Sloppy Dans

Is it traitorous to post a friend's top secret recipe online even if it is a place that no one else online looks except you?

Just wondering. This recipe belongs to J.B. who recently departed us for Idaho and bequeathed me this lovely gift. It comes to her by way of Dan himself, a dear friend of J.B. and original maker of Sloppy Dans. I have multiple times been the glad consumer of these delicious take on sloppy joes and will be, again, when we reunite. J.B., don't hate me if you find this. I only post it out of great love, because if I post it here, I will use it forever.

Ingredients:

1-1.5 lbs. ground beef, browned

1 can tomato sauce

1-1.5 C. ketchup

1/2 - 3/4 C. mustard

1/2 - 1 C. brown sugar

1 tsp. vinegar

Variety of hot sauces (3-4 different kinds including Tabasco)

Directions:

1. Combine browned beef and sauce ingredients. Simmer 45 min - 1 hour.

2. Smother over rolls and serve!

Mediterranean Squash Stew

The thing that is different from medical school and high school is that in medical school you NEVER get to choose your lab partner. NEVER. EVER. But fortunately I landed some pretty hip kids for "Fun With Food" (organized by the ever-so-enthusiastic M.J.) anyway.

Too much studying this week to cook vegetables on my own, so fortunately this cooking lab came up to fill my vegetable requirement for the week. This recipe from Cooking Together Family Meals, a publication of the Finger Lakes Region and Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University.

The idea is that this can be modified to fit any dietary restrictions imaginable. Vegan. Diabetic. High Cholesterol. Maybe even phenylketonuria. Here's the basic recipe:

Ingredients:

3 cups diced butternut squash
2 cups chopped kale
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 clove garlic
2 tsp fat
2 cups canned diced tomatoes
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp mustard
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp salt
2 cups grain

Directions:

1. Wash and peel squash; cut in half, spoon out seeds, cut into 1/2 inch cubes. Wash kale and remove tough stems; roll and slice into shreds or chop finely. Chop onions. Mince garlic.

2. Heat oil in frying pan on mediu. Add onion and garlic; saute 2 to 3 minutes, or until the onion is soft.

3. Stir in squash, tomatoes, lemon juice, brown sugar, mustard, oregano, and salt. Cover pan and cook 10 to 15 minutes, or until squash is tender. Add water, as needed.

4. Add rice/grain and kale. Cover and cook another 5 minutes.


We modified as follows:

-- Tripled the garlic
-- Used olive oil for fat (lots of mono unsaturated fats like omega threes, lowers your LDL (bad cholesterol) maybe raises your HDL (good cholesterol))
-- Doubled the mustard
-- Doubled the oregano
-- Doubled the salt
-- Added some pepper
-- Used 1 C. lentils and 1 C. couscous
-- Added finely chopped sweet potatoes
-- Stole Mrs. Dash (2 packets) and hot sauce (2 packets) from cafeteria, added cayenne pepper stolen from Mexican-patient table, and stirred. Soup so much more delicious. Yum yum. Oops, cheated on the assignment, but what good soup!

Seriously, this soup was surprisingly healthy and delicious. Our soup got all eaten up fast. If I ever had... kale? and squash? at the same time?.... I would totally make this soup again. (But with some cumin. Definite lack of cumin. And maybe minus the hot sauce.)