Tomato basil feta soup and fresh tomato sauce

 

Why mess with a sure thing? Maybe because at least in the kitchen, there's always the possibility that a slightly better version is possible, even if it's not really necessary because the first version is just dandy. This approach clearly should not apply in relationships or investments, but can sometimes pay dividends in the culinary realm.

So when transforming yet another tray of farmers market tomatoes into what has essentially become a house soup that I pull out of the freezer as needed throughout the winter, it occurred to me to try swapping the usual canned tomato sauce in the recipe for a possibly more elevated version, one that is marinated rather than cooked.

Christos tomato-basil soup with feta

This recipe from the Christos Greek restaurant in Minneapolis was published in the Star Tribune in 1997, as provided by Gus Parpas and executive chef at the time, Mohamed Armeli. This appeared as part of a reader request feature the Taste section used to run, reaching out to restaurants on behalf of a reader query for a recipe for a favorite dish. (I would link to it, but it's not on the Strib site.) Christos is an Eat Street mainstay, opening in 1988 and surviving COVID closures and ICE mayhem. I see the soup still shows up on at least some daily special menus there. It's been awhile since I've been there, so I can't vouch for how faithful this is to the original; I know sometimes chefs needed to modify a recipe they supplied for practical home use.

I have long since deviated slightly from the original, which I am presenting as first reported, and will note that where applicable. For one thing, seeding tomatoes is just not anything I feel moved to do, but if they bother you, by all means knock yourself out. (I also generally don't peel tomatoes in most recipes, but in this one, you'll be happier if you do; otherwise you might want to pass the soup through a food mill or sieve after pureeing it.)

I also have two different approaches to this, depending on whether I'm making it to serve immediately, in which case I more or less follow the original, or whether I'm making this in peak fresh tomato season to freeze to pull out in winter to pair with panini, toasted cheese sandwiches or other warm comfort food. I find that avoiding basil and feta in the frozen soup base and adding it later yields better results in that case. I'll note the "freezer" method after the original.

Ingredients

¼ cup olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
½ teaspoon salt
1 bay leaf
3 cloves garlic, chopped
5 to 6 ripe tomatoes, cored, peeled, seeded and diced
3 cups chicken stock
½ cup fresh basil, chopped (or 3 generous stems, if using freezer approach), plus more for optional garnish
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
2 cups tomato sauce
Black pepper to taste

Method

Heat olive oil in a large saucepan. Add onions and cook until translucent. Stir in salt. Add bay leaf and garlic and cook for 2 more minutes. Add tomatoes and stock, bringing to a boil and cooking over high heat for 20 minutes, stirring often. Remove from heat and remove bay leaf. When slightly cooled, puree in a blender or food processor until smooth. You might need to do this in batches, depending on the size of your blender or processor. Pour soup back into saucepan and stir in basil, feta, tomato sauce and black pepper. Simmer for 20 minutes. Makes 6 servings.

Method for freezing

When adding the tomatoes and stock, add the basil stems at the same time. Remove them when you remove the bay leaf before pureeing. (This infuses the soup with the basil flavor up front but keeps the basil from darkening while frozen.) After pureeing the soup and returning it to the pan, stir in tomato sauce and heat through. Remove from heat, cool, and store in preferred serving sizes. When ready to use, thaw the soup, add feta and reheat. Serve garnished with sliced basil. (If I'm feeling time-pressed, sometimes I'll just add feta crumbles to individual soup bowls, top with warm soup and then the basil garnish; still tasty, but less creamy.)

Rating: However you choose to make it, there's a reason this is more or less our house soup. It's just smooth and creamy comfort, and pairs well with so many dishes. Only downside: If you get used to this, the canned tomato soup is just such a devastating disappointment.

Fresh tomato sauce

From "Olive Oil: Fresh Recipes from Leading Chefs" from Periplus Editions. This recipe was designed to swirl around the base when plating an elaborate dish that would no doubt be spectacular but would also definitely set you back several hours cooking prep time and even more doing the dishes. Maybe some day. It can be hard to psych yourself up for so much effort for one dish when you could make three quite nice meals in the same amount of time. One suspects a kitchen staff would help overcome that. Makes about a quart.

Ingredients

10 ripe plum tomatoes, diced
½ cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced
1 red pepper, diced
½ red chile
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ cup tomato juice
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 to 2 teaspoons fresh basil 

Method

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 10 to 12 hours. Puree mixture and pass through a fine sieve. At this point you can stir in a bit more olive oil if desired.

Rating: As a tomato sauce, very fresh tasting. You definitely get the pepper and cucumber flavors coming through. If you're in the market for something with more flavor than a canned tomato sauce, it has some merit, and you can make this one ahead. I think it would be very nice with fish.

