Lentil & Beef Sloppy Joes (& Cheesy Hamburger Buns)

The sloppy Joe: I hadn't had one in years, but one day browsing recipes I saw one for a lentil sloppy Joe. I was intrigued, and it kind of sounded good. I bookmarked it and came back to it a few weeks later. The original recipe I saw did not suit me, so I looked around a bit more and found this one which was a better match for what I had on hand.

You may notice that the recipe I followed calls for 1/2 cup ketchup. In an odd turn of events, we had used more of our ketchup than I had realized (although, honestly, I hate ketchup and didn't check before I started the recipe. When you dislike ketchup like I do you never dream you'll run out... I only use it in recipes, and the only other thing I've used it in that I can think of is meatloaf, maybe twice. We occasionally have hot dogs or other dishes that Thomas likes ketchup as a condiment on, but I really didn't think we'd have less than 1/2 cup!). Pondering possible substitutions, I came up with barbecue sauce or tomato sauce. I asked Thomas' opinion and we decided to try the barbecue sauce. It was a success! It added a really nice flavor and sweetness that I don't think it would have had otherwise. In the future I think I will always do half ketchup and half barbecue sauce.

Lentil & Beef Sloppy Joes

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1/2 cup diced onion

1 small carrot, diced
1/2 bell pepper, diced

1/4 cup ketchup

1/4 cup barbecue sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup dried brown lentils

~1 cup water
1/4 tsp. oregano
8 ounces ground beef
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

1. Sauté onion, carrot, bell pepper, and ketchup in vegetable oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat until vegetables are tender. Add garlic and continue to cook for about a minute.
2. Add lentils, oregano, and water. Boil about 5 minutes, then reduce heat and cover, simmering about 35 minutes. Check occasionally to ensure there is enough water. Add more water in 1/4 cup increments if necessary.
3. In the meantime, brown ground beef in a skillet. Drain off fat.
4. To ground beef, add Worcestershire sauce and barbecue sauce, stirring until combined.
5. Add fully cooked ground beef mixture to lentil mixture. Continue cooking until lentils are done.
6. Serve hot, on hamburger buns.

I don't keep hamburger buns around, so I made my own to go with my sloppy Joes. I used this recipe. They turned out pretty good, but I did goof up a little: where the recipe said to make 6 buns, I split my dough 6 ways and ended up with 6 buns, but they were such a funny shape I couldn't justify slicing them. The result was basically 6 bun halves. Which was fine, but they were kind of big and it would have been better to have 6 actual buns. So, if you want 6 buns, divide your dough 12 ways...

Cheesy Hamburger Buns

2 3/4 cups flour

1/2 cup finely grated cheddar cheese

3/4 tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. sugar

2 1/2 tsp. instant yeast

4 Tbsp. softened butter

1 large egg

2/3-3/4 cup lukewarm water

1. Mix all ingredients until well combined, sticky, and gooey. Cover and let rise about an hour.
2. Preheat oven to 350°F.
3. Divide dough (taking into account my advice above). Your dough will still be sticky. You can add a little bit of flour to make this process less messy. Place on baking sheet lined with wax paper or parchment paper. Shape into small rounds. The original recipe uses a hamburger bun pan. I used a baking sheet, which resulted in misshapen buns, but it's what I had :o)
4. Let rise another 30-60 minutes, or longer if you have time.
5. Bake about 20 minutes.

5-Star Sweet & Sour Chicken

 We made sweet & sour chicken for my birthday, and it was delicious. Time-consuming (though we were making some other stuff, too), but so, so, so good. We made a couple of tweaks, but mostly used this recipe from All Recipes. In the future, we are hoping to be able to streamline the process. If we find shortcuts, we will update this page.

