Flashback Friday - Smoky Joes

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on January 8, 2014. Might make a good playoff snack.

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I decided one Sunday to throw together a pan of sloppy joe to eat during football. I didn't want to make the same old same old, so I poked around in the fridge for ideas. There, I found a jar of roasted red peppers, a container of chipotles en adobo, and a jar of freshly-made pumpkin butter.

Yes, pumpkin butter. The stuff has a lot of the same spices as ketchup--cinnamon, ginger, cloves--and it also contains an actual vegetable and no high fructose corn syrup. It also lacked a certain tangy-ness, which I remedied with a bit of cider vinegar. Mr Minx was skeptical when I told him of my brilliant idea to use pumpkin butter in our dinner, but after I mixed a bit of vinegar into it and gave him a taste, he was a believer.

Not only did I want to use the pumpkin butter, but I also wanted the sloppy joe to have a pronounced smokiness. I stopped short of cooking the meat in my stovetop smoker, but added all of the smoky-flavored ingredients I had on hand, apart from liquid smoke (which might have taken it over the edge), plus the usual Worcestershire and mustard flavors. The result was rich and sweet, but not overly so, with a smoky edge.

While the sloppy joe was delicious the day it was made, it was even better a few days later.

Smokey Joes

1/2 cup pumpkin butter
1-2 chipotles en adobo, finely minced (depending on your tolerance for heat)
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1 teaspoon ground pasilla negro (optional)
3/4 cup chicken stock, plus additional
1/2 teaspoon smoked salt (optional)
1 tablespoon agave nectar
Salt and pepper to taste
1 medium onion, chopped
oil
salt
1 lb ground beef
1 clove garlic, minced
1 roasted red bell pepper, diced

Make the sauce: Combine the pumpkin butter, chipotle, vinegar, tomato paste, Dijon, and Worcestershire sauce in a sauce pan over medium heat. Add the paprika and ground pasilla and slowly stir in the chicken stock. Stir in the smoked salt, if you have it, and taste the sauce for seasoning. If it needs sweetening to your taste, add some or all of the agave syrup. Bring sauce to a simmer, then season with salt and pepper to taste.

While the sauce is simmering, start cooking the onion in a separate pan over medium heat with a bit of oil and a pinch of salt. When onion is translucent, add the ground beef, breaking it up with a wooden spoon and cooking until no longer pink. Add the garlic and the roasted pepper.

Pour in the prepared sauce. Stir well to combine. Add additional chicken stock if the mixture seems dry. Bring mixture to a simmer, then turn heat to low. Cook for 30-45 minutes, until beef is tender, adding more stock if necessary and skimming off any fat that rises to the top. Season with salt and pepper before serving.

Serve on your favorite rolls, buns, or toast.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Whole 30 Compliant Turkey Sloppy Joe

Like a lot of moms in the 1970s, my mom had to go back to work when I was nine years old to help out with the economic realities that an oil crisis and runaway inflation imposed on our country. No longer could we rely on the kind of complicated and time-consuming dinners we had once enjoyed like pot roast, fried chicken, and meatloaf. By the time my mom got home from the law office where she worked as a secretary (they were still called secretaries back then), she needed some quick and easy meals to get on the table.

One of her go-to meals was sloppy joe, made all the quicker by the ready-made sauce known as Manwich. Brown some ground beef, dump on the Manwich, stir it up and slap it on some hamburger buns. I was more than happy to dig into this salty mess as a kid, but today it doesn't sound all that appealing, which is why I haven't eaten sloppy joe in decades.

Recently, the Minx and I have been on the Whole 30 diet and have been seeing some positive results. In a nutshell, the diet requires that one eat non-processed foods for 30 days, which eliminates a helluva lot of food when you get down to it. This makes coming up with filling meals that are also Whole 30 compliant a bit of a challenge. One day while we were trying to come up with dinner possibilities, the Minx suggested making sloppy joe. While we could make it with ground beef and stay within the diet, she thought it would be even healthier to try to make it with ground turkey.

I liked the idea because it would give me a chance to create a sloppy joe that would taste better than the from-a-can stuff I ate as a kid. The tricky part was that sloppy joe is usually slightly sweet, and you can't use any sugar or sweeteners on Whole 30. We decided to replace sugar with finely chopped dates. They dissolve in the mixture and add just enough sweetness to balance the tartness of the mustard and the acidity of the tomatoes.

Our recipe requires about 15 ounces of tomatoes, pureed to create a smooth sauce. Since it's unlikely you will find pureed tomatoes in a can that small, we used a can of diced tomatoes and whizzed them up with a stick blender plunged straight into the can. You have to be careful not to make a mess, but it does work. Otherwise, some chunky tomato in the sauce is probably fine. (And yes, though canned vegetables are technically "processed," if there are no weird additives they still qualify as "whole" foods.)

Whole 30 Compliant Turkey Sloppy Joe

1 pound ground turkey
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
Kosher salt
14.5 ounce can chopped tomatoes, pureed
6 dates, chopped
1 tablespoon ground mustard
1 tablespoon brown mustard
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
Freshly ground black pepper

Brown the ground turkey in a skillet over high heat. Once the meat is browned, reduce heat and add the onion and bell pepper. Sprinkle a little salt on the mixture at this point to help draw out the moisture of the vegetables. When the onion becomes translucent, thoroughly mix in the tomato puree, dates, ground mustard, brown mustard, garlic powder, and smoked paprika. Turn the heat to low and allow to simmer covered for fifteen minutes. Taste and add salt and pepper to your liking.

