A Little Comfort

I have been going on a cooking binge lately (i have some spare time these days) and one of my favorite dishes i've made is Sloppy Joes. These aren't your avg. Joes (the kind i once attempted to make in college but tasted more like hamburger helper gone bad) these. are. AMAZING! And as it turns out, they are very versatile. You can use the meat for stuffing empanadas, tacos, or pasta sauce. And the longer this sits in your fridge, the better it tastes! Four straight meals of sloppy joes and i was still wishing i had made more. Here is the recipe (William-Sonoma Comfort Foods cookbook), with a few modifications:

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbs. canola oil
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 1 celery stalk, diced
• 1/4 cup finely diced green (i used red) bell pepper
• 1 1/2 lb. ground beef (i use 85% lean ground beef, grass fed when possible)
• 1 cup tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup ketchup-style chili sauce (i used 1/2 cup of ketchup and 1 tbs of chili powder)
• 1 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce
• 1 Tbs. Dijon mustard
• 1 Tbs. cider vinegar
• 1 Tbs. firmly packed light brown sugar
• 1 tsp. kosher salt (i used sea salt from Trader Joes)
• 1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper (regular pepper will work fine)
• 6 sesame-seed sandwich buns, split

Directions:

In a large fry pan over medium heat, warm the oil. Add the onion, celery and bell pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion softens, about 5 minutes. Add the beef, increase the heat to medium-high and cook, stirring and breaking up the beef with a wooden spoon, until it is no longer pink, about 10 minutes. Stir in 1/4 cup water (i didn't add water), the tomato sauce, chili sauce, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring frequently, for about 20 minutes to blend the flavors. 

**for the directions, i chose to cook my joes in a cast iron casserole. I wanted to slow cook the meat for more flavor. I let the meat cook in low heat for about 1 1/2 hrs. 

Toast the buns. Place the bottom halves of the buns, cut side up, on warmed individual plates and top with the beef mixture, dividing it equally. Cover with the bun tops and serve immediately. Makes 6 sandwiches.

Variation: As you can see from the pictures, i also added a can of black beans. I drained them and pour them in along with the tomato sauce. They weren't overcooked and it added a nice texture to the sauce.

Needless to say, my boyfriend loved these! We ate them with an arugula and avocado salad with a balsamic vinaigrette dressing and sparkling lemonade from Trader Joe's. Perfect meal to get us thru the rest of the work week. And these make a great bag lunch too! Just store the toasted buns in a zip lock bag and the meat in a tupperware container and put together when you are ready to eat.