Glazed Over.

Ooooh man, sorry for the blog neglect!!

But here I am, safe and sound again...

Here's a little number I like to call 'The Perfect Sloppy Joe'. I'd make it every day if I could get away with it...

No, seriously, you know I've been honing in on my perfected sloppy joe and I think I've finally found it!

So here goes, do not faint at the amount of brown sugar!

1 C red lentils, (uncooked) rinsed and drained
1/2 C TVP reconstituted in 2 C boiling water (do not drain)
1 - 2 C water
1 onion, finely chopped
1 - 2 cloves garlic, minced
1 T oil
1 can tomato paste
1/2 C brown sugar*
2 T apple cider vinegar
1 T italian seasoning
1 T molasses
2 t salt
1 heaping t paprika
1/2 t mustard

Saute onion and garlic in oil in a large pot. Add spices, salt, sugar, tomato paste, molasses and apple cider vinegar and mix well. Heat until fragrant.
Add lentils and TVP, including the water from rehydrating the TVP and mix well. Add 1 C water and cover and bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer until lentils are tender (30m or longer, depending on your lentils). Add more water by 1/2 Cfuls as needed.

*that's a lotta sugar! you could reduce this (obvs) and I think I may next time, to 1/4 C. But it WAS really good....


And here is another quick supper that was sort of improvised that turned out well.

I call it 'Tofu and Garbanzos Over Rice'. Because that's what it is! Yay!

1 can garbanzos, drained
1 1/2 carrots, shredded
1 clove garlic, minced
2 T oil
1 pkg extra firm silken tofu
1 C frozen peas
1 t cumin
1 t salt
1/2 t ancho chile powder (or some other spicy something you like)

In a large (pref cast iron) skillet, fry up those chickpeas. Really fry those puppies. Then add the spices and salt. Then add the garlic and fry for a bit, then the garlic. Add tofu and peas and mix it all up, letting the tofu get coated in all the spicy goodness and the peas get hot. Serve over rice. Ta da!

Well, let's see. After finishing "The Stand", I read some filler books that I had laying around the house. Some good, some okay, all fine.

"Wesley the Owl" good with a little woo at the end there. But fun to read about an owl (win!) and wacky biologists.

"The Storekeeper's Daughter" kind of preachy (ha) the author obviously thinks we should all be Amish, really. Don't ask how I have this book.

"Summer World" by Bernd Heinrich is interesting and I love to learn about nature but I sort of glazed over about half way through. Good intentions of finishing, though.

"The Elephant Keeper" this was a reader's copy or prerelease or whatever and I enjoyed it. An interesting story with some cool thinking about animals. Lame ending, though. In my opinion.

Oh, and I can't forget "The Fairy's Return" by Gail Carson Levine! I am a big fairy tale geek and I guess this shows it. Having read "Ella Enchanted" and enjoyed it I risked picking this up at Goodwill (actually I didn't remember the author or that she'd written Ella Enchanted or anything, I just saw 'fairy' in the title and skimmed a page and thought it looked good. Thanks, subconscious!). Anyway, these are fun, although it does give me pause to discover that she is allied with Disney... I just have this reflexive 'ewwww' reaction. Oh well.

That's it! Gotta get my hands on something else to read!!!