Crockpot sloppy lentils (a.k.a. vegetarian sloppy joes)

I don't know if you saw this article on the fact that 70% of supermarket ground beef contains pink slime; pink slime being ammonia-treated sludge, which takes otherwise unusable cow parts and renders them sort of edible. If you count washing things in bleach as making them edible.

Findings like this are why I don't buy supermarket ground beef anymore--that, and it doesn't taste very good.

That means I don't eat a lot of ground beef, which is fine with me. If you choose to cut back on your ground beef intake, there are plenty of substitutions--the obvious, like ground turkey and ground pork, and the less obvious, like this vegetarian version of sloppy joes made with lentils.

Even better, it's made in a crockpot.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 1/2 cups lentils
1 14.5 oz can tomatoes with juice
3 cups water or broth
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon mustard
1 tablespoon brown sugar

Saute the onion and pepper in the olive oil in a skillet until soft. Add the chili powder, stir to coat, and transfer the mixture to a crockpot. Add the rest, cover and cook on low for 6-8  hours. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve on hamburger buns, maybe with cole slaw.