Homemade Sloppy Joes

I've always loved sloppy Joes. It's something my mom made quite a bit while I was growing up, and I always looked forward to those meals. Nate and I used to make sloppy Joes with Manwich, most of the time. While I love the taste of Manwich, I'm getting more and more into making things from scratch. Plus, the last time we made Manwich, I looked at the ingredients and the list is VERY long and contained some not-so-great-for-you things.

So, on Sunday, we had some friends over for the Packers-Vikings game and made sloppy Joes from my favorite crock pot cookbook, Biggest Book of Slowcooker Recipes. The recipe was super easy and it didn't take much to put together. It turned out to be a little soupier (sloppier?) than we had thought, but it's sloppy Joes, so it wasn't too surprising.

Here is the recipe:

Sloppy Joes

-2.5 lbs. ground beef (I ended up with about 2.75 lbs.)

-1 medium onion, chopped

-3 cloves garlic, minced

-1.25 cups ketchup

-1 medium green sweet pepper, chopped (I just used green bell pepper)

-2 stalks celery

-1/3 cup water

-3 tbs. each: brown sugar, prepared (yellow) mustard, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce

-1 tbs. chili powder

-I also added about 10 mushrooms, sliced

-buns or however you want to serve it

In a large skillet, cook ground beef, onion and garlic until meat is brown and onion is tender. Drain off fat.

In a slow cooker, combine all other ingredients (besides buns!). Stir in meat mixture.

Cover an cook on low for 6-8 hours or on high for 3-4 hours (we cooked on low for about 5.5 hours before turning to warm). Spoon into toasted buns.

In addition to the sloppy Joes, we made our signature sweet potato fries. Plus, with the rest of the cabbage I had left, made some simple coleslaw with carrots and slaw dressing.