Sloppy Joes

I’m sure you’re looking at this recipe title and rolling your eyes.  I know, I know…  “Sloppy Joes,” you’re thinking?  “That’s kid stuff!  I grew up on that!  I want real food, Michelle.”  Well, dear Reader, I hear you.  I do!  When I saw this recipe in Weight Watchers Momentum cookbook, I thought, “Meh.  At least I have all the ingredients on hand…”

And then I made it, and the whole scene changed.

It’s a slow cooker recipe (and you know how I love my slow cooker) and while it gently simmered away, the house was filled with delicious smells.  In fact, it smelled so tasty that I had to check to make sure it looked right, ’cause these ‘joes didn’t smell like what they served me at Girl Guide camp!  And when I served them up, no one – and I mean no one – spoke until their plates were empty.  Sam was 17-months-old when I first made these, so you can imagine the challenge of making a healthy meal that tastes as good to the adults as it does to the kids (Victoria — I do feel your pain, I swear!).  I made these again last night and now I need to share this with you.  Here’s what you need:

Ingredients
1 lb lbean ground Beef
1 small onion
3 ribs celery
1 3/4 cup diced tomatoes and their juice (I use 1/2 a can of Unico diced tomatoes and freeze the other half for the next time we make this recipe)
3 tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp worcestershire sauce
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp chili powder

Method

1. Spray a frying pan with non-stick spray, or better yet – use a non-stick frying pan – to brown the ground beef.
2. While the beef is cooking, finely dice your onion.  Next, take a vegetable peeler and peel off the outside stringy parts of the celery.  Finely dice the celery too, and set them both aside.
3. In your slow cooker, combine the tomatoes, brown sugar, worcestershire sauce, chili powder and cumin.  Add in the diced onion and celery and stir again.
4. By now, your ground beef should be browned enough.  Drain the meat and add it to the slow cooker.  Stir everything up, put the lid on and set the timer to 4 hours on high or 6 hours on low.  Serve on buns, with a side salad if you like.

Now, in my house, celery is a Forbidden Food.  There are very few things my husband will not eat.  In fact, celery is really the only thing.  He hates the smell of it, and even moreso, he hates the taste of it.  So when I make this recipe I just omit the celery.  Next time though I think I might grate a zuchini just to increase the vegetable count.

Enjoy!

Okay so I love this post: http://playgroundconfidential.com/2010/02/18/top-five-one-handed-meals/

A very dear friend – who also happens to be family – has a blog.  She writes about parenting, and life as she sees it through the eyes of a Mother.  It is a great read.  Good laughs, good commiserating (because she writes about the stuff we all do but don’t want to talk about), overall a highlight in my day.

This morning when I logged onto her site though, her post was about cooking!  And then I was reading and loving it…  so I share it with you.  You’ll love it too, I bet.

m