Thinking on the fly yesterday, I cleverly used my roasted garlic & red pepper pasta sauce as the tomato base for sloppy joes. Pretty ingenious, yes? Ok, well, maybe not if you're a culinary whiz kid. For me, that's pretty clever. Sloppy joes are a fairly infrequent meal, mostly because Brett and Bryce don't really like them, but also because I ended up slicing off the end of my finger 5 years ago making sloppy joes.
That little bit o'fun resulted in 10 stitches and a hugely bandaged middle finger (pretty fun to have a hugely bandaged middle finger when you teach high schoolers!!!!!). So every.single.time. I dice up onions for sloppy joes, I think about how my kitchen looked like an episode of CSI. Actually, the house looked like an episode of CSI, because I was making dinner in my "wear only in the house" clothes, and I had to go change upstairs to go to Urgent Care. I mean, while I wasn't hit by a bus and I was wearing clean underwear, I did need to at least put on some jeans to get stitched up, right? Brad found blood droplets traipsed all through the house.
Wow, did that take a tangent! Anyhow, I'm pleased to report that using the canned roasted garlic & red pepper pasta sauce resulted in YUMMY sloppy joes. The kids actually ate it; well, Brett now likes sloppy joes, Bryce the naysayer refused to eat them. He went hungry last night.
This is the Rachael Ray recipe that is the basis for these sloppy joes. I'll note my changes below.
- 4 strips of bacon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 2 celery ribs, finely chopped
- 1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
- 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
- 3/4 cup ketchup
- 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
- Salt and freshly ground pepper
In a large skillet, cook the bacon over medium heat for 5 minutes. add the onion, celery, bell pepper and garlic and cook until the vegetables are softened, about 7 minutes; push to the side of the skillet. Increase the heat to high, add the ground beef and cook, stirring to break up any clumps, until cooked through, about 7 minutes. Stir in the ketchup and Worcestershire sauce and cook until thickened, about 5 minutes more. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve on the toasted buns.
My changes: 1 pint of roasted garlic & red pepper pasta sauce in lieu of ketchup, dash of Worcestershire sauce, 6 strips of bacon (because honestly, using 4 strips is just a tease!), no garlic (Bryce is allergic!), 3 celery ribs instead of 4.
Love your slice & dice story! These things always happen when your not dressed or in the middle of something important....for me, Thanksgiving Dinner with 20 guests!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, your Sloppy Joe recipe sounds yummy! I have never added bacon...but, I think I will next time I make them!
Thanks for sharing and joining in!
Bacon makes everything better! lol
DeleteAs Robin said, love your slice and dice story.
ReplyDeleteYour recipe sounds good. I love sloppy joes and haven't made them in a while.
After hearing about your epidode of Chopping , I don't feel so bad about my woes with a grater. The recipe looks fantastic---minus fingers!
ReplyDeleteYour slice and dice story reminds me of your Grandpa Dunn showing your Dad a "neat trick" on Easter Sunday! I think you were 3 or 4. Grandpa was using a circular table saw (I think) and sliced off the end of his finger. Your Dad took him to Prividence.
ReplyDeleteThen there was the time in Berkeley when "we" were trimming the huge tree in the backyard. Grandpa tied a rope to a brick, then swung the brick over a limb to pull it down but - you guessed it - he forgot to duck! The brick hit him right between the eyes! There was a trail of blood from the back porch, through the kitchen, into the dining room (stopping at the mirror in each room) then on to the sittin room, front hall, finally stopping in his workroom where he then applied pressure. Once again your Dad took him to the ER (Morgan County War Memorial Hosp). And Grandma and I cleaned up all the blood!