Sloppy Joes and Childhood References...

When I think of sloppy joes I think of two things. One, the camp cafeteria scene in It Takes Two (yes, the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen movie) where the sheltered wealthy girl tries sloppy joes for the first time and is so overwhelmed by the deliciousness that she ends up scarfing the food and wearing sauce all over her face. The other thing I remember? That every time I ate a sloppy joe as a kid, I could never get quite that into the sandwich. I liked sloppy joes, but was not crazy about them. At least, not crazy about them like Alyssa Callaway was. For those of you who are completely lost by this reference, get yourself up to speed at 1:25:

See, I try and give you insight into what motivated me to make a recipe or what I wanted to accomplish with it and instead, I just let you in on the (not-so-secret) secret that I’m totally a child of Full House era and grew up digging Mary-Kate and Ashley like it was my job. Hey, it could have been worse. I could have totally adored Lindsay Lohan.

Back to the sandwiches.

My point is, I found a sloppy joe totally worthy of face stuffing. In fact, I found it hard to not have a face (and hands!) covered in gooey red sauce  and chunks of meat and veggies when I was plowing my way through not one, but two of these puppies last week for dinner. This is not your elementary school sloppy joe. The things I love most about how it turned out was how creamy the sauce was, thanks to the condensed soup and how much texture and flavor was added just by putting in additional veggies. I nearly pureed the onion and pepper by accident the first time I made these which made me realize you could purposely blend up the vegetables to make them undetectable to any picky eaters that may dine under your roof.

Now that the weather is really starting to feel like fall, whip up a batch of these for dinner on a chilly night. Much faster than letting a soup simmer for hours, but still a completely warm and comforting meal.

Sloppy Joes

35 minutes

Serves 4

Adapted from Foodie Crush

Ingredients: 

• 1 onion
• 2 bell peppers
• 1 lb. ground beef           
• 4 ribs celery, diced
• 1 can condensed tomato soup
• ½ tsp. garlic powder
• ½  tsp. salt
• ¼ tsp. chili powder 

1. Quarter the onion and bell peppers and place into a food processor, pulse until the onion and pepper are in small pieces, but not liquefied.
2. In a large skillet over medium heat, begin cooking the ground beef. Cook, for five minutes, then stir in the diced bell peppers, onion and celery.
3. Continue to cook for an additional five minutes, or until the onions have just become translucent.
4. Stir in the tomato soup, garlic powder, salt and chili powder. Reduce the heat to medium low and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.