Sunday, June 13, 2010

Sloppy Joes

While feasting on some delicious sloppy joes a friend of mine prepared I asked for her recipe. Imagine my surprise when it was good ol' manwich and ground turkey. Ground turkey, are you sure? This is GOOD and I hate ground turkey! She assured me that it indeed was ground turkey, Jenny O in the 1 lb 'chub' roll, green label in the frozen section. She also informed me that she's tried homemade sloppy joes & they weren't as good as manwich.

I decided that I would make these Joes. I'd even use ground turkey, after all hers were delish, why not save a calorie or 2? Chub of ground turkey in cart, check! Manwich has HFCS in it so I put it back on the shelf. The Witch scoured the internet looking for a copy cat manwich recipe. They all seemed to be similar, ketchup, celery seed (strange I would not have added that otherwise), bell peppers, onions, light seasoning & sugar. So I made it.

It was REVOLTING!!! Oh My God. The smell of this turkey cooking made me gag, honestly. I have a strong stomach. I can handle butchering my own meats, I grind my own beef & chicken. I am not squeamish in the kitchen at all. Until I opened this chub of turkey. Why did it smell like dead bird and poo? Is this normal?? What horrible kitchen disaster have I embarked upon?

I added the sauce once the turkey was browned. This did NOT help the aromas in the house. Somehow the turkey brought out the vinegar in the mustard, and there was only 1 t of mustard for crying out loud! Great. Now it smells like dead bird, poo and vinegar in here. Dinner is bound to be stupendous.

Given the horrific aromas emanating from my kitchen I decided to forgo the toasting of the buns, after all why waste butter and time when no one will eat this slop. And I was right, mostly. I bravely took one bite - I gagged and decided that one bite was enough and heated up a hot dog for myself. The little Witch wouldn't even take a bite, she declared it Gross Mommy! and requested a hot dog as well. The husband, well he'll eat anything. He ate 2 of these gems for dinner and took 2 more for his lunches. God bless that man and his cast iron stomach!

So in review my dear readers I give this a big thumbs down. Buy manwich and deal with the HFCS if you need a sloppy joe that badly. Or maybe try it with ground beef instead. I don't know, but I can tell you this: the Witch has been scarred by ground turkey more than once, so don't expect to see it again anytime soon.


Sloppy Joes
Makes 5 sandwiches
1 lb ground turkey (can use beef)
1 c ketchup
1 T Worcestershire sauce
1 T A-1 steak sauce
1 t yellow mustard
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 c tomato juice
1 t kosher salt
few grinds pepper
1/2 t chili powder
1/4 t celery seeds
1/2 c fine diced bell pepper, red & green
1/2 c onion diced fine
3 cloves garlic, minced
hamburger buns

Mix everything BUT the turkey, onions & garlic together to make your sauce.



Brown the turkey, onions and garlic together. Once browned add the sauce. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until sauce has thickened and flavors meld.

Spoon into hamburger buns and enjoy.

Nutrition Facts
provided by Spark People Recipe Calculator
5 Servings
Amount Per Serving
Calories 301.9
Total Fat 6.6 g
Saturated Fat 0.0 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0.1 g
Monounsaturated Fat 0.1 g
Cholesterol 0.0 mg
Sodium 1,167.9 mg
Potassium 196.7 mg
Total Carbohydrate 49.6 g
Dietary Fiber 0.8 g
Sugars 43.3 g
Protein 17.5 g

3 comments:

  1. Terra HATES ground turkey too. She thinks it smells and tastes like old sweaty socks. Appetizing! I'm not a huge fan either but I know some people who love it.

    Much like my mantra of "bad decisions make good stories" it seems that "failed recipes make great blog posts!" Hilarious post.

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  2. I agree!!!!!!!I can't stand ground turkey!!!!!! And then when looking into why my mother always got sick when she ate it, I found that of all ground meats on the market, ground turkey is most commonly associated with salmonella bacteria. That's it! I'll accept doing a few more crunches and laps before i go out of my way to use the turkey stuff.

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  3. lol this is a funny blog. If I had a blog for all my mistakes it would fill up WAY faster than my regular one!! hehe you have a great sense of humor :)

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