I love Fall. It is my favorite season. I always think of Back to School time as the real New Year’s Day. We get to start all over again. It is a new school year with new teachers, new clothes and a hopeful feeling for a great year. It transfers over to our house too. We are organizing drawers and closets. Summer clothes are starting to go into storage and fall and winter clothes will be replacing them. More hoodies and jeans, less shorts and tank tops. As I was having my morning cup of coffee I sorted and organized two drawers that were next to me. It took less than 10 minutes and our menu/coupon drawer and the gaming drawer were clean. I always love the feeling of renewal at this time of year.

This vegetarian thing with my son is going okay. After about a month I am done freaking out about what we are going to eat. We are eating far too many carbohydrates but I am hoping to find a fix for that. Everything seems to have bread, rice, pasta or potatoes. I need to find filling foods that they kids will eat. They did like the quinoa but even that can get old quickly. Brown rice will be a fight so I will try to start mixing it in slowly so they don’t notice. At least they both love sweet potatoes and beans.

Anyway, I am still trying to make changes that we can all live with. As we were making corn bread for dinner tonight it was suggested that we all just eat the gluten-free corn bread rather than making a second one for everyone else. My daughter put her foot down on that one. It was pretty much, “I didn’t make this choice and I am going along with giving up meat for the most part I am not going gluten-free too.” So, we made the second gluten-filled corn bread.

Verdict:

As we were eating dinner I made a comment about the Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP) in the dish. My son looked at me and said, “I forgot I wasn’t eating real meat.” That tells you what kind of meal it was. Both kids thought the texture of the dish was good and thought the corn bread was amazing.

The great part of this dish is that it can be easily made with either beef or TVP. No one missed the meat in this dish. We had enough leftovers for one serving the next day for lunch.

Using gluten-free corn bread with gluten-free ingredients such as soy will make this dish gluten-free.

I served this meal with a green side salad and a side of broccoli.

Ingredients:

Corn Bread:

• 2 boxes of Jiffy Corn Mix
• 1 (16 oz) can corn
• 1 (16 oz) can creamed corn
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup of butter

Vegetarian Sloppy Joes:

• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Tablespoon Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
• 2 (12 oz.) packages of Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP) if frozen thawed
• 16 ounces tomato sauce
• 1 cup ketchup
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 2 teaspoon prepared mustard
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. Mix together all ingredients for Corn Bread until well mixed.  Pour into a greased 9 x 13 baking pan that has been prepared with non-stick spray. Bake for 20-30 minutes at 350 degrees  until center of corn bread is done.
2. Set a large pot over medium-low heat. Add a tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil, and saute the garlic for a minute or two until just fragrant and very light golden brown. Add TVP breaking apart and stirring as it warms.
3. Stir tomato sauce, ketchup, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, garlic powder, onion powder, and freshly ground black pepper, to taste, into pan until well combined.
4. Heat through and adjust spices to taste. Serve over hot corn bread.