I’m not sure if you caught last week’s What I Eat Wednesday on Facebook and Instagram, but somehow the food stars aligned and I knocked it out of the park with every meal. I’m not sure if I could have done that had I planned it, but I’m not arguing. LOL. I knew for dinner that I wanted to have something using ground beef and I went through a bunch of ideas.
Burgers were so mainstream. Lettuce wraps sounded interesting but I didn’t have lettuce leaves. No leaves, no wrap. I settled on a sloppy joe variation since it’s like a combination of burgers and non-wrapped wraps. How do you like that insight into the inner workings of my weird mind? I poked around in the fridge and found a bunch of random ingredients that fit my thinking of sloppy joes – sweet, spicy, crumbly.
I had a half jar of capers and a tiny bit of dried currants leftover from Lifeguard Soup. Yep, those had to go since they were just taking up space. I also had leftover roasted garlic and jalapeno peppers in the freezer. Perfect for the occasion. Everything else just came together since I almost always have the staples like canned tomatoes, spices, vinegars and herbs around.
And so the fancy sloppy joes were created. The fancy part is a must because you can’t just consider these plain with capers and currants. Pffffft! I had mine on a sandwich thin with mayo, pickles, lettuce and tomatoes. The Kid had hers on a hamburger bun with just lettuce. You could also throw them in a taco shell for a taco variation.
Fancy Sloppy Joes 
- 3/4 cup (80g) chopped yellow onion
- 2 cloves minced garlic
- 16 oz lean ground beef (90/10)
- 2 tsp dried oregano
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 cup water
- 2 Tbsp dried currants
- 1 Tbsp capers
- 15 oz can petite diced tomatoes
- 2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
- 1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and diced (14g)
- 1/2 cup fresh cilantro
Heat a pan over medium heat and add the onions, garlic and ground beef. Cook for about 5 – 7 minutes until the beef is no longer pink and the onions are softened. As it’s cooking, break the beef up into chunks.
Stir in the oregano, cumin, and cinnamon and cook for another minute to lightly toast the spices. Add the water, currants, capers, and canned tomatoes with their juices and stir to combine. Cover and simmer for about 20 minutes until the liquid evaporates off a bit. Stir every now and then to make sure it hasn’t boiled dry and to keep the bottom from burning.
Remove from heat and stir in the vinegar, jalapeno, and cilantro. Serve on buns with fixins like shredded lettuce, pickles, tomato slices.
Makes 4 servings at approximately 231 calories each – 23g protein, 10g carbs, and 11g fat.
The next day I made an open-faced sloppy joe for breakfast and it.was.AWEsome! I toasted a piece of whole wheat bread, topped it with the leftover sloppy joe filling, piled on the lettuce and tomatoes and bam. Can’t beat that for easy. Don’t forget to stop by for What I Eat Wednesday tomorrow. I’m really hoping for a repeat of last week and some great meals.
Life is too short to settle for chicken and broccoli!
Speak Your Mind