When I first laid eyes on a Sloppy Joe, I was about 5. I had no idea what it was and my parents had certainly never tried to serve one to me. A Sloppy Joe is essentially ground meat cooked in a skillet with a tomato based sauce and tastes more like a chopped up hamburger drowning in ketchup than the pasta-topping meat sauce it is related to. In fact, I'm fairly certain that the first one I ever had was simply ground meat in ketchup - a combination likely to win the heart of any 5-year-old. Another big selling point was the fact that it made for messy eating, hence the name.
With a few modifications, the Sloppy Joe can be improved upon. A few diced vegetables or a handful of spinach, as I added to the one shown here, will almost go completely unnoticed mixed in with ground beef in a sea of spicy BBQ sauce, chili sauce or even ketchup. Serve it on a hot dog or hamburger bun. Remember: this isn't gourmet. It's fast, easy, messy and, yes, even tasty, whether you're 5 or just act like it.
[Photo by Nicole Weston]
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