Vegan Sloppy Joe

I’m into recipes that ask you to throw a good portion of your ingredients into the blender. Easy!

Ooops. Except when you put too many in. It’s only blending the bottom layer: two-thirds of my tomato-onion-spices mix is not getting pulverised. Should have used the food processor.

Turn off. Mix with spoon. Try again.

That’s it! My ingredients twirl in a vortex of chopping. Now I have a jug filled with a pink-red liquid slop. Stick my little finger in and lick. This would be a pretty easy pasta sauce too.

Frying onions, adding chopped tomato, capsicum, my blended sauce along with some more spices. Stir. Add the textured vegetable protein. Yay for TVP!

And ignore for half an hour. You got it, recipe book.

Why is it rude to cut a bread roll with a knife? They never break cleanly down the middle when I tear them. And I want a good pocket cut into these long rolls, or all of my faux mince is going to go everywhere. Well, who cares if it’s uncouth, a knife it is.

Spooning the tomato mixture into the bun, trying to get a balance so it doesn’t spill out the side.

Okay, open wide!

The TVP is as inert as always. It’s job is really just to provide the texture of mince: flavour is not it’s strong point. So that’s a bit bland, but I like the wet stodge of the sauce against the freshness of the bread.

The sauce could use more tomato paste and more chilli powder. I think my conversions to the metric system were a bit off. But in it’s mildness it’s good: the tomato plays off the onion. My favourite bits are the large crunches of capsicum. I can taste the basil too, that’s good.

Overall, not much on taste. Fine, savoury, tomato-y. But once in the embrace of the roll it takes a step up. It’s a filling, satisfying lunch on a wet day. I bet with beef this would be better: the TVP is too timid to be in the spotlight like this.

Sloppy joes are just applying the number one rule when it comes to left-overs: everything tastes better on bread.

Rating:

Specifics: Vegan sloppy joes cooked at home