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!

Slow Cookers

People — I have a deep and abiding affection for crock pots.  When I was working a job outside of the home, my slow cooker made it possible to come home and have dinner on the table for the whole family at a decent time.  The thing about these babies though is that you have to be really organized.  And I mean really organized.  Like, if I was going to have roast chicken for dinner on Tuesday, that would mean that Monday night before I went to bed, I’d cut up the carrots, potatoes & onions, cover them with water and leave them in the fridge overnight.  In the morning before I left for work, it would all get thrown in the slow cooker, set to low, and put my timer on for 10 hours.  It’s nice to come home to dinner all ready cooked, but it is a shift to be planning for tomorrow’s dinner today.

Let me reiterate: I love my crock pot.  It is totally worth the pre-planning in my opinion.

There are a lot of great crock pot recipes out there and some of my favourites came from http://www.crock-pot.ca/recipecategorygroup/main-dishes.aspx.  If you check under vegetarian dishes, you’ll see a great recipe for black bean stuffed peppers.  It is amazing.

I’m going to create a new category for slow cookers, and I’ll start posting my favourite recipes too.  I’ve been told – although must confess to never having tried – that you can make great lasagnes or any other baked pasta in a crock pot.  Do you have a favourite recipe you’d like to share?  I’d love to hear from you!

Chat soon,
m