5-Star Sweet & Sour Chicken

Chicken & breading
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, cut into 1 inch cubes
1 cup and 2 tablespoons self-rising flour (or all-purpose flour plus 1/2 t salt and 1 1/2 t baking powder)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 egg
~2 tsp sesame seeds
~3/4 cup water
2 cups vegetable oil for frying (or enough to cover at least half an inch of your chosen pan)

Sauce
20-oz can pineapple chunks, drained (juice reserved)
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3/4 cup and 2 tablespoons water, divided
1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons white sugar
1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
Food coloring, if desired

Added veggies
1 green bell pepper, cut into 1 inch pieces
1/2 medium onion, diced

1. Combine batter ingredients (from flour to sesame seeds). Slowly add water until you have a thick batter to work with. Add chicken pieces and coat thoroughly. 
2. Heat oil in a frying pan of your choice. Oil is ready when a flick of water sizzles on contact. Add chicken pieces a little at a time, slowly. Let cook at a medium-low heat until cooked through. Drain cooked pieces on paper towel while cooking the rest.
3. For the sauce, combine pineapple juice, 1/2 cup water, sugar, vinegar, and food coloring in a saucepan. Heat to boiling. Combine cornstarch and remaining water into a paste and add to saucepan. Stir until there are no more cornstarch chunks. Remove from heat.
4. I sautéed the bell pepper, onion, and 1/2 can of pineapple for a few minutes until tender. You may omit this step if you prefer.
5. Put veggie mixture and cooked chicken pieces (layer or mix) in a large bowl and pour sauce over everything! Stir to evenly coat. Serve warm.

Breading batter

Coating chicken in batter

Frying chicken pieces

Sauce

Final Product! Enjoy!

oxox

Seder and Passover Feast

Although we are not Jewish, we enjoy learning about the traditions and symbolism found in Judaism (and other religions, for that matter). Because it is Passover week, we decided to have a small get-together with our friends to learn about and try the Seder plate fare and some interesting Passover-friendly recipes from a book we found at a garage sale last summer (The Passover Table by Susan R. Friedland). We and our friends tried our hand at the recipes shared below. Thank you Shari & Lisa for cooking and bringing the cake and cutlets!

We did run into some hiccups while getting this all together. For instance, because we live in an area with an overwhelmingly high population of Latter-day Saints, we had a difficult time finding matzos and matzo meal. We found some matzo meal at Macey's, but realized after purchasing it that it was "not for Passover use" because it had not been processed appropriately for Passover. We ended up making our own matzo bread to use with our Seder and in the Matzo Chicken Pie recipe because we did not find any at the stores we went to. In the end, our matzo-stuff was not Passover-kosher according to the Jewish traditions, but we figured it was the best we could do, all things considered.

We started our meal with a Seder plate, discussing the symbolism of each item as we ate.

Seder plate

•  "Karpas" symbolizes new growth of spring = parsley (this is dipped into salt water/vinegar, which represents the tears shed by the enslaved Israelites)
• "Maror" symbolizes intense bitterness of slavery = horseradish (we dipped our matzo in horseradish sauce)
• "Charoset" represents the mortar the slaves prepared for the building of the pharoahs’ cities and pyramids = 1 lb apples, diced ; 1 1/4 c walnut halves, chopped ; 3/4 Tbsp ground cinnamon ; 3-5 Tbsp light grape juice
• "Zeroah" represents the Paschal lamb sacrificed at the temple, which represents the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ = roasted lamb (we put ours in the oven with parsley, onions, and lemon juice at 400°F for 15 minutes and then turned it down to about 350°F for about 35 minutes)
• "Baytzah" symbolizes mourning for the temple; also a symbol of a festival offering brought to the temple on Pesach = roasted egg

lamb, prior to roasting

Matzo bread
3 units flour to 1 unit water (3 cups flour to 1 cup water yields about 4 medium matzos)

1. Combine flour and water. Mix and knead into a dense dough. 
2. Roll out to 1/8" thickness or so. Thicker will be more bready, thinner yields more cracker-like matzo. 
3. Poke lots of holes with a fork and bake in a hot oven (450°F or more, as hot as your oven gets without broiling) for a few minutes - until cooked through and possibly browning.

The dough is a little difficult to roll out

Lots of holes!

