Sloppy Joe's : The Super Hero of the Culinary World

3/21/10: Super Sloppy Joes with Homemade Hamburger Rolls and Life By Chocolate Cupcakes

Meal details: Annemarie made some crusty hamburger rolls on Saturday for my Super Sloppy Joe's. The Sloppy Joe recipe includes onions, tomato sauce and paste, bell peppers, Worcestershire sauce, red wine vinegar, and of course, ground beef. For dessert, I made chocolate cupcakes, each with a Hershey Kiss in the middle. :)

Defining moments: First time using a Ree Drummond (Pioneer Woman) recipe and making ganache!

Recipe sources: The Sloppy Joe recipe is from Rachael Ray and I actually made this before. See my original posts here and here. The chocolate cupcake recipe is from the Pioneer Woman's Tasty Kitchen. I just noticed that the Sloppy Joe recipe link on the Food Network website is obsolete. Ugh. How can they delete this recipe from their archive? Oh well, I'll write it out here for you all:

Rachael Ray's Super Sloppy Joe's --

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, 1 turn of the pan
• 1 1/4 lbs ground sirloin
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2-3 teaspoons steak seasoning, such as McCormick brand Montreal seasoning
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 small red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 2 cups tomato sauce
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 4 crusty rolls, split, toasted, and lightly buttered

Garnish

• sliced ripe tomato
• pickle

Instructions:

1. Heat a large skillet over medium high heat.
2. Add oil and meat to the pan.
3. Spread the meat around the pan and begin to break it up.
4. Combine brown sugar and steak seasoning.
5. Add sugar and spice mixture to the skillet and combine.
6. When the meat has browned, add onion and red peppers to the skillet.
7. Reduce heat to medium and cook onions, peppers, red wine vinegar and Worcestershire sauce with meat for 5 minutes.
8. Add tomato sauce and paste to pan.
9. Stir to combine.
10. Reduce heat to simmer and cook Sloppy Joe mixture 5 minutes longer.
11. Using a large spoon or ice cream scoop, pile sloppy meat onto toasted, buttered bun bottoms and cover with bun tops.
12. Serve with your favorite sides or sliced tomatoes seasoned with salt and pepper, dill pickles and Potato Salad.
13. We like to put a thick slice of cheddar on top of the meat in the sandwich and broil it for a few minutes to melt. YUM.

What I learned: Well, because I have done the first recipe before, nothing new there. But the cupcake recipe included a chocolate ganache that you dip the baked and cooled cupcakes in. I've seen it done on t.v. many a time but this is my first on hands approach. It was a lot of fun to make! Especially when pouring the hot cream over the chocolate--boy, did that look delicious!

Any modifications? Yes, I tweaked both recipes slightly. For the sloppy joe's, I didn't use the steak seasoning (don't have any), instead I used pepper. I used ground chuck instead of ground sirloin (cheaper, lol!).

And for Ree Drummond's recipe. . . I didn't add the baking soda to the wet ingredients at the beginning, like the recipe states. I instead, placed the soda in the dry ingredients. I did this because I knew the baking soda would react with the wet ingredients and I didn't want to lose all that leavening power before they are in the oven.

How it tasted? The Sloppy Joe's were as good as ever (especially with those homemade buns), and the cupcakes were VERY good. But then how, I ask you, can a cupcake that has a chocolate batter, a chocolate kiss in the center, and a chocolate ganache on top be bad? Yeah, that doesn't make sense. :D I loved everything about both recipes!

How about a 2nd time? Without a doubt, absolutely, totally, definitely. . . In other words: YES.

Oh yes, a note about the photos. I will begin sharing my photos to you by way of Flickr. So when you click on any one of them, you will be transferred to my Flickr account and have the ability to view them at full scale.