Hairnets not required.

School cafeteria food brings up love/hate memories for almost everyone. On the hate side there were the overcooked vegetables, the gluey macaroni and the rock-hard rolls. Even some of the better choices became loathsome after closer inspection.

My middle school cafeteria was never the same after a knowing girl in Jordache jeans informed us forebodingly : “Never look under the pizza.” We all, of course, simultaneously lifted the crust on our breadtangles and were never the same. I’ll pass on the wisdom: never look under a school cafeteria pizza. Seriously.

Other incidents included a snail shell found in the green beans, the daily disgust I felt at a girl who would only eat the outside of dill pickles (leaving the chewed pickle innards on her plate), and the uproar caused when a friend broke her tooth on –only in a school cafeteria– a french fry.

But then there’s the love side. One of my favorite kindergarten memories occurred when we collectively baked a gingerbread man (our classroom had an actual oven as the building was about a million years old). The gingerbread man “ran away” and we embarked on a cleverly organized tour of the school to find him (he turned up in the principal’s desk.)

"Okay Mr. Matthews, now when you find me, act really surprised."

The highlight of that supposedly impromptu tour was the school cafeteria. I still remember the weird feeling I got as a five-year-old walking into the cafeteria when it wasn’t lunchtime, all quiet and still. But, shockingly, the area behind the food line was a flurry of activity as we questioned the cashier about our runaway cookie. It was the first time it occurred to me that the food didn’t just magically appear.

And some of the food was actually good. Once we discovered the horrors on the underside of the pizza, the Sloppy Joe became the favorite (closely followed by tacos, which are hard to screw up). The Sloppy Joe isn’t pretty, but it’s a classic comfort food, with the tangy sauce leaking onto the soft white bun.

This slow cooker version is a Sloppy Faux, as it uses vegetarian meat crumbles instead of ground beef, and nixes the ketchup base called for in most recipes (ketchup is loaded with sugar). The result is an extremely low fat and low calorie sandwich that you can upscale as much as you like by choosing whole wheat bakery-quality buns, ciabattas, or seeded rolls. If you use white, cafeteria-style burger buns, I won’t tell.

Each serving of the slow cooker Sloppy Faux has only about 100 calories (per 1/2 cup serving/6 servings) or 150 calories per larger 3/4 cup serving (4 servings).

Slow Cooker Sloppy Faux Recipe

Ingredients:

1 12 oz. bag of vegetarian burger-style crumbles (like Morningstar Farms)
1/2 cup green or red bell peppers, chopped
1/2 cup red onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
2 cups crushed Italian-style tomatoes (14.5 oz can)
1 cup tomato sauce (8 oz can)
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp paprika
Black pepper to taste
4-6 sandwich buns

Directions: Combine ingredients in the crock of your slow cooker. Cook on high for 1 hour or low for 2 hours. Can be left on low for a few more hours if necessary,or on warm for several hours. Serve over split sandwich buns with pickles and appropriate school lunch-style sides (cole slaw, baked beans, mac and cheese) or with chips. Serves 4-6.

Tips: If you’d like a zestier Sloppy Faux, start with sausage-style vegetarian crumbles and add a chopped hot pepper to the mix.

And don’t forget to return your trays.