 Matzo Balls
4 eggs
1/2 c water
1/4 c oil
1 tsp salt
pepper
1 c matzo meal

1. Beat eggs. Add water, oil, salt, and pepper, and mix well. Add matzo meal and mix thoroughly. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to an hour.
2. In a large pot, bring some water to a boil. With moist hands, form small (1") balls from mixture and drop them into boiling water.
3. Simmer all matzo balls, covered, for about 30 minutes until done. Remove with a slotted spoon into a large bowl.
4. Serve in chicken soup. We served ours in chicken broth made from bouillon.

We got this recipe on the back of the Streit's Matzo Meal box - it was pretty similar to other recipes we'd seen.

matzo meal added to egg mixture

all mixed together

These expand a lot when cooking - these were just taken out of the boiling water

served in chicken broth

Mina de Pesah - Matzo Chicken Pie
vegetable oil for frying
2 c chopped onions
2 Tbsp minced garlic
1 1/2 c mushrooms
3 c cooked chicken (about 14 oz)
salt
pepper
1 c chopped parsley
5 eggs, lightly beaten
5 to 6 matzos
1 c chicken stock

1. Heat oil in large skillet. Sauté onions and garlic until soft and translucent. Add mushrooms and continue to cook until they are soft too. 
2. Let cool. Add chicken, salt, pepper, parsley, eggs.
3. Preheat oven to 375°F. Spray baking dish with cooking spray.
4. Soak matzos in chicken stock until moist. I neglected to complete this step because I could not think of a way to soak them. I instead began layering them and poured some stock over each matzo, but this did not work that well. If I make this again I will place them on a cookie sheet and soak them therein.
5. Layer matzos and chicken-vegetable mixture like a lasagna: matzos, mixture, matzos, mixture, matzos. 
6. I also did not do this: pour 2 tsp oil over the top and bake for 15 minutes. Sprinkle with another bit of oil and bake for another 15 minutes. (The top matzo on mine was very, very dry... doing this might have remedied that problem).
7. Let cool 10 minutes, then serve.

Onions, garlic, mushrooms

Plus eggs, parsley, chicken

Layered using homemade matzos

Vegetable cutlets (side)
1 1/2 to 2 c minced red or yellow peppers or a mixture of both
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 c grated carrots (about 4 carrots)
1/2 lb raw spinach, cleaned, trimmed, chopped (2 tightly packed cups)
1 lb (3 medium) potatoes, boiled and mashed (2 c)
6 Tbsp grated raw onion (1 large)
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 tsp salt
pepper
1 c matzo meal
vegetable oil

1. sauté the peppers in the olive oil until soft
2. add all of the remaining ingredients except vegetable oil and let mixture stand for 30 minutes or overnight, refrigerated. Bring to room temperature before continuing
3. either fry or bake: 
1. fry by heating 1/4 inch of vegetable oil in large skillet. Form each patty with about 1/4 c of the mixture. Flatten slightly and fry in batches for about 6 minutes on one side, 3-4 minutes on the other side. Drain on paper towels.
2. bake by putting patties on lightly greased baking sheet and place in preheated 350°F oven for about 10 minutes; turn over and bake another 7 to 10 minutes
4. serve warm

These are yummy - not sure how to describe them, though.

Walnut cake (dessert)
9 eggs at room temperature, separated
1 c sugar
2 c walnuts, ground to a powder
2 Tbsp matzo cake meal (we used matzo meal and it worked fine)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt

1. preheat oven to 350°F. Dust two 9x3-inch loaf pans with a little extra cake meal and set aside
2. with an electric mixer, beat egg yolks until pale in color. Beat in sugar 2 Tbsp at a time, beating well after each addition
3. combine nuts with matzo cake meal. Stir into yolks along with vanilla.
4. beat egg whites with salt until they are stiff but not dry. Fold them gently and carefully into the batter
5. turn the batter into the prepared pans and smooth the top. Bake 30-40 minutes, or until cake shrinks away from side of pans and cake tester comes out clean. Let cool on rack.

This cake was surprisingly light and sweet - do not be afraid if/when the cake caves in.

 oxox

Chop Suey

Almost two years ago, when I met Thomas' sister Elizabeth and her family for the first time, she and her husband, Saki, prepared a meal of chop suey for us to enjoy. It was delicious! We tried the recipe they shared recently, and although I didn't make it as well as they did, it is worth sharing!

