No Sweat!

This week's Serious Eats Weekend Cook and Tell challenge is to create a meal that won't cause you to break a sweat.

It has been oppressive (70% humidity, low 90s) the past couple of days, so we have been minimizing our outdoor activities, especially with it being so cool indoors, to the point that we have been grocery shopping at 4 a.m., when it has been a miserably tacky 71°F.

Sloppy joe with coleslaw

Sloppy Joe
Sloppy joes have been on my crave-dar since earlier in the week when we went grocery shopping and a display of Manwich stacked adjacent to the butcher case caught my eye. I picked up the can and looked at the list of ingredients as I customarily do, and noticed we had all the listed major ingredients.

Bug used the recipe from AllRecipes.com excerpted below.

Ingredients:
1 lb lean ground beef
1/4 c chopped onion
1/4 c chopped green bell pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp prepared yellow mustard
3/4 c ketchup
3 tsp brown sugar
salt to taste
ground black pepper to taste

Directions:
1. In a medium skillet over medium heat, brown the ground beef, onion, and green pepper; drain off liquids.

2. Stir in the garlic powder, mustard, ketchup, and brown sugar; mix thoroughly. Reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

There was no need to fix anything in this recipe, as it was very simple and surpassed my expectations with sweet, tangy, bell peppery, and meaty perfection. Four exuberant thumbs up between me and Bug.

Mound of yum

KFC Coleslaw Recipe
While searching for a sloppy joe recipe, I ran across someone's sandwich pictured with coleslaw. It didn't seem like a bad idea, so I perused through a few recipes online. This recipe from RecipeZaar.com looked promising...

Ingredients:
8 c finely diced cabbage (about 1 head)
1/4 c diced carrot
2 T minced onions
1/3 c granulated sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
1/4 c milk
1/2 c mayonnaise
1/4 c buttermilk
1-1/2 T white vinegar
2-1/2 T lemon juice

Directions:
1. Finely dice cabbage and carrots.

2. Place cabbage and carrot mixture into large bowl and add minced onions.

3. Using regular blade on food processor, process remaining ingredients until smooth.

4. Pour over vegetable mixture and mix thoroughly.

5. Cover bowl and refrigerate several hours or overnight before serving.


Bug changed two things:
1. No onions were harmed in the making of this recipe (I don't eat raw onions).
2. Because this resulted in a crumbly heap of cabbage and carrots after 6 hours, the mix (sugar, salt, pepper, milk, mayonnaise, buttermilk, vinegar, lemon juice) was doubled. The slaw is now very wet. A happy medium for next time would be to increase the mix by 1-1/2 instead of doubling.

The flavor is nearly identical to KFC's coleslaw. I happen to love their coleslaw so I was ecstatic with the result after Bug made this creamier.

Coleslaw, prior to the mixture adjustment, and my favorite spork

This was an inexpensive, filling, and satisfying meal with a lot of leftovers, a result of the amount that Bug made -- meat for at least 10 sandwiches and ~20 servings of coleslaw.

2 lb ground chuck ($5.40)
1/2 Vidalia onion - leftover from Pasta con Sarde ($0.38)
2/3 green bell pepper - leftover from something else ($0.99)
1 pack of burger buns ($0.79)

1 head of cabbage ($1.49)
1 carrot ($0.27)
1/2 c buttermilk ($0.38), the balance will be used for fried chicken

Total: $9.70

I like crunchy lettuce with my sloppy joes!

- Cassaendra