Secret Recipe Club: Tomato Soup Sloppy Joes

It's time for Secret Recipe Club again. As many of you know, Secret Recipe Club is a monthly collection of bloggers who make another member's recipe and post about it on a given day. You always get to discover something knew and others are making recipes (old and new) from your blog as well.

Most months, I get really excited about SRC, but sometimes I find myself slacking. There are such a great variety of bloggers with such varying styles. Sometimes, it's more difficult to find something that fits your diet or that includes ingredients you keep in your home.

This month, I was assigned Heather at It's Yummy to My Tummy. Heather loves to bake and cook and has so many recipes for quickbreads and sweets. We don't make sweets unless we have a party to attend, so I try to stick to main dishes during SRC. She has tons of main dishes too, but a lot of them include ingredients we don't often buy (crescent rolls, hot dogs, etc.) I think this will probably change when we have kids, but for now we try to keep most of my recipes to ingredients on the outer ring of the supermarket. Steve has fond memories of these types of foods from his childhood and I have very bad memories of these types from mine (my other was not a good cook).  Heather's other recipes seemed like things I'd done in the past, and I like to do something totally different with Secret Recipe Club. In short, I was stumped.

Then I saw she had Tomato Soup Sloppy Joes on her recipe list. I'd heard of Sloppy Joes, but I've never eaten them. I was a little scared, but my husband urged me toward this recipe because he hadn't had Sloppy Joes since he was 15 years old. I glad he did. This was a simple, cheap, filling weeknight food that was something different for me and something comforting for him. I wasn't quite ready for just how sloppy they would be, but it was fun and enjoyable. I might not start buying frozen foods on a regular basis, but I'll certainly be more open to experimentation.

Thank you Heather for making me a little more open minded and reminding me how great pigs in a blanket are (and it is because they are great, and because I will eat a whole tube of crescent rolls, that I do not let myself keep them in my house)

Tomato Soup Sloppy Joes

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground beef, 80/20
• 1/2 cup each diced onion, celery, green bell pepper and carrot
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 can condensed tomato soup
• 2 Tbsp ketchup
• 2 Tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 Tbsp water
• 1 bay leaf
• salt and pepper to taste
• smoked paprika
• Ciabatta Rolls for serving

Directions

1. Brown ground beef in a pan until cooked through. Drain off fat and remove beef to a separate bowl
2. Put diced veggies and garlic in the pan and sautee for 5 minutes until onions are translucent.
3. Add beef back to the pan with tomato soup, ketchup, sugar, vinegar, Worcestershire and water. Mix well and simmer covered about 15 minutes until flavors combine. Remove lid and continue to simmer until correct consistency is reached.
4. Adjust seasoning to taste, spoon over rolls and eat with steamed veggies or a salad.

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