Chop Suey
garlic
ginger
oil
meat (optional)
various vegetables, sliced/shredded: shredded carrots, bok choy, mushrooms, peppers, celery, or broccoli slaw, for example. We also used zucchini.
soy sauce
rice, ramen noodles, or rice noodles (hard to find... but inexpensive at WinCo)

1. Sautée some garlic and ginger in some oil. Add meat if using meat, and a bit of soy sauce.
2. Add in vegetables and more soy sauce, oil, garlic, and ginger to taste.
3. Cook until veggies are heated but still crunch.
4. Serve with/over prepared rice, ramen noodles (sans seasoning), or rice noodles. The rice noodles we used were very thin and stringy; Elizabeth and Saki had some fatter-looking noodles that I liked better when we had them... Use what suits you!

Stuffed Bell Peppers

A meal that we ate somewhat frequently at my house growing up was stuffed bell peppers. They're pretty easy to throw together, although they do take some time to cook, and they're tasty and filling.

Stuffed Bell Peppers
2-4 green bell peppers
1 lb ground beef, less if you want juicier peppers
1 can stewed tomatoes
about 1 cup uncooked rice; less if you want juicier peppers
cheese of your choice

1. Preheat oven to about 375°F. Slightly brown ground beef, seasoning as desired, and cook rice per package instructions.
2. Cut stem from peppers and remove seeds
3. Drain beef. Combine with rice, tomatoes, and a little bit of cheese.
4. Fill peppers with this mixture, and sprinkle some cheese on top. Bake for approximately 45 minutes. When done, peppers should be tender and cheese should be melted. You can make this without cooking the rice and beef first, but it will take longer in the oven.

Bradshaw Taqueria ?

Thomas bragged on these burritos for months before I finally got to try them! We first made them together about 2 months ago and while I must admit I was skeptical at first, this is now probably one of my favorite recipes. We made these together a second time while visiting my family over Christmas vacation.

The Swiss cheese was the ingredient I shied away from the most at the beginning. I love cheese, but Swiss has never been a favorite of mine. It works pretty well with the other ingredients, though, so I'd definitely recommend it. Additionally, the bean/tomato sauce process does seem kinda strange the first time. But trust me, it's worth it!!!

Thomas' Burritos

Tortilla ingredients:
1 part vegetable oil (we used 1 1/2 c oil/milk/water to make 15 tortillas)
1 part milk
1 part water
flour

1. Begin by mixing equal parts oil, milk, and water. Add flour and continue to mix until batter becomes a thick consistency.
   
   
   
2. Keep adding flour, kneading until mixture becomes doughy.
   
   
   
3. Separate dough into small balls. They should fit in your cupped hand.
   
   
   
   
4. Roll out the dough. Try for somewhat round and very thin tortillas. They shrink up and thicken a bit in the pan.
   
   
   
5. Sprinkle a bit of salt into a heated frying pan. Transfer one tortilla into the frying pan. As it cooks, the color will change slightly. Once the bottom is thicker and a more golden color, use a spatula, or if you're like Thomas, your hands, to flip it over and cook the other side.
   
   
6. Stack cooked tortillas until filling is ready!
   
   
   

Beans:
2 cans Cannellini beans (White Kidney beans)
1 small (8-0z) can tomato sauce
spices: cumin, thyme, basil, salt to taste

1. Drain beans. Combine beans and tomato sauce in a saucepan. Save one bean can; remove label and wash.
   
   
   
   
2. Drain off a bit of the tomato sauce and use the clean can to mash the beans.
   
   
   
3. Add spices to taste. Thomas likes a lot of cumin.
   
   
4. Cook bean mixture on the stovetop until heated.
   
   

Other ingredients:
1 green bell pepper, chopped
2 tomatoes, diced
grated Swiss cheese
sour cream


To assemble:
Begin with a tortilla. Spread on a bit of the bean mixture and some sour cream. Add grated Swiss cheese and sprinkle in a few tomatoes and peppers. fold bottom up and sides around. ENJOY!!