But as for using it the soup above, well, it was noticeable, but I would say it neither enhanced or detracted from the usual flavor overall, just made it different, so I'm sticking with opening the convenient can when it comes to this use case. So now I'm more certain about the sure thing.

Appetizers, but for lunch

I'm a sucker for a good appetizer, and think cocktails/wine and app parties are one of the very nice parts about being a grown up because you get to decide what to eat and when. But there are only so many of those parties to go around, and making a supper array of appetizers just for two people can seem like a lot of work and generate a lot of leftovers and preparation dishes that make it seem less fun.

So if I want to try out a new appetizer recipe ahead of one of those parties, I find making one for a weekend lunch to be a good alternative. Paired with a soup and fruit, one appetizer can be the star of the show.

Smoked salmon cheesecake

This no-bake cheesecake-ish recipe is from Kateryna's Cafe site. It called for a six-inch springform pan, which I don't own, so I opted for using two 4½-inch tartlet pans with a removeable bottom. Because the volume isn't the same between the two, I ended up with two tartlets of lower height, but they still looked reasonably looky paired on a plate with crackers. I considered making them in six of my mini cheesecake pans, but didn't feel like fussing that much, although I think it would make a dandy one-serving first course for a sit-down dinner situation.

Ingredients

2 ounces Ritz crackers (or use Schar's entertainment crackers if you want to make it gluten free)
1 large handful arugula
1 teaspoon olive oil
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
4 ounces smoked salmon, divided
1 tablespoon finely chopped chives
Zest of ½ lemon
Fresh dill for garnish

Method

Blend crackers, arugula and olive oil in a food processor until finely chopped. Press mixture into the bottom of your pan or pans, depending on available pan size (see headnote). 

Combine cream cheese, 2 ounces of smoked salmon, the chives and lemon zest. Spread over the crust. Refrigerate until lightly set. I gave it several hours since I was making it well ahead, but the recipe said to allow at least 15 minutes. Remove from pan and top with remaining 2 ounces smoked salmon and garnish with fresh dill.

Rating: Fine. It's fast to fix and reasonably looky on a plate. It's not the wower I expected based on its ingredient list, however. As I say, it's fine, but just fine. Maybe some finely chopped red onion in the cream cheese mixture would help, or maybe shallots? The zest of the entire lemon? I feel like it's just a nudge away from living up to its looks.

Baked ricotta with tomatoes

Adapted from "Vegetarian Heartland" by Shelly Westerhausen

Ingredients

1 pound ricotta
1 teaspoon honey
1 egg
3 garlic clove, minced
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves, divided
Zest of 1 lemon
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
5 ounces cherry tomatoes, halved
1 tablespoon butter

Method

Preheat oven to 400. Grease a 9-inch round pie plate or dish.

Combine ricotta, honey, egg, garlic, 1 teaspoon fresh thyme, lemon zest, salt and pepper. Spread mixture in prepared dish. Push tomatoes into the mixture, cut side down. (Arranging them in concentric circles would make it prettier than the randomness I achieved the first time I made it.) Bake for 30 minutes, then top with the butter, tilting the pan to distribute it once it melts. Bake for 10 more minutes. Garnish with remaining 1 teaspoon thyme leaves and a bit more pepper.  Serve warm.

Rating: The first time I made this, it was fine, but blander than I might have expected. I barely detected the garlic, so I tried it again and tripled the amount of garlic. I wanted this to be a winner because it's so fast and comparatively pantry friendly. I also added the zest of a lemon the second time. There was a reference I didn't pick up on until later because it's in neither the ingredient list or instructions in the original recipe, but the note on top of the recipe recommends using an organic lemon for the otherwise unmentioned zest, and adding it made a significant difference. 

Tuna mousse

From Food & Wine magazine's 2001 cookbook

Ingredients

1 6-ounce can tuna packed in olive oil, drained
¼ cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
2 tablespoons cream cheese, room temperature
1½ teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
Sliced toasted baguette for serving

Method

Combine tuna, mayo, onion, cream cheese and lemon juice in a food processor. Pulse until smooth. Add parsley and pulse to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Refrigerate for at least an hour. Serve on toasted baguette slices.

Rating: This is why I generally aim to try new recipes in advance of giving them to guests, just in case there's a dud. This works flavorwise, but while it sets up a tiny bit in the refrigerator, it never reaches a consistency I would call a mousse. As Dave said, it's more of a tuna sauce. I opted to turn the rest of it into the sauce for a tuna noodle casserole and call it a day, because I don't think this one is worth trying to finesse. It's a pity, because I really wanted to like this. When Dave asked what I was making and I told him tuna mousse, he said that sounded like an odd animal combination and went away muttering something about fish with antlers. I think fish with antlers would have been a charming nickname for an appetizer, but alas, it's not to be.

