Light Sloppy Joes

I was looking at my blog description and remembered that I was going to include a little training on my blog too. Ha! Funny. Maybe I'll start doing that, but it really isn't very exciting. Except that I go through leftovers pretty quickly these days - I'm up to around 15-16 hours of training a week! AAH! Sometimes people ask how I manage to get dinner on the table every night, which is NOT an accurate statement. I always try to look for recipes that will last for several days, so I really only end up cooking dinner around 2 times a week, maybe 3. Especially since we're a household of two students...we don't even always eat together.

Doug put in a request for sloppy joe's...which sounds a little weird, but I like requests because sometimes the most annoying part about trying to have home cooked dinners all the time is I run out of ideas on things to make. Also, I like trying to make Doug's favorite meals healthy! One of these days, he is going to get tired of everything he likes made with all kinds of lighter substitutions, but I don't think anyone feels bad for him!

Anyway, these sloppy joe's were tasty, hearty, healthy and lasted for several days. We ran out of buns (Star Market has surpringly good whole wheat buns in their bakery aisle) on day two, then I started eating the meat just plain and it was still good. Doug made a bun out of cornbread (see last post), but that would be a little much for me!

Ingredients:
1 teaspoon canola oil
1 large white chopped onion
1 green pepper, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 pound lean beef - I used turkey - I think it was 97% lean. The 99% stuff doesn't absorb any other flavors in this type of dish too well.
1 six ounce can tomato paste
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt
14 ounces low sodium chicken broth
1 fifteen ounce can corn, drained
Whole wheat hamburger buns - I got 4, you need more like 6 for this recipe
Red pepper flakes to taste

Heat oil in a large nonstick skiller over medium high heat. Add onion, pepper and garlic and cook for around three minutes. Add meat to pan, cook for around 5 minutes - until the meat is no longer pink.


Stir in chili powder, cumin, salt, broth and tomato paste. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 12-15 minutes. Stir in corn, let cook for another 2 minutes, and you're done!


Toast the buns, and spoon on meat mixture. I also put sliced dill pickles on mine! I didn't take a picture of my actual sandwich...but I have faith you all know what this would look like on a bun :-)

This was a high veggie to meat ratio. When I make this again, I would probably add a little more meat and keep the amount of veggies the same. I also added a LOT of red pepper flakes, because I like spicy food!