Slop Sloppy Joes & Homemade Ketchup

Food overload. This is a great go-to dinner meal idea when nothing else sounds good or you don't have all these elegant ingredients to make a huge over-the-top dinner. Who doesn't like Sloppy Joes? Maybe the guy they're named after, ok touche.

I promise a better picture next time. I ate mine before I could photograph it. I was hungry!

Sloppy Joes


Ingredients:


2 lbs ground meat (I used ground beef, but have used turkey & its just as good)
about 1 cup brown sugar
about 1 1/2 cups ketchup (cool people like me make my own, below)
about 3/4 cup mustard
Italian seasoning


Brown meat until cooked. Season with Italian seasoning. Once cooked, turn heat down to low and add brown sugar, ketchup and mustard. Add to taste, hence my measurements are "about" and not exact measurements. Tangy? Add more mustard. Sweet? More ketchup/brown sugar. Delicious served on toast or buns, and topped with relish. Don't ditch it until you've tried it! This is a super easy meal that can feed leftovers and are great re-warmed up.


Made-my-own-ketchup-because-I'm-cool


Or because I didn't have enough and needed enough to make Sloppy Joes and was too lazy didn't go to the store to get more. Don't judge me. I looked on the back of a ketchup bottle and created this myself. It wasn't just like ketchup, but it was pretty close!


1 small can tomato paste
about 1/4 cup white vinegar
about 1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar
about 1/4 cup water


*These were some of the main ingredients in ketchup and the ones I could pronounce and had on hand.


Mix all in a bowl and taste. Add more of something to alter the taste. Experiment! I found it took a lot of sugar to get it sweet, and still my end result was very tomato-y. It didn't have to be EXACTLY like ketchup though because it was going in Sloppy Joes.