Last Friday night, Hans and I had our good friends Casey and Erica over at our apartment for dinner. It would be our last hang out in a while since Casey was leaving the following week on a trip to Africa for his internship, and Erica was leaving for Miami on vacation. I wanted to make something great for them, so I decided on making sloppy joes. My friend Yesenia told me all about the great sloppy joes that her mom makes for her family, so I was craving them.
I never made sloppy joes before, so I looked up a recipe online, and found one by Rachael Ray – BBQ Chicken Sloppy Joes with Pickled Slaw Salad. The prospect of the BBQ sauce was most exciting! It is my ultimate favorite condiment, and there have been a few BBQ sauce loves in my life.. Sweet Baby Ray’s, as well as Jamawn Woods’ BBQ sauce that was used at his short lived restaurant Soul Daddy. (I was really sad to hear Soul Daddy closed in all three locations, but I really really hope he puts out that sauce in stores because I will sooo buy that shit in a heartbeat.) So the thought of making my own homemade BBQ sauce was what made the decision.
Instead of ground chicken, I used ground turkey, since I had a good 1.3lbs of that as opposed to 1lb of chicken… For the BBQ sauce, I used these ingredients:
- 3 tablespoons garlic red wine vinegar
- 3 tablespoons light brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 can tomato sauce (8 ounces)
- 1 tablespoon hot sauce
Homemade BBQ sauce. So delicious...
Aside from the ground turkey (which was browned with Adobo seasoning over medium-high heat with 1 tbsp of olive oil for 3-5 minutes), I also chopped some red bell pepper and red onion.
Chopped red bell pepper.
Half of a red onion. Check out those beautiful rings!
I love the color in these onions.
I refused to add any pickles, because as much as my palate accommodates for all types of different foods, I just cannot get over the taste of pickles. Sorry pickle lovers, I just find them inedible! (Except for in Cafe Habana’s cuban sandwiches.. That’s only time I’ve ever found them acceptable.) So I added my veggies (sans pickles) into the pot with the browned ground turkey.
I was really excited about the freshness of my veggies… Hans and I hardly ever buy fresh veggies, since we often go grocery shopping once a month. Normally, buying fresh veggies is a no-no for us since they just go bad and we end up losing money, but we decided a few weeks ago that we were going to start being healthy and add more freshness to our plates. And if we end up going to the grocery store every week (or every two) so be it! We have been using fresh vegetables lately, especially in our salads at lunch, and it really makes a difference! (And that’s saying a lot for me, cos I normally hate salads.)
So anywho, once all the ingredients were all cooked up, I added the BBQ sauce that was prepared earlier, and let that baby simmer for a while.
Finished and ready to eat!
Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of the sloppy joe in an actual bun. Our other friends Mark, Joma, and Jeff came over later, and the turkey joes were such a hit, we finished the entire pot before I could snap a pic. Speaking of which, I didn’t get any pictures of the other food we made either — a fresh salad, crackers with cucumber and cream cheese for an appetizer, and strawberry shortcake for desert..! It was a meal made for kings.
To review, I fell completely in love with this dish. I felt it had the right amount of meat and flavor, and the heat from the hot sauce gave it a nice kick. The red onion had a great tang to it, and alongside the red bell pepper, it gave the dish some lovely color. I also liked the lightness of it; the turkey instead of ground beef was a good way to make this dish healthy.
Hans liked it, too, but with his manly appetite, he said that he would have preferred ground beef over turkey, and that I should have added some mushrooms and beans to the dish to fill it out. I appreciated his suggestions (after we argued about it for a good 15 minutes first,) but I told him this wasn’t supposed to be chili, and that I still preferred the dish the way I prepared it! <3 I still love you, babe. =)
So try it out for yourselves and see how you like it! Beef, turkey or chicken? More stuff in it or less? Or just let me know about your own sloppy joe recipe. Comments below!