Crabbies

From "The Healthy Carb Diabetes Cookbook," by Jennifer Bucko and Laura Rondinelli, a book I picked up when a family member was diagnosed so I could more carefully cater appropriate options.

Ingredients

1 8-ounce can lump crab meat
1 8-ounce container lite cream cheese with chives and onions
5 whole wheat English muffins, halved

Method

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine crab meat and cream cheese. Spread mixture over open face English muffin halves. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes. Slice each half into quarters if you want to serve them as appetizers. They're figuring two of those quarters a person as a serving for a total of 7 carbs.

Rating: It's certainly very fast to make. Flavorwise, it's reasonably tasty and if you have one un-quartered open-faced English muffin as lunch along with a bowl of soup and fruit, probably still not too horrible dietwise for those of us who aren't slavishly carb-watching. But while cutting it into quarters makes it more diet-friendly, it also makes it unappetizing on a plate. Small appetizers can be cute, but these are just ragged looking, I can imagine a plate full of these things sitting among an array of appetizers on a table and being the ones no one tried, becoming more sad as they cooled. (I do think they were best served warm.) I suppose if I added some chopped chives as a garnish it might help, but again, I think I'm not thinking this one is worth trying to finesse, especially given the price of a can of crab meat.

Leftovers: Since I wasn't about to bake off all five muffins, we have leftovers. I'm thinking it could make a good stand-in as a base for a crab meat rangoon pizza, which would be tasty, but definitely not as diet friendly.

Using up basil bonanza, one course at a time

Leaving a few flowering heads on some of the basil keeps the pollinators happy. This bumble bee was one of many that paid a visit to the basil, and then to my flowering vine crops nearby.

This year was a stellar basil year for us, both in the planters close to the house and the monster plant out in the raised beds that's among the largest basil plants I've ever seen in our northern climate. So obviously we've been enjoying our share of pesto and caprese salads. But given that prime basil season will soon fade during fall weather, I've been turning to recipes to use up copious quantities while it's in its full glory. Here are some basil-intensive recipes across a range of courses.

Creamy lemon basil pasta

From Food & Wine June 2026, adapted from "The Pasta Book" by Marc Vetri and David Joachim. Serves 4.

Ingredients
¾ cup butter, cut into chunks
1 pound fresh tonnarelli pasta (or dried bucatini or thick spaghetti)
1 cup fresh basil leaves, plus more for garnish
2½ tablespoons poppy seeds
2½-3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
¾ cup finely grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for garnish
8 thin prosciutto slices, torn (about 4 ounces)

Method

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

In a deep large pot, melt butter over medium low. Add 2 cups of the hot salted water to the pot. Bring to a boil and cook until slightly reduced.

When the water in the pot boils, add pasta and cook until just tender. Drain, reserving liquid in case you need it. Transfer pasta to butter mixture in the pot and cook 2 to 3 minutes to coat pasta. Add basil, poppy seeds and 2½ tablespoons lemon juice. If needed to make a creamy sauce, add some of the reserved pasta water. Taste and adjust seasoning with lemon as needed. Stir in ¾ cup grated Parmesan. At this point, the original recipe called for plating the pasta in 4 bowls and then folding in the prosciutto to each serving, but that was annoying, so I recommend adding it to the main pasta pot and distributing it well. Garnish with grated Parmesan and more fresh basil leaves.

Rating: Hard to go wrong with those ingredients of lemon, butter, basil and prosciutto. Substantial, thanks to the bucatini we used, and well, that's a lot of butter. A fairly fast fix.

Gin basil smash

We enjoyed a trip to the Minnesota Beethoven Festival this year in Winona and had this perfect drink for a muggy hot day at Muddled Thyme, a craft cocktail and brick oven pizza joint downtown that I would haunt if I lived there. Highly recommend, both the restaurant and the drink. (Also, don't sleep on the Marine Art Museum while you're in town.) We found this recipe from Difford's Guide when we got home to try to re-create that cocktail.

Ingredients

12 basil leaves, divided
2 ounces gin
¾ ounce fresh lemon juice
⅓ ounce rich simple syrup (made with a 2-to-1 sugar to water ratio)
Seltzer water (optional)

Method

Set aside three basil leaves for garnish. Muddle remaining basil leaves in a cocktail shaker. Add gin, lemon juice and simple syrup and shake with ice. Strain into a Collins glass and top with seltzer if desired. (The recipe didn't call for it, but the restaurant's website lists it as an ingredient and it did seem to have a bit of fizz to it.) Garnish with basil leaves.

Rating: I'm not sure if it's exactly like the one we had, but it's close, and very refreshing.

