  The idea of mixing up ingredients while I'm still groggy, letting the batter sit for an hour and then cooking them doesn't work for me.  So during the week, breakfast is oatmeal, and on weekends we typically have eggs. 

But you know what's great with eggs? Home fries.  But the bitch about home fries is the same thing as with crepes.  They're not ready now.

Ordering in! Sandwiches from Fuel

I didn't cook tonight.  My dining room ceiling fell down instead.  I'm being dramatic.  Part of my dining room ceiling fell down instead. 

Same Dinner Different Day: Chicken Avocado Tequila Salad

Tonight I faced a tired avocado and already wilted cilantro, leftover from Sunday's dinner.  So I made the same salad, but with chicken.  It's a chicken breast, coated in the same stuff I'd use for fajitas (cayenne, paprika, onion, garlic, salt, pepper) and grilled.

Same dinner, different day.  My avocado was softer, making it more a part of the dressing than the salad, which we both appreciated.