Turkey Sloppy Joe's

*update* I made these again, so this time I took a picture!

Well - I'm sure everyone has given up on even checking this site anymore. I don't blame you! Its been 3 months since my last post, and even then... that wasn't a whole lot! So... Hopefully THIS time, I will be better about posting some new recipes. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me when I made this dinner - so I couldn't take any pictures. I should start keeping my old camera at Brandon's house so that way I always have my camera ready! Oh well.

So anyway - Sloppy Joe's.... blast from the past! I haven't had a sloppy joe since my mom used to make them for us when we were kids! I believe it also involved canned sloppy joe mix... or maybe packaged dry mix to add to ground beef. Easy quick meal that left everyone happy. So recently, after helping a friend clean out her kitchen before she moved out of town (who wouldn't want to raid someone else's pantry and take home a bunch of free food!), I was unloading one of the bags of food I got and noticed a can of Manwich thrown in. What! This stuff still exists?? How did it get in my bag?? I guess in the desire to get rid of everything in her kitchen.... somehow things I DIDN'T want still ended up in my bags. So... it made me all of a sudden start craving this stuff... more for nostalgia reasons. I couldn't really remember what it tasted like - I just remembered it being this tasty ground beef concoction between a hamburger bun. Well.. I certainly wasn't going to use this canned mixture... I'm sure the sodium is out of control and they managed to fit corn syrup into it somewhere..

As luck would have it... I was watching Food Network (I know!) and Tyler Florence was making his Ultimate Sloppy Joe's.... OH man... it was on. So with everything Tyler Florence makes on TV - you have to watch... and then when you read over his recipes later, realize he eyeballs EVERYTHING on his show... and the measurements on the website tend to be quite off. So - I decided to interpret some of what I saw on TV as well as change a few things based on ingredients I wanted to add or didn't have or whatever. So - here goes...

Turkey Sloppy Joe's
serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 lbs ground turkey
  
• 1 medium sweet onion (I always get Vidalias when they are in season), chopped
  
• 1/2 red bell pepper, diced
• 1c+ ketchup (I used organic TJ's brand - so no corn syrup!)
• 1T+ yellow mustard
  
• 2T tomato paste
• 1T brown sugar
• 1/4t cayenne
• 1T balsamic vinegar
• olive oil
• salt & pepper
• hamburger buns (I like the french water rolls from Publix!)
  

Directions:

1. Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add about 3 T of olive oil to the pan. Chop the onion in smallish pieces.. you know, not too small but not chunky either. Add onion to the skillet and allow it to caramelize... about 10-15 minutes. Turn up the heat or down the heat to adjust so not to burn onions... but also not to sweat them. Once they are almost done, add the diced red pepper. Again - these need to be cut about the same size... remember, it will be in the mixture so think about what size pieces you'd like to bite into in your sandwich.
   
2. Add ground turkey to the skillet with the onions and peppers. Keep the heat around medium/med-high. Season with salt and pepper. Make sure the meat is all the way cooked through! This isn't like beef where it can be a little pink and still be ok. Once turkey is cooked through - add the ketchup, mustard, brown sugar, tomato paste, and cayenne. Give it a good stir and then add a splash of balsamic vinegar. You can use red wine vinegar if you prefer. At this point... if you feel you want it to be a little saucier, add more ketchup. Taste! Taste now and if you think it needs more sweetness, add more sugar... more mustard, add more mustard.... More salt or pepper? Add more. Just remember you can always add more of these things, but you can't take away... so thats why I say to start with these amounts and move up from there.
3. So once the mixture has all come together and is heated through, you can remove it from the heat. Split open your hamburger buns and pop them under the broiler for a few minutes... give them a nice little crust. I find this helps a little with the moisture... so your bun doesn't get too soggy! Pile on some sloppy joe mix and enjoy!
   

So - there you have it. A simple... fast.... delicious meal thats also very affordable! I had no idea how good these were.... and now I think I'll be making these a lot more often. You can swap out ground beef or ground chicken as well... but I like using ground turkey as you tend to forget that its not ground beef.

I also followed Tyler's idea of making some slaw and homemade bread & butter pickles to serve with it. Recipes of those to follow soon.

Enjoy!
Lauren