Basil parsley garlic sea salt

From Healthy Eats by Elena on Instagram. There are other similar variations out there that use basil and no parsley, and some of which call for blanching the basil briefly to set its color.

Ingredients

1 cup basil leaves
1 cup parsley leaves
1 cup sea salt
3 cloves garlic, chopped

Method

Preheat oven to 225. Place ingredients in a food processor and pulse until fine. Spread on a parchment-lined rimmed baking sheet, Bake for 35-40 minutes until dried. Remove from oven and let cool completely. Transfer mixture to the food processor to process until smooth (the baked mixture sets up a bit into chunks so this restores it to salt consistency). Store at room temperature.

Drying the salt mixture in the oven extends its shelf life, but it makes it clump up, so it gets a second blending once it's cool.

Rating: It brings something more to the party than simple salt. Pack some into a small jar for presents, since it keeps for about a year at room temperature.

Tomato basil butter

From Salt Coast Kitchen on instagram. The quantities weren't specified, so this is a guess based on the video.

Ingredients
1 pint cherry tomatoes
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
A generous handful of fresh basil
2 garlic cloves
¾ cup butter, room temperature

Method
Heat oven to 375 degrees. Place cherry tomatoes in a small baking dish. Drizzle lightly with some of the olive oil and a sprinkling of coarse salt. Bake for 10 minutes. Let cool slightly.

Put roasted tomatoes, remaining olive oil, basil leaves, garlic and butter in a food processor or blender and blend well. Transfer to a dish, cover and chill until set. 

Rating: Tasty as a sandwich spread. Also works as a topping for grilled chicken or as a pasta sauce. The basil flavor comes through nicely.

Lemon basil dressing

From May.Eighty.Five on Instagram. 

Ingredients

3 tablespoons basil leaves
1 garlic clove, chopped
4 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
½ cup olive oil
4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon honey or maple syrup
Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Combine all ingredients except salt and pepper in a food processor or blender. Blend until combined and emulsified. Season to taste with salt and pepper. 

Rating: Tasty, versatile. Stays blended while stored. This recipe is now on repeat at our house.

Basil quick bread

From Hello Canola, a Canadian site showcasing recipes involving canola oil. 

Ingredients
3 cups flour
3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons dry mustard powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil leaves
3 large eggs
1½ cups milk
⅓ cup canola oil

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a bread pan.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, mustard and salt. Stir in basil leaves.

Combine eggs, milk and canola oil. Stir into dry ingredients just to combine. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool for 15 minutes before removing from pan to cool completely. 

Rating: An admirable, well-behaved loaf. Nice just with a smear of butter. Makes a reasonable toasted cheese sandwich base.

More options

That by no means exhausts your options for sneaking in some of the bounty of seasonal basil. I'm thinking basil blueberry muffins for breakfast and lemon basil poke cake for dessert. Or basil sugar pound cake or basil oil.

A rose by any other name

Nope, not one of mine. 

A few weeks we escaped our routine and played hooky. We got a takeout lunch, found a shady bench facing the Lake Harriet rose garden and strolled around the garden and fountains after our picnic. The roses have a pretty spread-out bloom time, so there's still plenty to see and smell.  Peak bloom times are said to be mid-June to early October.

The roses all seem to be Zone 5, so I'm not likely to try to plant any of them at home because I'm still sticking with at least Zone 4 hardiness ratings. I wish I could replicate the rose garden's terra cotta rope edging, but a brief search showed me a flat of terra cotta rope edging costs and weighs 400 £/pounds, so that's right out. They do sell molds to make your own tinted concrete versions, but since I have a hard enough time making myself weed along our crumbling edging, taking the time to make new edging seems most unlikely.

I've grown roses a time or two, but the only thing that's stayed bought for more than about five years is a miniature rose in a hanging pot, duking it out with tree seedlings in its clothes-line perch. It overwinters in the basement and comes back from twig form in late winter.

Lisianthus make fabulous, long-lasting cut flowers.

The closest thing I've got to looking like a rose planted in the ground this year are lisianthus, aka prairie gentian. I ordered 12 of them from Burpee this year, and waited and waited. (They are very slow growing, and hence, slow to ship.) They chose to ship them in early June when we were up north, so I had to ask a neighbor to intercept the package and tend to them. We hustled them into the ground on our return, and then we've waited and waited for them to bloom. Last week some of them finally did. Next year I might try growing them from seed, but it takes five to six months lead time for blooms so I better put it on my calendar for January.

While I won't say they are now thriving, they're doing better than the boulevard elm, which last week got tagged by the city for removal. I won't miss all the tree seedlings it drops throughout the garden, but we'll certainly miss that welcome shade. It's the second elm we've lost since moving in and the fourth big tree to go down on this end of the block.

