Sloppy Joes

This weekend was a whirlwind. We hosted a small birthday gathering at our house on Saturday that went well past dinner time with friends and family staying for dinner(party blog w/crazy cake pictures to come later this week!). Sunday brought a friend's birthday party and found us out of the house for most of the day. When we finally got home, I wanted nothing more than some easy comfort food. I almost gave in and ordered out - much easier, of course, but I also craved some home cooking, so the task was set to find something that would be soul-satisfying and relatively simple.

And then, all it once...it came to me: Sloppy Joes!

There is no way I could write a post about Sloppy Joes without a nod to Adam Sandler.

In fact, I'm pretty sure I hummed this song the entire time I was in the kitchen last night, and may have even broken out into song during the chorus a time or two. So, crank up your volume, grab some ground beef and lets make some slop...Sloppy Joes! This is my own recipe - one I've perfected over the years, and it really is pretty darn simple. 

1. Brown a pound of ground beef. This is a great recipe to use up all the ground beef we get in our meat share. 

The package of beef was actually almost 1.5lbs (I adjusted the sauce accordingly)

2. While your beef cooks up, prep your veggies: 2 cloves of garlic, 1 red pepper, 1 med onion and 1 stalk of celery.

3. You can also use this time to gather the ingredients for your sloppy sauce.

Red Wine vinegar (regular white vinegar works in a pinch), Worcestershire sauce, tomato sauce, ketchup & brown sugar

4. After the beef has fully browned, add all the veggies and cook until they soften, about five minutes or so. The best part of this is that you don't need any oil, as the veggies cook in the fat from the beef. Then add all the rest of your ingredients to make the sauce.

For the sauce: Add 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce, 1 tablespoon vinegar, 1 15oz can tomato sauce, 1/4 cup of ketchup and some brown sugar (to taste).

I hate when recipes say "some" or "to taste," so included a picture of how much brown sugar I used. About...that much.

5. Mix it all up and let it cook on low for 15 minutes or so. The longer you cook, the better it will be. Grab a bunch of kaiser or bulky rolls (don't toast them!) and fill them up with Sloppy Joe goodness.

nom.

We ate our Sloppy Joes with a side of potato chips and some leftover caramelized onion dip.

double nom.

In the end, the meal was perfect, albeit a bit...well, sloppy. But, so, so worth it.

Tonight, we have potluck, and after cooking all weekend, I'm a bit burnt out, but well still be attending for sure. Instead of whipping up an actual dish, however, we'll take a slight pass and bring a bunch of tasty appetizers. We still have some onion dip (which really just gets better with each passing day), cheese and crackers and the most kitchen prep work that we'll get done is preparing some guacamole to go along with some chips. A lazy woman's potluck dish, if you will.

Happy Monday!