You’ll have to wait a little longer than I wanted to hear about how Tasty videos became millennial aspic because lots happened since we last spoke.
Got fully vaxxed.
Had two visitors.
Started celebrating graduation.
Lost a friend.
Revived a houseplant.
Quit a book club.
Embarked on a new occupation.
Bought plane tickets.
Saw some friends.
Went places other than the grocery store.
I did do some eating worth reporting. Ordered Malai Kofta, a veggie-cheese North Indian meatball, from a Nepalese restaurant. Hard to believe I’ve lived this long without that dish in my life. I thought I’d be lucky enough to recreate it sometime soon, but it didn’t make the 500 recipe short list of Indian regional cuisine covered in my copy of Sonal Ved’s Tiffin.
Finally knocked off making Taste’s Ethiopian Lasagna from my to-cook list. It was a success assuming you ignore the typos and trust your instinct to bake cheese and noodles for an hour at 375 instead of 475.
The best thing I made was the simplest. A decade old recipe first eaten at a friend’s house that I keep coming back to.
turkey-veggie sloppy joes
Imagine a 2012 world where we’re still learning how to navigate internet influencer marketing. Enter then startup NatureBox who thought they could sell snack subscription services by sharing recipes that didn’t include any of the ingredients they sold. Adorable. They’ve since abandoned this domain, but here I am keeping the mix of dated healthy dinners and nostalgia alive one Monday night dinner at a time.
what you need
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 yellow onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound ground turkey (TVP or riced cauliflower *probably* work well here too)
Kosher salt, to taste
1 carrot, minced
1 zucchini, diced
1/3 cup corn kernels
1-3 tablespoons chopped chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 tablespoon brown sugar, packed
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon cumin
Pinch of cayenne pepper
1 (15-ounce) can tomato sauce
4-6 hamburger buns, for serving
Crumbled feta, for serving
what to do
Heat olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium high heat. Add onion and garlic, and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent, about 5-8 minutes. Add ground turkey and cook until browned, about 5-7 minutes, making sure to to break up meat as it cooks.
Season with salt, to taste. Add carrot, zucchini and corn. While zucchini becomes tender, about 2-3 minutes, add tomato paste, chipotle peppers, brown sugar, Worcestershire, red wine vinegar, chili powder, oregano, cumin and cayenne.
Stir in tomato sauce until well combined.
Reduce heat to medium low; simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has thickened and desired consistency is reached, about 10 minutes.
Serve on hamburger buns with feta cheese crumbled on top.
Reading - It’s not their job to buy you cake
Listening - Good Woman - The Staves
Watching - A Scanner Darkly (2006)