Bye bye, elm. This is never a sign you want to see on your property.

If it's not clear by now that I go down food rabbit holes, you haven't been picking up on trends. The strangest things can provoke a deep dive. In this case, I got into flavored or infused waters because when I was pondering how to style my coffee table before a gathering on a very hot, smoky summer night, it struck me that a carafe or two of flavored waters would both look well and potentially hit the spot.  You know, the kind of artfully infused waters that are proffered to you in the sort of salon I no longer frequent. And then you find yourself with four carafes clearly in need of regular use and it's off in search of ideas to fill them.

The good news was that it seemed the simplest recipes yielded the best results. Just slice, pour and wait a few hours.

Strawberry lemon basil water 

Adapted from a number of inspiration sites, including Culinary Hill and That Salad Lady. I tried a number of variations, but I'm focusing here on my two favorites of those I tried.

Simple flavored waters

Strawberry lemon basil water

Ingredients

1 lemon, sliced crosswise
5 fresh basil leaves
½ cup strawberry halves
Filtered water

Method

Place lemon, basil leaves and strawberries in a quart pitcher or one-liter carafe.  Pour over enough water to mostly fill, leaving room for some ice at the top if desired later. Refrigerate for at least a few hours or overnight for best flavor. Shake it up a bit to even out the pinkish tone from the berries.

Rating: This was among the prettier variations I tried so if you're looking for guest presentation, this might be the winner. Pretty pink liquid color in a glass, and the lemon and basil flavors are refreshing. The original recipe indicated not to leave the infusing ingredients in longer than 24 hours but I blithely ignored that. I will say that if you refill this to get a second use, the strawberries will start to look mushy by the second day or so, so you only get so many pours out of the ingredients.

Blueberry rosemary lemon water

Ingredients

1 lemon, sliced crosswise
4 sprigs fresh rosemary (tender stems are best for this purpose rather than woody)
½ cup blueberries
Filtered water

Method

Place lemon, rosemary and blueberries in a quart pitcher or one-liter carafe.  Pour over enough water to mostly fill, leaving room for some ice at the top if desired for serving later. Refrigerate for at least a few hours or overnight for best flavor. Shake up to spread out the blue color evenly through the water before serving.

Rating: This one hits the sweet spot for a combination of flavor, looks and comparative longevity. The blue color is a little more subtle than the pink of the strawberry version, but the flavors of rosemary and lemon really come through and are a nicely refreshing combo pack. Since the blueberries are left whole, this one can last a bit longer and get more refills out of it, although with each refill the ingredients will deliver slightly less potent flavor. 

A few others to try: 1 sliced orange, 4 thyme sprigs, halved red grapes; 1 sliced lime, ½ sliced cucumbers, lemon grass sprigs to taste (or lemon balm is also interesting). Those are nicely flavored, but don't seem to lend themselves to multiple refills.

Cucumber agua fresca

From "Put 'em Up" by Sherri Brooks Vinton.

Note: If you're looking to avoid adding sugar, you can leave it out. It's still refreshing, but if you're including it in the martini recipe option, the sugar helps.

Ingredients

4 cucumbers, peeled, seeded and chopped
1 cup water
2 tablespoons sugar
Juice of 1 lime

Method

Puree cucumber chunks in a food processor or blender. Drain well through a fine mesh strainer, pushing  to remove juice. Compost the solids.

Combine cucumber juice, water, sugar and lime juice in a pitcher and stir to dissolve the sugar. Serve over ice with a splash of seltzer if desired, or try in the cucumber martini, below.

Rating: If you've got a ton of cucumbers to figure out how to preserve, this can be useful, since you can freeze it. But if you're just looking to use up cucumbers in something refreshing, putting slices with limes in water is a lot faster and has a cleaner taste.

Cucumber martini

3 ounces cucumber agua fresca
1½ ounces vodka
Ice
Cucumber slice for garnish

Combine agua fresca, vodka and ice in a shaker. Shake to chill and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with cucumber slice.

Rating: I wouldn't go out of my way to make the aqua fresca just for this, but if you've got it on hand, this might be its highest use case; the vodka cuts through any off-putting texture.

Not just your regular joe

Gochujang gives this sloppy joe an extra bit of flavor.

Warmed ground beef and sauce on a bun? Or shredded beef with not much sauce? Or some combination in between? Everyone seems to have grown up with their own definition of sloppy joes, loose meats, Maid Rites or taverns. In my family, we had taverns, which is how we referred to the same sauced ground meat sandwich other families around home called sloppy joes. We attributed this to our mother growing up in Des Moines, but I also see references to others thinking of taverns as being more like what I'm told Maid Rites were like, but never having been exposed to the chain, I couldn't verify that. I saw one claim that the tavern name came from a local restaurant named the Tavern, but given that my mother's childhood predated that restaurant's existence, I'm a tad skeptical. 

