Once upon a time, there was a girl who had a food blog. And she would make recipes and take pictures and write about the things she was learning how to make. She would even post about these things on her blog on a semi-regular basis! But then she joined weight watchers and a roller derby team… and she stopped cooking new things and stopped taking the time to write on her blog!

Anyway, life is still busy and stressful, but this week is DERBY BREAK, and the point of DERBY BREAK in my world is to take the time to do the things you have neglected. For me, that means hanging out with non-derby friends, cleaning my apartment, and updating my woefully neglected blogs.

I have posted about sloppy joes here before… way back when, I wrote about Quick Sloppy Joes that just make a small batch in one pan, for a couple of people. I call them cheater sloppy joes. Today is sloppy joes made in the crock pot, perfect for taking along to a pot luck! Which is exactly what I made them for.

You’ll need: 3 lbs ground beef, celery, onions, green pepper, 15 oz. can tomato sauce, worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, mustard, ketchup, sloppy joe mix.

Start by finely chopping your celery, onion and green pepper. You won’t need quite this much, but I chopped it all and set some aside for other uses.

Next, brown up your three pounds of ground beef with the celery/onion/green pepper mixture. When it’s all done, drain off the excess fat.

Then add a 15 oz. can of tomato sauce

2 T. Worchestershire sauce

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup yellow mustard

1/4 cup ketchup

and 1 packet of sloppy joe mix.

Stir it all up until it’s well combined

Then transfer it over to a crock pot, set on low and cook alllll day. I started mine first thing in the morning for a shindig that started at 5 or 6pm (I don’t remember for sure). My mom suggested buying 24 buns for this amount of sloppy joes… it was pretty close.

I have to apologize for the lack of pictures of the finished product on a bun, ready to consume. The day I made these, I was also attempting to make a pan-fried onion dip… I burnt the first set of onions, and when I went to make a second attempt, I sliced open my thumb and ended up in the ER for 3 stitches and a tetanus shot. Needless to say, I made it to the party with my sloppy joes in tow, but was not necessarily in the right frame of mind to remember to take finished product pictures. Or even take my camera to the party. Ah well. They were delicious either way!

Crockpot Sloppy Joes
Source: Mom’s recipe box

3 lb hamburger
Celery
Onion
and Green pepper, chopped fine
15 oz. tomato sauce
2 T. Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup yellow mustard
1/4 cup ketchup
1 pkg sloppy joe mix

Brown hamburger with celery, onion and green pepper. Drain off excessive fat. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Transfer to crock pot and cook on low for several hours.

This week’s recipe goes quite well with last week’s mashed potatoes. In fact, I made them together. I’ve actually made this Salisbury Steak twice now, but the first time I made it was when I had uncooperative camera batteries and couldn’t take pictures. Luckily, I enjoyed it well enough the first time that I decided to do a little bit of tweaking and make it again. I found the recipe at The Baking Beauties, and it is gluten-free if you use GF bread crumbs.

I like to serve my Salisbury Steak with mashed potatoes, as I’ve already mentioned. Because of this, I doubled the sauce so that we’d have enough to use as gravy for the potatoes. That’s the only change I made to the original recipe. The descriptions with my pictures are for the doubled sauce. The recipe posted at the end has the original measurements so you can make it however you like!

You’ll need:

1 1/2 lbs ground beef, bread crumbs, 1 egg, Lipton onion soup mix, cornstarch, ketchup, mustard powder, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce

Combine packets of onion soup mix in a bowl with 1 1/2 cups of hot water and let sit for 5 minutes.

While that’s resting, in a large bowl combine 1 1/2 lbs of ground beef

1/2 cup of bread crumbs

1 egg. It’s there, I swear… it’s hiding up there in the corner.

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

And finally, 1/3 cup of the onion soup mixture that’s been resting since the first step.

Get in there and mix it all together until it’s all very well combined. I suggest using your hands, it will be much easier. Divide the mixture and shape it into 6 oval shaped patties. I don’t have a picture of this step because, well, my hands were covered in raw meat.

If you can handle having several things going in the kitchen at once, you can go ahead and start browning the meat. If you’re like me though, and things on the stove generally require your full attention, set the meat aside and start on the sauce.

Take the remaining onion soup, and add two teaspoons of corn starch.

Stir until the corn starch is well incorporated.

Add 1/2 cup of water. And yes, I realize that this picture probably looks exactly like the last one.

