Classic American Dinner (riiiight)

Okay, just a quick rant.

The reason people hate vegetarian food is because of vegetarian cook books. These people are trying to create dishes without having tasted the food they are attempting to recreate in years. In addition, I am very suspicious of whether they taste their recipes at all. All vegetarian recipes seem to be tasteless, low-fat, low-salt versions of what they should be. Everything tastes "fresh". Well, I'm sorry, but a sloppy joe shouldn't taste fresh, it should have a nice melding of tomato, grease, vinegar, sugar, and some chili flavor. It should not taste like fresh tomatoes! That is a different dish.

Ok, I'm sure I'll have this rant again, but for now onto the recipes.

There are four things going on here. We have a sloppy joe, french fries, and kale, with a nice homebrew stout courtesy of my brother. Before continuing, I'll have to say the beer was probably the most enjoyable part of the meal and I am continuing to enjoy it while I type.

As for the meal, I liked it. What's not to enjoy about a sloppy joe with french fries. The kale was a great idea and would have paired nicely, but I messed it up and it tasted horrible. I've done much better and will write about it when I make a good batch.

Sloppy Joe:

First, this is on a hot dog bun because that was all I had in the freezer. On top of it being a hot dog bun, it is a wheat hot dog bun that Julie bought. Hint: Hot dog buns should NEVER be made of whole wheat flower, EVER. Enough said. Also, this would have been much better on a hamburger bun; the meat to bun ratio was all wrong.

As alluded to above, the recipe I had out of the vegetarian book forgot a lot, which I had to add at the end to taste. I'll indicate these ingredients in Bold.

1 1/2 cups TVP crumbles
1 1/4 cups fake beef stock
~3 Tbs olive oil
1 onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
1/2 bell pepper
1 28oz. can crushed tomatoes
~3 Tbs chili powder
~1 Tbs brown sugar
~1/4 cup cider vinegar
TT salt

1. You combine the boiling stock and TVP and let sit for 10 minutes off heat.
2. Sauté onion, garlic in oil. Add green pepper after a couple minutes. After they are all a little soft and brown, add TVP. Sauté on medium low, being careful to scrape up the meat from the pan to keep from sticking solid.
3. Add the tomatoes, chili powder, sugar, and cider. Simmer for ~10 minutes or so.
4. Remove from heat and serve.

I'd have to say, these were pretty close to real sloppy joes. I think the only way to get closer would be to really brown the meat well (for which you would need a very good cast-iron pan), and you would need more fat. There just isn't enough fat without the meat. Otherwise, though, they were very good.

French Fries

The french fries were a baked version out of Cook's Illustrated. I like these a lot. They are done in the oven, they taste awesome, and in the end you ingest about 3 Tbs of fat if you eat every single fry. Now that ain't bad. Seriously, just try them.

3 russet potatoes, cut lengthwise into ~10 wedges
Note: They hem and haw about needing to use russets. I used 4 white and they were fine.
But I cut them into 8 wedges instead of 10.
4+1 Tbs vegetable, canola, or peanut oil
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

1. Preheat your oven to 475 and put rack on lowest position. Place cut potatoes in large bowl with hot tap water for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, coat large, heavy pan with 4 Tbs of oil and sprinkle evenly with salt and pepper.
2. Drain potatoes and place on a sheet with 3 layers of paper towels. Pat dry with other paper towels. Rinse and wipe out bowl and add potatoes with the last Tbs of oil. Mix.
3. Arrange potatoes in single layer on pan and cover tightly with foil. Bake for 5 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 15-20 minutes, turning pan once, until bottoms of potatoes are spotty golden brown. Loosen taters with a spatula and use tongs to flip over on other side. Bake 5-15 minutes longer, until potatoes are nice and brown.
4. Remove to a sheet or plate with paper towels on it to drain the oil from the potatoes. Season with additional salt and pepper, if needed, and serve (with ketchup, of course).

That's all for now. Happy cooking!

Update: Sarah says that mustard is a key ingredient in Sloppy Joes. I added some to my sandwich and must agree with her whole-heartedly.