Guest Post: Hey Aunt Lois, This isn't a Barbeque!

We grew up as Iowa girls in the 70s and 80s, the era of church cookbooks comprised of recipes submitted by church-going ladies. The recipes had been tested and passed around at countless potlucks,  funerals, sometimes weddings, church picnics, and/or at bridge club—so if you see a recipe in print in a church cookbook, you know it’s there because people told the submitter it was good. Probably really good.

Side note: I love to read the names of people who submit recipes to church cookbooks. There’s at least one or two women named Lois in almost all of them! I’ve tested this theory when browsing cookbooks at garage sales.

Cousin Kathy and her brother and sister lived in the country on a farm outside a tiny little town in Northwest Iowa—a world so different from ours! We were the “city slickers,” because we lived just outside of Des Moines. The city slickers thing should amuse my Chicago friends.

We visited the farm several times, especially after Grandma and Grandpa moved north. The whole family would gather during the holidays. And oh how fun! Endless games of Spoons, Wahoo, Gin, Pool… twelve cousins in all, plus our parents and aunts and uncles and our grandparents. And guess what? Our family is not known for having dainty appetites. So after the Christmas dinner had been devoured, thoughts turned to how the womenfolk would feed twenty-two mouths the next day. Enter the barbeque, as in, “Lois is going to make barbeques!”
 
Now, I was just city-slicker enough to have a preconceived idea of what barbeque was. Um, like barbequed pork or something, or chicken legs slathered in sauce. I also watched Julia Child and The Frugal Gourmet like most children watched cartoons. So I suppose this was my earliest display of food snobbery. I knew what these were. These were not barbeques.  These were SLOPPY JOES!
 
But even the most pretentious little food snob had to admit: Aunt Lois could make a heck of a Sloppy Joe. 

Barbeque.

Whatever. Delicious!

My recipes here are an homage to Aunt Lois and are brought to you by a nostalgia for the Wissink family Christmases. I’ve gone a little rogue—city slicker, if you will. I’m pretty good at sneaking plants into my dishes, so I suppose this could even be a nod to food from the earth—the farm—even though my farm grows alongside the fence in my tiny yard in the city. I tested this meal on a houseful of hungry teenagers (we recruited a couple of extra for quality control) so you really can feed a crowd on this one.  I hope Aunt Lois approves! 

Not Your Aunt Lois’ Barbeques on Garlic Toast Boats and Iceberg Salad with Creamy Cucumber Dressing
Makes 8 servings

Iceberg Salad with Creamy Cucumber Dressing
Make this first but assemble it right before serving. You want everything to be nice and cold.
Dressing
½ of a large cucumber, cut into chunks (not peeled)
½ c. sour cream
2 T. mayonnaise
1 T. lemon juice
1 t. garlic powder
1 t. dried onion flakes
Pinch each of salt and pepper
A few drops of your favorite hot sauce
Directions: Run it all through a food processor or blender and chill.
Salad
½ head of iceberg lettuce, rough-chopped
3 c. fresh spinach leaves
8 oz. grape or cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered depending on size

The Barbeque
1 pound ground beef
1 c. finely diced pepper (have fun—choose your favorites and mix and match, even banana pepper or a jalapeno if I have one)
1 small onion, finely diced
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1 pound tomatoes, run through the food processor or blender (You could use a can of whole peeled tomatoes with their liquid too, or even a can of tomato puree. Just make sure there’s no salt added.)
2 T. tomato paste
¼ c. brown sugar
2 T. Worcestershire sauce
2 T. yellow mustard
1 T. balsamic vinegar
Hot sauce to taste
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 c. dry lentils
1 c. water
8 slices good American cheese from the deli (optional, and not traditional, but so fantastic on these sandwiches)
Garlic toast boats (see below)
Directions: Brown the ground beef, then add the peppers, onions and garlic and stir and cook for a couple more minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients except for the cheese and garlic toast and stir well. Bring it to a boil, reduce heat to simmer and cover. Cook until lentils are almost done—about 15 minutes. Remove the cover and simmer until it thickens up and lentils are fully cooked. Psssst… don’t tell anyone about the lentils. They won’t know. They have a texture that’s very similar to browned ground beef, so it’s quite easy to stretch your recipe and get a little fiber in it too.

Garlic Toast Boats
1 pound French loaf—a big long one if you can find it
½ stick butter
1 large garlic clove, minced
Directions: Preheat the broiler. Slice the bread in half lengthwise, then into 8 equal segments. Remove some of the bread and save it for crumbs for another time. (You really need a hollow spot to hold the barbeque goodness in!) Lay them cut side up on a cookie sheet. Melt the butter and the garlic together in the microwave, then brush it on the bread. (Fun for little ones!) Broil just until they start to toast.

Assembly
Toss the dressing with the salad—really the best way to serve it instead of pouring the dressing on top. It’s so fresh-tasting! Divide the meat mixture among the bottom halves of the bread portions, and top with a slice of American cheese (and then spoon a little more barbeque on top. Put the top of the bread on immediately so the cheese gets a little melty. 

>>>Guest poster is my cousin Kim Welsh, who lives in the Chicago area and creates many of her own recipes.  She is the busy working Mom of 3, including two teenagers and one pre-schooler.