Sloppy Joe Sandwiches

    Oh wow, what a day!  The girls are still sick and clingy so I decided to do a crock pot meal that I could start during their nap time and just put some tator tots in the oven about 20 minutes before dinner. 

    This is just how cooking dinner went for me, it will give you an idea of how the rest of my day went.  I started by browning my meat, which I forgot to pull out of the freezer to defrost, not so bad but all the mishaps add up.  Then I drained the meat and decided to dump some on the counter and spill grease all over the place.  I cleaned that up and then put the garlic, onions, and green peppers in the skillet cooking them till they were tender.  Normally I would put the salt that the recipe called for in here too, but I just now realized as I was typing this that I forgot it.  We never noticed it was gone so I took it off the recipe (its not really needed with all the sodium in the ketchup anyway.) 

    After that I placed all of the ingredient in the crock pot and finished off the ketchup bottle with only 1/2 a cup instead of the 1 cup I needed.  I was just going to put tomato sauce in for the rest of it till I realized I didn't have any of that either.  Luckily I found a new bottle of ketchup while looking for the tomato sauce, whew.  I think I need to clean out and re-organize my pantry, but that is a project for another day.  So now I have all my ingredients in the crock pot cooking on low for 4-6 hrs til dinner time. 

    Also just a couple tips: this can be done in the skillet if you don't want to use the crock pot or don't have the time,  just make sure to use the full 4 Tbsp of water.  In the crock pot don't put too much water in or they will be really "sloppy" joes as the liquid won't evaporate like it will in the skillet.  Also you can put in a few shoestring carrots if you want to add more veggies to this dish, I meant to, but of course forgot till it was too late.  Make sure to cook the carrots in the microwave til tender before adding to the dish, you don't want crunchy carrots in there, or I wouldn't anyway. 

    This is such an easy meal and if you've never had homemade you won't go back to the can after trying this.  I serve this with tator tots, sometimes green beans or a salad.  And if you've never tried it this sandwich is really good with cheese, pickles, and mustard as condiments or that's what my family likes anyway.
 

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Crock Pot Sloppy Joes

1 lb ground beef, browned and drained
1/4 diced green pepper
1/4 cup diced onion
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 cup ketchup
2-4 Tbsp water
2 Tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp mustard
1/4 tsp salt


Brown your hamburger along with the garlic, onion, and green pepper.

Place all ingredients in the crock pot for 4-6 hrs on low.

I like to serve on hamburger buns or occasionally just over tator tots with cheese.