If you are using this recipe as part of a Whole 30 diet, you can replace the bun one might normally serve sloppy joe on with a baked potato or French fries.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Smokey Joes

I decided one Sunday to throw together a pan of sloppy joe to eat during football. I didn't want to make the same old same old, so I poked around in the fridge for ideas. There, I found a jar of roasted red peppers, a container of chipotles en adobo, and a jar of freshly-made pumpkin butter.

Yes, pumpkin butter. The stuff has a lot of the same spices as ketchup--cinnamon, ginger, cloves--and it also contains an actual vegetable and no high fructose corn syrup. It also lacked a certain tangy-ness, which I remedied with a bit of cider vinegar. Mr Minx was skeptical when I told him of my brilliant idea to use pumpkin butter in our dinner, but after I mixed a bit of vinegar into it and gave him a taste, he was a believer.

Not only did I want to use the pumpkin butter, but I also wanted the sloppy joe to have a pronounced smokiness. I stopped short of cooking the meat in my stovetop smoker, but added all of the smoky-flavored ingredients I had on hand, apart from liquid smoke (which might have taken it over the edge), plus the usual Worcestershire and mustard flavors. The result was rich and sweet, but not overly so, with a smoky edge.

While the sloppy joe was delicious the day it was made, it was even better a few days later.

Smokey Joes

1/2 cup pumpkin butter
1-2 chipotles en adobo, finely minced (depending on your tolerance for heat)
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1 teaspoon ground pasilla negro (optional)
3/4 cup chicken stock, plus additional
1/2 teaspoon smoked salt (optional)
1 tablespoon agave nectar
Salt and pepper to taste
1 medium onion, chopped
oil
salt
1 lb ground beef
1 clove garlic, minced
1 roasted red bell pepper, diced

Make the sauce: Combine the pumpkin butter, chipotle, vinegar, tomato paste, Dijon, and Worcestershire sauce in a sauce pan over medium heat. Add the paprika and ground pasilla and slowly stir in the chicken stock. Stir in the smoked salt, if you have it, and taste the sauce for seasoning. If it needs sweetening to your taste, add some or all of the agave syrup. Bring sauce to a simmer, then season with salt and pepper to taste.

While the sauce is simmering, start cooking the onion in a separate pan over medium heat with a bit of oil and a pinch of salt. When onion is translucent, add the ground beef, breaking it up with a wooden spoon and cooking until no longer pink. Add the garlic and the roasted pepper.

Pour in the prepared sauce. Stir well to combine. Add additional chicken stock if the mixture seems dry. Bring mixture to a simmer, then turn heat to low. Cook for 30-45 minutes, until beef is tender, adding more stock if necessary and skimming off any fat that rises to the top. Season with salt and pepper before serving.

Serve on your favorite rolls, buns, or toast.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Sloppy Joes

When I was a kid, my mom would make Sloppy Joes once in a while, using a can of chicken gumbo soup and some basic condiments. I enjoyed it, and I didn't - I thought the gumbo soup (which tastes nothing like actual gumbo, by the way) tasted odd. But...that's the only choice we were given; we tried Manwich exactly once, Mom hated it, and that was that.

Sloppy Joes seem like a pretty no-brainer idea for a quick weekday dinner, yet Mr Minx and I have made them about twice in the past 12 years. Recently, I spotted a can of Campbell's Chicken Gumbo Soup at the soon-to-disappear Superfresh. It was "light," but since I hadn't seen this soup in years, I thought it might be nice to use it to make a healthier version of my mom's old recipe.

Excited about the prospect of tasting something from my youth, imagine my surprise when I dumped the can of gumbo soup into the skillet only to find that it contained rice. (I didn't remember the original containing rice, but according to this, it does.) Rice, some orange-ish stock, bits of what appeared to be bell pepper, and not a whole lot else. Not even flavor. With the addition of ketchup and mustard, the turkey mixture tasted like...ketchup and mustard and nothing like the flavor memory I've been carrying around in my head for 35 years or so. At that point, realizing I was not going to have a madeleine moment, I decided to doctor the Joe, adding much-needed spice and some sweetness other than ketchup.

The result was pretty good, definitely sloppy, and ultimately nothing like Mom's. Sigh.

Spicy Sloppy Joes

20 ounces ground turkey or chicken
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup ketchup
3 tablespoons prepared mustard
1 can (10 1/2 ounces) light chicken gumbo soup
1/2 can water
1 tablespoon Sriracha (or to taste)
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon maple syrup
6 hamburger buns

In large skillet over medium heat, cook onion and turkey, breaking up turkey with edge of a spatula, until meat is cooked through and beginning to brown, about 8 minutes. Turn up heat and stir in ketchup, mustard, soup, water, Sriracha, paprika, garlic powder and maple syrup. Bring to a boil, then turn down heat and simmer for 30 minutes, until meat is tender and much of the liquid has evaporated. Serve on hamburger buns.

Posted by theminx on Minxeats.com.