Sloppy Moes

This is a sloppy joe sandwich. I don't know much about the rest of America, but if you grew up in the south THIS is a classic meal! I remember eating it most at my grandparents' houses. It is yummy!

Well, that was way back in my younger years. I had all but forgotten about sloppy joes until early on in our marriage when I brought home a few packs of the seasoning from America and it became a big hit with first my husband, then his parents, and then his parents' whole church! We made it for lunch one Sunday for everyone in the church and they were all raving about it! Many of them took it home as left overs and came back the next Sunday raving about how awesome it is over rice!!! LOL!

I had no idea how to make it from scratch, and wouldn't have had a clue where to start without those seasoning packets. Then one evening many months ago when I was making my dry curry recipe, I decided to toss in a can of tomato sauce. I tasted the recipe BEFORE adding the curry and it was DEVINE! It was identical to what I remember a sloppy joe tasting like. So my home made version of sloppy joe was born. However, I call it "sloppy moe", because it is a sloppy joe with a whole lot "moe" in it! That is, more vegetables! I try to get veggies in my kiddos anyway I can!!!

Let's get cooking! You will need...

300 grams ground pork or beef (about 1/2 pound) I used pork this evening

2 cloves garlic

1 large onion, diced

2 large carrots, diced

6~8 bell peppers, diced (yields about 2 cups)

2 cans of diced tomato (400 grams or 14 oz)

1 Tbsp oil

1/3 cup worcestershire sauce

2 cubes of buillon

1 Tbsp of soy sauce (not pictured)

salt and pepper to taste

Take your two cloves of garlic and remove the peel

Then finely chop that up and set it aside for later!

Now we are going to dice the bell pepper just like we did in my dry curry recipe.

Slice them right down the middle

Pull out that spine, seeds and the stem on top leaving as much of the bell pepper as possible.

Slice it into long sticks like this, a.k.a. julienne it!

Then rotate it 90 degrees and chop away!

place all that aside in a bowl and lets shed some tears dice an onion.

We've done this several times recently in my recipes. Lop off the top, peel the outside and cut it in half down the middle (root to stem). Lay it on its side, then cut from root to top making narrow slices all the way across the onion leaving the root in tact.

Now rotate that onion 90 degrees and slice again for a nicely diced onion!

place all that diced onion aside in a bowl and lets move on to the carrot.

I like to make several slices down the length of the carrot this way.

Then roll the carrot on it's side so the slices you just made are now laying horizontally. Then cut again in the same away, along the length of the carrot.

This is what you should now have...

Now if we chop across the slices we just made, you magically get some nicely diced carrot.

repeat that process all the way up the stem of both carrots

Now we are ready to begin cooking!

Place a frying pan over low heat with about a Tbsp of oil.

Pour the garlic in and allow it to slowly warm until the oil begins to sizzle.

Now dump in all the ground meat, turn up the heat and brown it

Pour in all the veggies and stir fry on high heat until they are tender.

Dump in both cans of diced tomato, two cubes of boullion, 1/3 cup of worcestershire sauce and season with salt and pepper.

Bring to a boil and let this cook well till all those flavors are married together and harmonizing better that the Gatlin Brothers! (DON'T tell me you don't know who the Gatlin Brothers are!!!!!!! Go look it up - NOW. Look on you tube! For the love of country music, go listen to All the Gold in California!!! If you don't this recipe won't taste very good!)

Taste it and adjust the flavor. Sometimes it may need a little more salt and pepper. Tonight I added about a Tbsp of soy sauce and it added the perfect finishing touch!

Cook this down until much of the liquid is gone and it is sloppy joe consistency (i.e. it'll all stay in the burger, and won't make a runny soggy mess of the bun)

I had some dinner rolls form Costco so tonight we had them like tiny little burgers, I think they call these "sliders" in the states at many restaurants? Did I get that right?

One just looks way too lonely...

THERE, that is much better. Only most of us went back for seconds and thirds. Hana and Kai were just eating the sloppy moe filling alone by the end of the meal.

I threw in a coke to try to really feel like I was back at home. Only things is, Granny always only had Pepsi at her house. And Memaw always only had Dr. Pepper. But my sugarpie went out and bought that coke especially for me, so it was PERFECT, since we are at HOME... in Japan!