Add 1/2 cup ketchup

2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

And 1 teaspoon dry mustard powder.

Stir it all together, and set aside.

In a large skillet over medium high heat, brown the patties on both sides. As you can see in this picture, they are still very pink on the inside. That’s okay. You’re just trying to brown the meat, it will finish cooking with the sauce.

Drain off as much of the extra fat as you can.

Pour the sauce mixture over the meat.

Cover the pan, and cook for approximately 20 minutes. I don’t any pictures of the finished product because my company had arrived, it smelled SO good, and I was too eager to start eating. And I just plain forgot. But trust me, it was good! I served it over mashed potatoes and we all ate until we were stuffed.

Salisbury Steak
From The Baking Beauties

1 package of Lipton onion soup mix
3/4 cup hot water
1 1/2 lbs ground beef
1/2 cup dry GF bread crumbs
1 egg
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black ground pepper
1 tsp cornstarch
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup water
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp mustard powder

Combine onion soup mix and hot water in a dish & let sit for 5 minutes. OR, you can use a can of condensed french onion soup (not sure if that is GF though).
In a huge bowl, mix together 1/3 cup of the onion soup mixture with ground beef, bread crumbs, egg, salt and pepper. Shape into 6 oval patties.
In a large skillet over medium-high heat, brown both sides of patties. Pour of excess fat.
In a small bowl, blend cornstarch and remaining soup mixture until smooth. Mix in ketchup, water, Worcestershire sauce and mustard powder. Pour over meat in skillet. Cover, and cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

My camera has recently been very uncooperative, and has balked at performing the task of photographing my cooking sessions. Granted, I haven’t been cooking a whole lot, but I did make at least one dish I would have loved to share with you. I’m hoping it’s just an issue with rechargeable batteries that are on their last leg. In the meantime, I’ll share this Fiesta Taco Casserole that I made awhile back but wasn’t impressed with.

If you’ve been reading for awhile, you’ve probably guessed that I’m a big fan of tacos, and taco flavored things. I should have learned by now that if a dish has “taco” in the name, but does not have taco seasonings in the ingredients, I’m probably not going to be happy with the finished product. That being said… I do think this would be a decent casserole if I used a regular can of beans, and a packet of taco seasoning instead of relying on a can of chili beans to provide the flavor for the meat layer. It will probably be a long time before I get around to trying again, so you’ll have to let me know what you think.

I don’t remember where I found this recipe, but I’m thinking it may have been in my Betty Crocker cookbook. Here’s what you’ll need.

1 lb ground beef, 1 can chili beans in sauce, salsa, sour cream, tortilla chips, onion, tomato, shredded cheese, lettuce.

First, brown up your ground beef with the onions until the onions are soft and the ground beef is no longer pink. Drain off fat, if necessary.

Add your can of chili beans, undrained.

Plus one cup of salsa.

Mix together.

Layer two cups of broken tortilla chips in the bottom of a 2 quart casserole dish.

Layer your meat and bean mixture on top of the chips.

Spread 3/4 cup of sour cream on top of your meat mixture.

Followed by your tomato.

And finally, sprinkle on 1 cup of shredded cheese. I used a cheddar jack Mexican blend.

Look at the pretty layers!

Bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and everything’s hot and bubbly.

Serve with extra tortilla chips, shredded lettuce and salsa, all optional. This dish has potential with some changes, but the originally written recipe left a lot to be desired for me. I don’t think I even ate any of the leftovers.

Fiesta Taco Casserole
1 lb lean (at least 80%) ground beef
1 can (15 to 16 oz) spicy chili beans in sauce, undrained
1 cup salsa
2 cups coarsely broken tortilla chips
3/4 cup sour cream
4 medium green onions, sliced
1 medium tomato, chopped
1 cup shredded cheddar or monterey jack cheese
tortilla chips, optional
shredded lettuce, optional
salsa, optional

Heat oven to 350 degrees. In 10 inch skillet, cook beef over medium heat 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally until brown, drain. Stir in beans and 1 cup salsa. Heat to boiling, stirring occasionally.
In ungreased 2 qt casserole, place broken tortilla chips. Top with beef mixture. Spread with sour cream. Sprinkle with onions, tomato and cheese.
Bake uncovered 20-30 minutes or until hot and bubbly. Arrange tortilla chips around edge of casserole. Serve with lettuce and salsa.