Cheap and Fast - Sloppy Joes

Not everything has to be fancy, or require hours of work and hard-to-find ingredients. Cooks in the 1970's knew this; you can tell by all the things they put in Jello. There are a lot of recipes that I make because my mum made them, and they're either comfort food or easy or delicious or just plain remind me of home. Sloppy Joes are all those things. The ingredients and steps are simple, and they're ready in like 20 minutes. My kid loves them because hello, ketchup. Or, according to this recipe, 'catsup'.

If I was feeling adventurous I'd probably toast and lightly butter the buns, but we've always just pulled the cheapest no-name white burger buns out of the bag and tossed 'em cold on a plate. We eat them open-faced, because we're not weirdos. This is a good recipe if you're starting to cook with children; this, and tacos, and homemade hamburger helper, all fall into that 'hey, stand and stir this' category that they love. I started cooking as early as I had patience for with my daughter, and at 10 years old she's got a decent list under her belt. More than most guys I've dated.

I'm not going to rage about meat quality and organics because, let's face it, I'm cheap, but for something like this where you're really going to taste the ground beef you should be buying something decent. Skip the Walmart brand and at least do Costco or Sam's Club. I try to score meat and eggs from local farmers whenever I can; it really does make a difference.


Most of my cooking isn't inventing anything new, it's just finding a good base and improving on it. This recipe is from the old Canadian Mary Moore cookbook, circa 1978. Luckily my mom found me an exact copy of hers, because there are about a dozen recipes in it that I can't live without. It does have a really super weird indexing system though; I can never find this recipe under Meat, Hamburg because it's under Sandwiches.

For the most part I follow the recipe above; this, and homemade BBQ sauce, and maybe 1-2 other things are the only reasons I keep Worcestershire Sauce in the house. I probably go through one bottle every 20 years. Good thing that stuff lasts. I don't like cheese on mine, but the kid does. We don't do that whole 25-minute bake thing though, mama ain't got time for that. She uses shredded mixed Cheddar and microwaves it til melty. I go back and forth on using fresh minced onion and onion flakes; the kid hates onions so she's going to be annoyed no matter what. This time I used flakes, so I added them upfront with the meat. I also like to add a little bit of white vinegar, maybe 1 Tablespoon.

Now, you're going to slowly start to think that this whole blog is nothing but an excuse for me to sell you Pampered Chef, because the PC tools are going to start coming out and I'm going to gush and stammer about how much I love them, and YOU JUST HAVE TO DEAL WITH IT. Because I really do love a lot of their products. They hold up well, you can put them in the dishwasher (even their bamboo spoons!), and they're just plain functional. If, like me, you always forget to thaw your ground beef, you can throw a hunk of solid meat in the pan and start pounding away with this handy thing, and you'll have no issues.

I like to serve frozen petit green peas more than I probably should; it's one of the few green vegetables my darling daughter will deign to devour, and again, easy. I use the PC micro steamer weekly, if not daily, and just three minutes in the microwave with a little water gives me non-soggy, non-grey gorgeous peas.

With this meal I also serve applesauce, because it just seems like the right '70's thing to do. If you don't have any homemade, the good ol' unsweetened cups or jars will do, just add a little decent quality cinnamon. And there you go! 20 minutes, I swear!