At any rate, whatever you call them and however you choose to prepare them, at heart they are a simple way to fix a warm meal for a crowd, and easy to make ahead and keep warm in a slow cooker, making them a busy mom's uncomplicated way to get a kid-approved meal that could keep until whenever practice was over. 

They are an unpretentious comfort food it there ever was one, and really don't need to be messed with. Of course, cooks gotta tinker, so  I thought I'd explore some variations as an excuse to have a bite of nostalgia. All four of these are way better than school cafeteria sloppy joes, although that was comparatively edible as school meals went.

Gochujang sloppy joes

From Bon Appetit by Hana Asbrink in February 2023. They allege it serves 4. I would say it serves 10. See takeaway below.

This recipe smacks to me of how I used to approach making meatloaf when my mother put it on the menu. It showed up on the menu a lot, since we raised cattle, and it was not my favorite dish since the basic recipe seemed so very, very bland. So I would try to dump the contents of various condiments into the meat mixture in hopes of spicing it up. I can't say as it accomplished that, but it didn't make it any worse, at any rate. I was limited to the spice rack offerings and condiments of a Midwestern farm kitchen in the 1970s, so there was a limit to what I could get up to. No gochujang in sight.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 pound ground beef
Kosher salt, divided
1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 medium onion, finely chopped
6 to 8 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons gochujang
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 tablespoon soy sauce or tamari
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon yellow mustard
1 15-ounce can tomato sauce
¼ cup water
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
Buns for serving

Method

Heat oil in a large deep pot. Add ground beef and brown until mostly cooked. Push to the side of the pot and add green pepper, onion and garlic. Season with salt and pepper. Cook over medium heat until vegetables are softened. Add gochujang, ketchup, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, mustard, tomato sauce and water. Cook, uncovered, until mixture tightens to a thick sauce; you don't want this runny. Remove from heat and add balsamic vinegar. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed. Serve on hamburger buns or potato rolls.

Rating: I still say this list of ingredients looks like the result of a condiment dump or cleanup, but it's a perfectly tasty one. Not spicy, but flavorful. Better than the taverns/sloppy joes I remember from school days. There are definitely worse ways to use up the condiments lurking in the door of your refrigerator. I froze the leftovers in the one-cup portion silicon freezer trays and thaw one of the cups when we want a no-fuss lunch.

Veggie sloppy joes

From Better Homes & Gardens, July/August 2024 issue. Serves 10 quite amply, maybe even 12.  I actually made this recipe before the other three which led me down the sloppy joe rabbit hole to refresh my memory of the meaty version to see how they compared.

Ingredients
1½ cups brown lentils, rinsed  and drained
½ brown rice
1 cup chopped carrot
½ cup chopped onion
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tablespoon yellow mustard
1 tablespoon molasses
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon salt 
4 cups chicken broth
8 ounces cremini mushrooms, chopped
1 15-ounce can tomato sauce
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
10 hamburger buns, toasted
Pickled unions and lettuce for optional toppings

Method

Combine lentils, rice, carrot, onion, garlic, mustard, molasses, cayenne, salt and chicken broth in a large slow cooker. Heat on high for 3½ to 4 hours or on low for 6 to 7 hours. Add tomato sauce, mushrooms and vinegar and cook for another half hour. Serve on toasted buns.

Rating: Well, it's certainly got the sloppy part nailed. Definitely not a good candidate for finger food, since so much of it escapes. Dave refers to these as faux joes or loose lentils. He liked the flavor, but found them a challenge to consume since so much sploots out the sides. It's one of those sandwiches you really can't put down once you pick it up because of structural integrity concerns. The problem was eased a bit when I dialed back the filling to bun ratio with the leftovers to what I considered to be a more normal amount; they're plenty filling. 

They don't taste that much like meat sloppy joes, but they are reasonably tasty, and apparently smell that way too. I opted to make these on high so we could have a lunch that didn't require much kitchen prep time while we had workers in the house finally repairing a plumbing disaster. When they departed, they said they were going to have to get it written into their next contract that there should be no crock pot meals being made while they're on the job site so they aren't tortured by smelling warm food. I wonder if they would have felt that way if they'd known it was lentils.

Definitely sloppy.

Leftover notes: It reheats just fine. I opted to store some of the leftovers in some souper cubes so we can opt for some warm comfort food on short notice. Just remember to provide lots of napkins or else a spoon. Having since made the gochujang version, I'm curious to know if adding some of that to this lentil version would amp up the flavor to the point where it would be a more fair fight in a taste comparison between the meaty-but-meatless lentil version and standard meat versions. I did find that mashing up some of the lentils helped it bind together a bit more.

