Spicy Sloppy Joes

I remember having sloppy joes a few times as a kid. I'm pretty sure my mom just bought the manwich stuff. I don't think she liked it too much so that's probably why it wasn't a staple in my diet when I was young. Anyway, I decided to make homemade sloppy joes for dinner last night. Get some ground meat (I say meat because you can use pork, beef, turkey or chicken), onion, celery, green pepper, garlic, tomato sauce, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and some red pepper flakes if you want to try this out.

Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Take about 3/4 cup of chopped onion, 1/2 cup of green pepper, one stalk of celery (chopped), and 3 cloves of garlic (finely chopped) and add them to the oil. Cook them for about 7 minutes or until soft.

Now add the ground meat. One pound should do but the grocery store rarely has just a pound so I just throw in the whole thing. Mix everything up really good and continue cooking the mixture until the ground beef is no longer pink. Drain the mixture and put it back on the heat. Add 1 can of tomato sauce, about 1/4 cup of ketchup, a tablespoon or two of Worcestershire sauce, and some crushed red pepper flakes. I added about one tablespoon and that heated things up a bit.

By now, your concoction should look like this. I know, it's not pretty but it's called sloppy joe. Did you really expect any different?

I had about 15 minutes before Kim got home for dinner so I dropped the heat to low and just let it simmer until she arrived. Sloppy joe can really turn a bun soggy in a heartbeat so I decided to toast our potato rolls in the toaster oven for a few minutes. Spoon your sloppy joe onto the toasted buns, sprinkle with cheese if you like, and serve. We were actually out of shredded cheese. I was a little bummed out by that but I do the shopping so I can really only blame myself. 

This stuff makes great leftovers and you can do a lot with it. I'm sure at some point, I'll heat some up with a little cheese on top and use it as a dip for tortilla chips or fritos.