"sloppy joes" news and stories

Sloppy Joe. Photo: gezellig-girl.com, Flickr

• Aww... Sloppy Joe loses its spotlight to a cousin -- the salsa-infused Sloppy Jose.
• Avocados can be whipped into more than just guacamole -- try some Avocado Fries.
• Peppers are hitting farm stands, including the tiny and tasty Yum Yum peppers.
• Mushroom lovers rejoice -- it's National Mushroom Month. Get your 'shroom on with Mini Quiche Caps.
• Houston writer Greg Morago says, "Don't be sheepish about eating lamb."
• Meijer makes Moose Tracks mint-flavored.
• Picking out the right ears and dishing up Corn-Corn Muffins.
• Good Stuff finds a green-onion recall, food events and funky dishes.

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week.

• Try these Sloppy Joes, perfect for your game day meal.
• Are Mario Batali and Gordon Ramsay locked in a blood feud?
• We all know that it's better for our health and our wallet to cook at home. However the ease of takeout often wins out. How often do you order in?
• How to tell if that bottle of red someone brought to your housewarming (three years ago!) is still good.
• Check out this slideshow of things that PartySugar loved at the recent San Francisco Fancy Food Show.
• Hosea apologizes for the kiss he shared with Leah on Top Chef.
• In need of a good Chinese New Year dish? Try these Garlic Soy Shrimp!
• Former President Bush enacted a tariff on Roquefort cheese just before leaving office and it's got the French up in arms.

I've never gone out of my way to add chocolate to lunch and dinner recipes (except for dessert, of course!). I know there are moles and even chocolate pasta, but I've just always separated the chocolate from the main course.

That might change with Hershey's Spicy Cocoa Sloppy Joes. I haven't had a Sloppy Joe in many, many years and was going to make them soon anyway, and now this just gives me another reason to make them sooner rather than later.

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.

Slow cookers are one of the most useful appliances you can have in your kitchen, even more so if you don't enjoy cooking or you have a busy schedule that keeps you running around and not working over the stove. You can toss together a soup or meat dish in the morning in about five minutes and when you return from work in the evening, you'll have a hot, home cooked meal waiting for you. In addition, everything cooks together, which means that you'll only have one pot to clean. Some recipes will call for the meat (or even vegetables) to be browned before adding them in, but this is almost never really necessary.

Slow cookers cook foods for long periods of time at low temperatures. Modern slow cookers often have an automatic shutoff or a super-low "warm" setting that will protect both your food and your home when you are not around to watch, so they are safe to use any time, unlike the stove or the oven. They are ideal for cooking lean or inexpensive pieces of meat because they trap juice and steam as they cook the meat, allowing the meat to become moist and tender, preventing it from shrinking or toughening. The long, slow cooking process also allows flavors to meld and blend, making it an ideal way to cook soups and stews, too.