Sloppy Janes

I wanted to try another meatless version just to give it another chance, to see if the reason the meat version was so much better than the lentil-based version was the meat itself or the spice profile. This version from "Vegetarian Heartland" by Shelly Westerhausen seemed like a decent bet.

Note: If you opt to make the pickles, you'll need to start this days ahead. I'm not going to say they're required, but I will report that you won't mind if you do, even though the need to take the very simple steps to make them delayed me making these for far too long. It's so unpredictable when I'll feel lazy in the kitchen.

Ingredients

1 24-ounce jar dill pickle spears
2 cups sugar
2 cinnamon sticks

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
2 medium carrots, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 cups broth or water
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon tamari
2 teaspoons seasoned rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon honey
1 6-ounce container tomato paste
½ cup finely chopped walnuts
1 15-ounce can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-ounce can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
Hamburger buns (figure on 8 to 10, depending on how full you fill them, we used 10)

Method
Drain the pickles and cut into bite-size chunks. Place back in the same jar and cover with water. Let soak for 24 hours, then drain and place into a large jar. Combine sugar and 1 cup of water until dissolved and pour mixture over the pickles. Tuck in the cinnamon sticks. Cover and refrigerate at least 48 hours to allow the flavors to blend. The recipe notes that they'll keep up to 6 months, but once you try them, you'll pretty quickly find uses for them.

For the filling, heat olive oil in a large deep pan. Cook onion, celery and carrots over medium heat until very soft. Add garlic and cumin and cook for 1 minute. Add oregano, broth, red pepper flakes, tamari, vinegar, honey, tomato paste, walnuts and beans and simmer until it thickens into serving consistency. Season with salt and pepper if desired. Serve on buns and top with the pickles.

Rating: OK, so these work on a lot of levels. It's kind of like going to a place that you know has a good bean burger when that's what you're in the market for; it's not a meat burger, but it's good at being what it is. It definitely brings the flavor profile. And those pickles add an interesting touch. I'm not super into sweet pickles, but this kind of splits the difference, and the cinnamon pairs with the sloppy joe spices for a nice effect. Would definitely consider making this one again.

Sloppy Ottos

And then there's Sloppy Joe's cousin, Sloppy Otto. I ran across this one online and found a number of variations. They didn't always agree on the meat, but there seemed to be a greater tendency to use pork sausage. Sauerkraut and pretzel buns seemed to be a constant, but they varied on whether you added cheese to the assembled bun and melted it. There was wide variation in the ratio of kraut to meat. Sour cream crept in, or didn't. One suspects there are as many recipes for this as there are German great-grandmothers.

Here's where I landed. It's probably closest to the Taste of Home version as any other. 

Ingredients
1 pound bulk spicy pork sausage
1½ cups sauerkraut, well drained
2 medium bell peppers of the color of your choice, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
Pretzel buns for serving (8 to 10 depending on meat serving size of choice)
Sliced Muenster cheese 

Method

Preheat oven to 350. 

In a large pan, brown sausage. Add sauerkraut, peppers and onion. Cook over medium heat until vegetables are tender.

Dish meat onto buns. Top with a cheese slice. Bake for 4 minutes or so or until cheese is melted.

Rating: The addition of cheese to this version makes them much less sloppy since the melted cheese helps hold the mixture in place. The flavor is going to depend on the spiciness of your sausage, and I would avoid a bland cheese. These weren't bad, or anything, but they do fall into the category of worth trying but not worth repeating unless you had that German great-grandmother who made these.

Takeaway

I'd kind of written taverns/sloppy joes permanently off my menu as kid food, and we no longer eat much in the way of beef, but maybe I was a bit hasty. Given that each recipe yields a lot of servings that you can freeze to pull out later, they count as a pretty good meal prep option. 

And whatever you call them, there seems to be one other point of contention: how much they serve. Ordinarily I quibble with the number of servings in a recipe in the other direction: that they're way too stingy, but the original specified serving amount in these recipes were off wildly in the other direction from my perspective. If you tried to pile on that much meat it would immediately squelch out when you pick it up and result in a soggy sandwich that instantly loses integrity. Dave remembers being served the same quantity per bun as I do, so perhaps it was a Midwestern church basement standard serving size we were used to. It was farm country, so it's not like people were always trying to stretch the meat since that was one thing for which you didn't have to pay retail. I don't know how to account for that disconnect, but it was consistent across all the recipes.

Three apps I'm apt to make again

 

I'm always in the market for fresh appetizer options to stave off food boredom, but some bear repeating. Here are three likely suspects I tried recently.

