Sloppy Joes, Sweet Potato Fries, Angel Food Cake

So here we are, at our very first, very real post.

I was thinking this morning, this will be pretty interesting. We grew up eating the same foods, watching the same people cook but we mostly seem to have vastly different ways around the kitchen, different staples in our pantry…maybe we can shake it up a bit!

Alright, bear with me, because neither of these are recipes (i.e. tsp and oz and whodit and wasdat), they are mostly just throwing shit together haphazardly and hoping for a miracle.

I know you remember that Christy and I cooked pretty much every weekend during high school. Maybe you didn’t know that? I can’t remember when you moved out. ANYWAY, we did cook most weekends. Sloppy Joes are one of the things we cooked the most, because you could experiment with it and it was SUPER hard to fuck up too bad. When I’m in need of comfort food (and mom’s not at home!) and I am pressed for time and I also want to make both Will and myself happy in the tummy area (I am usually all three of these), I make SLOPPY JOES.

You can do this. This is right up your alley. It’s probably stuff you have in your pantry and fridge!

I guess if you wanted a recipe list it could go something like this:

SLOPPY JOES

(it makes enough for about 5 sandwiches)

1 lb. ground beef (this is a good recipe to hide ground turkey in, too, because dudes and babies can’t tell the difference because the flavor is so strong. I usually use turkey, but we were out)
1 med. onion, chopped up
2 stalks celery, chopped up
1 can tomato paste
1 can tomato sauce
1 - 2 cloves of garlic, minced
½ tbsp or so of brown sugar
have at the ready: mustard, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco (I don’t add salt because this is already a lot of sodium, if you ask me, and you DID, kind of)

I bet you could add some bell pepper, too, but I’ve never tried it. Mmmm. Also, I know you can think up a better cut of meat to put in this. I’m completely uncomfortable with meat, so I just stick to basics. It makes me pretty sad.

Brown your beef in the skillet with the onion and celery and drain. Then, really, just add everything else in. I probably start with about 2 tbsp of mustard and ¼ cup of ketchup. Just a bit of W. sauce and Tabasco.

The good thing about this is it’s real easy to mess around and add or subtract what you want. And if you fuck up and need to correct your mistakes by adding more to offset the goof up well it just makes ‘em sloppier! It’s a win-win situation.


Moving on to other easy things:

SWEET POTATO FRIES

I can’t keep these out of my mouth. Last night was the first time I tried them, so they weren’t perfect and never got really crispy (not sure if they are supposed to), but even then they were amazing.

I cooked them at about 425.

One potato = one serving, so in our house each person got a potato. Ok, I got a potato and Will got frozen crinkle fries. These were FAR superior in my book.

Peel your sweet potato and cut up in thin strips to look like…you guessed it, French fries.

Put them all in a bowl and drizzle some olive oil over them. Toss them until coated.

Spread out on a pan and sprinkle with kosher salt and black pepper.

I cooked them for about 35 minutes and broiled on low for maybe 10 minutes. They never got crispy-crispy, but they weren’t so floppy and cooked veggie like that I couldn’t pick them up with my fingers and eat them like real fries. Which I did. A lot of.


FUCKING UP AN ANGEL FOOD CAKE

So, I think I mentioned I started Weight Watchers, yes? There is not a whole lot of foods I can tuck into and make myself sick on without eating up a bunch of points. So far I’ve found spinach and pickles, which is not real appealing unaccompanied by other things (ok, the pickles are).

I can eat a lot of angel food cake. Maybe because it’s air?

A long time ago a coworker had tried WW (and failed miserably, oh dear) and although I wasn’t on it, he sent me a file full of recipes and their point values. One recipe was just basically a box of angel food cake mix and several other ingredients. I guess this portion should be called fucking WITH and angel food cake, not fucking it up. It was delicious.

The one I tried the other night (and Will has been eating it non-stop, so I guess I did something right!) was the Pina Colada cake. Basically you get your cake mix and mix it according to the package, but you add a can of crushed pineapple in it’s juice and ½ tsp each of coconut and rum extract. It was divine. I was worried because I didn’t have an angel food cake pan, I only had a bundt pan, which the box says DO NOT USE! but I just eyeballed the batter and didn’t use it all. It came out perfect. It’s a good summer cake that you don’t have to feel guilty about. I’m all for that.

All of these things together? A meal, if served with root beer in glass bottles.