I realized today that I never posted my meal plan for this week... I think I have a different plan for posting the meal plan, that I think will work better. Anyway, today is Wednesday, which means it's CrockPot day, and today's meal is Sloppy Joes. (Cue Adam Sandler singing the Lunch Lady song... we never make it through a meal of Sloppy Joes without someone breaking into song!)
Just for kicks, I did a quick Google search looking for recipes for CrockPot Sloppy Joes (to see if there were recipes that sounded better than mine), and I was surprised to find that pretty much every recipe I found called for browning the meat and then putting it in the CrockPot. I don't know about you, but to me that pretty much defeats the purpose of the CrockPot entirely! If I'm going to dirty a pan to brown the meat, then I'm just going to make the sauce in the same pan and be done with it... And I know that you can brown meat in the CrockPot, because I just did it a couple of weeks ago with a big 5lb thing of ground beef that I bought...
So anyway, I'm making lazy CrockPot Sloppy Joes- no extra pans needed. I'm also hiding a bunch of veggies in it, because it's easy to do and makes me feel like it's a little bit healthier than doing them the regular way. It also stretches the recipe a good bit, so the pound of meat goes further. The trick to hiding veggies in this recipe is to cut them as small as you can.
CrockPot Sloppy Joes
1 lb ground meat
1/2 cup finely grated carrots
1 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup finely chopped celery
1/2 cup finely chopped bell pepper
1/2 cup shredded zucchini
1/2 cup frozen chopped spinach
2 cloves minced garlic (or 1/2 tsp garlic powder, if you're like me and never remember to buy fresh garlic at the store)
1/2 cup ketchup (look for one that's organic or at least doesn't have high fructose corn syrup)
2 cups tomato sauce
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp agave nectar
salt and pepper, to taste
whole wheat (or gluten-free) hamburger buns
Put the ground beef (or whatever meat you're using) into your CrockPot, cover and cook on low for about 2-3 hours or until it's cooked through. Drain off any grease, and break up the meat. I tilt the inside of my CrockPot and use a ladle to scoop out the grease (while wearing an oven mitt), and then I use a wooden spatula for breaking up the meat. I don't break the meat up until I have drained off the grease, so that I don't have to worry about pieces of meat going with the grease.
After your meat is drained and broken up, add your veggies and sauce ingredients, stir well to mix everything, and cover. Your dinner is pretty much done, just cook it until the veggies are all cooked and you are ready to eat. Serve on whole grain buns.
I usually serve meals like this with fries of some kind... I will admit that I buy big bags of frozen french fries and tater tots to serve with meals like this. I figure that since I have so many veggies in the sandwiches, I can get away with being lazy on the side. When I'm feeling extra motivated though, I'll do homemade zucchini fries, butternut squash fries, or sweet potato fries. Tonight, we're having frozen tater tots.