Cucumber rounds with roasted red pepper hummus and Boursin

Adapted from Fine Cooking's Weekend Cooking 2006. The section was labeled "when you need to bring the hors d'oevre," and I did, so I did. It called for making a more basic hummus, but I thought the red pepper would make it more colorful. It called for a small dollop of plain yogurt on top of the hummus, but I worried a bit about it staying put on a day when we were invited to a porch gathering while there was a heat advisory in play, so I went with the cheese instead. The original recipe says it makes 40 or so. I just stopped slicing once I'd filled up the size tray I wanted to.

Ingredients

1 large seedless cucumber 
Roasted red pepper hummus (purchased, or see recipe below)
Boursin cheese
Toasted white sesame seeds or black

Method

Slice the ends off the cucumber, then use a fork to score the outside of the cucumber vertically to make ridges. (Alternatively, the original recipe called for using a peeler at ¼-inch intervals to create a vertical striped pattern, but I really doubted I would pull that off.) Slice ¼-inch thick horizontally and place on serving dish. Salt very lightly. Top with a teaspoon of hummus and then a small ball of cheese or dollop of yogurt. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds.

Rating: Dave said they looked like the summer version of Christmas cookies. These were just as cute as could be, and just fine for a really hot day when you don't want to heat up the kitchen. My nit: I didn't find a large enough cucumber at the market so these were really small. That makes them both a tad harder for people to pick up as finger food and also meant those Boursin cheese balls on the top had to be super tiny, which was a bit of a logistical feat. Also, being that small made it hard to get very much of the roasted red pepper hummus on top, so that flavor was a little more muted than I would have liked, because that recipe is the bomb. I've purchased a variety of prepared roasted red pepper hummus from stores, but this was awesome. Definitely would make that part again.

Roasted red pepper hummus

Adapted very slightly from immigrantstable.com. The only change was swapping out the lemon juice for lime.

Ingredients

1 15-ounce can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
3 roasted red peppers
¼ cup tahini
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon smoked paprika
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
Salt and pepper to taste

Combine chickpeas, roasted peppers, tahini, olive oil, lime juice, cumin, paprika and cayenne in a food processor or blender until very smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and adjust thickness with additional olive oil if you need a less thick mixture.

Rating: Really nicely balanced spice. Definite keeper.

Creamy cilantro sauce (or dip, or spread)

Adapted from Bon Appetit, Summer 2006. This sauce was part of a recipe that called for putting it over tofu that had been marinated and grilled, an adaptation of a Peruvian chicken recipe. It called for a serrano chile but I didn't have one on hand, so it would be much hotter with that swap. And it called for half an avocado and adding ¼ cup of water, which would make it a runnier sauce.

Ingredients

1 bunch of cilantro, bottom stems removed
6 scallions, cut into 2-inch pieces
1 pitted, peeled avocado
1 jalapeño chile
¼ cup fresh lime juice
¼ cup mayonnaise
½ teaspoon ground cumin

Method
Combine all ingredients in a food processor until mostly smooth. Cover and chill until ready to serve.

Rating: We first served this over baked chicken, and it was a delight. Then we used it as a spread for a club sandwich and for BLTs, and it was heaven. Great on fish tacos. We made another batch to serve as a chip dip, and it was dandy there too. Super fast to make, and if you cover it well it retains its color when made ahead. An absolute keeper.

Smoked salmon and caper spread

From "Wine Bites" by Barbara Scott-Goodman. The book is subtitled "Simple morsels that pair perfectly with wine" and it's filled with lots of likely looking recipes. I can attest that in this case, the morsel also paired perfectly with gin and tonics.

Ingredients

1 8-ounce container cream cheese, softened a bit
4 ounces smoked salmon, divided
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon drained capers
Dash of hot pepper sauce
Grated black pepper
Sliced red onion, sliced tomatoes and bread for serving

Method
Combine cream cheese, ¾ of the smoked salmon, parsley, lemon juice, milk, capers and hot pepper sauce in a food processor and process until smooth. Mix in remaining salmon and black pepper. Serve as a spread for toasted bread or crackers. Top with red onions and sliced tomatoes if desired. Spread can be made ahead; bring to room temperature before serving so it's spreadable.

Rating: Not bad. I might like to add dill and/or lemon zest if I make it again, and I might well, because it's just so fast to make and doesn't heat up the kitchen. I just served it with gluten-free crackers rather than the bread route to accommodate dietary considerations, but if serving on bread I think some pickled red onions as a topper would be dandy. At any rate, our hosts' cat was pretty darn sure this dip was worth exploring and had to be continually dissuaded, so the salmon clearly comes through.

Leftover notes: This also worked well as a sandwich filling along with cucumber slices, tomatoes and lettuce.