The theme of the most recent recipe swap was “Too Hot to Cook”, so all the recipes submitted were ideally no cook recipes, so at least no stove/oven, but grilling and slow cooker were allowed.  I submitted my Chili Lime Shrimp Salad.  I received Tina’s blog, Tasty Treats by Tina, and she submitted sloppy joes.  This was originally a swap recipe she’d received in the past, but altered to her own liking the second run, so I went off of her recipe.

I was a bit hesitant as I’m very particular about sloppy joes, and I’ve only liked my mother’s recipe growing up (and still).  My only change to her recipe is to use ground turkey instead of ground beef.  No biggie.  Nate and I love them; I guess I should blog it sometime – though I’d have to get permission from Mrs. Pigzilla 😉

Anyway, I did the same thing with Tina’s recipe and substituted turkey meat for ground beef, and omitted tarragon, really just because I didn’t want to buy any just before leaving on vacation.  I also adjusted the measurements for my own taste.  After tasting it after it’d been in the slow cooker for a while, it was a little too tomatoy for my taste, so I did add more mustard to combat that.

In the end, they were pretty tasty.  Nate commented that they were a little too sweet, and I even lowered the amount of brown sugar it called for.  Next time, I’d probably omit the sugar as I find it unnessicary.

Sloppy Joes

Source: Tasty Treats by Tina
Servings: 4

Ingredients:

i lb ground turkey
1/2 large onion, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tbsp cider vinegar
1/4 cup yellow mustard
5-8 leaves fresh basil, chopped
2 tsp Cajun seasoning
2 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 cup ketchup
1 can tomato paste
salt and pepper

Directions:

1. In a large frying pan, brown turkey meat over medium heat.  Drain and add to slow cooker.  Add remaining ingredients, mix, and cook on low for 6-8 hours.  *Since I only used 1 lb of turkey meat (vs. Tina’s 2 lb ground beef), I only cooked my sloppy joe’s on low for about 4 hours.

2. Serve on toasted bun.