Sloppy Joe Bake

My husband, who claims to dislike Sloppy Joes, likes this dish. So much so that he has seconds and that's the tell tale sign for me when I can make a dish again.

This dish is a combo of these two recipes here and here.

Sloppy Joe Bake

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 onion - diced
• 1 green pepper - diced
• 3/4 cup ketchup
• 1 tsp yellow mustard
• 3 tsp brown sugar
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1 cup Bisquick
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. In hot lightly oil pan, cook onion and pepper for a couple minutes till the onion gets a bit translucent.
3. Move onion and pepper to a bowl.
4. In same pan, cook ground beef till brown and drain.
5. While beef is cooking, mix Bisquick, egg, water and 1 cup of cheese and set aside.
6. Add onion and pepper back to beef mixture.
7. Next add ketchup, mustard, brown sugar, salt, and pepper and mix good and cook till hot.
8. Transfer meat mixture to a greased 9x9 pan.
9. Cover meat mixture with bisquick mixture and spread to coat top.
10. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top.
11. Pop in oven and bake for about 20-25 minutes till golden brown.

I served next to some tomatoes with salt, pepper, basil, EVOO, and vingar... Delicious!

Taco Nachos

Last week's Weekly Menu didn't go quite as planned. I sort of fizzeled out by the end of the week because I had a horrible headache one day and DH just brought home some take out, and the next day he needed to cook something he purchased the previous weekend to avoid spoiling. So instead of using the ground beef I defrosted for Sloppy Joe Bake and instead of using the fresh Salsa and Sour Cream for the Salsa Chicken, I used those ingredients for last night's dinner and made my husbands AWESOME taco meat, which I turned into

Taco Nachos

• 1 pound ground beef
• taco seasoning package
• water
• fresh salsa
• sharp cheddar, shredded
• sour cream
• tortilla chips (we used multi-grain with 30% less fat than regular and they were really good!)

1. Follow directions of taco seasoning package by browning ground beef, draining, adding taco seasoning and water and bringing to simmer.
2. Rather than serve after 7 minutes or whatever the package says, keep cooking it so that the meat dries out a bit.
3. Add about 1/2 a cup of fresh salsa and keep cooking. If it seems dry even after adding the salsa, add some water.
4. Keep cooking until it become a bit dry and add some water and cook the shit out of it (on high, stirring occassionally) until it becomes dry. In all honesty, we cook our meat for about an hour on the stove top and I'm telling you, it's so, so, SO worth it!
5. Preheat oven to 425.
6. Line cookie sheet with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray.
7. Add tortilla chips so that it covers the sheet.
8. Sprinkle a handful or two of shredded cheddar onto the naked chips.
9. Cover the chips and cheese with the meat, trying to cover all the chips and the chips only.
10. Sprinkle a handful of shredded cheddar on top of the meat.
11. Pop in oven for only a couple minutes.
12. Take out and serve on plate with a big gob of sour cream (and any other fixings - more salsa, olives, onions - you like).

You can certainly ease up a bit on the ground beef and chips if you'd like to serve as an appetizer or snack, but since this was our meal, I piled on the entire pound of ground beef in the pictures shown. Mmmmm, a simple recipe that's a little time consuming but really so, so worth it!

Mmm... Taco Bake

Tonight I made Taco Bake and all I can say is ... Yum. It was definitely a hit and it will definitely be made again. I can envision entertaining with it as well. Lord knows the recipe makes plenty of servings!

• 1 lb ground beef (I used ground turkey!)
• 1 packet taco seasoning
• 15 oz. tomato sauce
• 8 oz. seashell pasta
• 8 oz. package cream cheese, softened in microwave (I used 1/3 less fat)
• 1/2 cup sour cream (I used 1/2 a container)
• 8 oz. shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• 9x13 pan
• cooking spray

1. Brown ground beef, drain.
2. Add taco seasoning and tomato sauce. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 20 minutes.
3. In the meantime, cook pasta according to directions. Drain.
4. Preheat oven to 350.
5. Mix softened cream cheese and sour cream in separate bowl.
6. Spray bottom of 9x13 pan. Put pasta in bottom of pan.
7. Spread cream cheese mixture over pasta.
8. Spoon ground meat mixture over this.
9. Sprinkle shredded cheese on top.
10. Bake @ 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Let cool 15 minutes before serving.

The best news is that S liked it, too. And that made my day because not only did I use the less fat version of cream cheese, but I also used Turkey instead of ground beef: two things S is not fond of. Or so he says. Needless to say, I didn't tell him my little secret - nor will I.

Things to remember for next time: cook the pasta a little longer. I thought (I'm *not* a kitchen person eh) that if I undercooked it, it would bake to perfection whereas if I cooked it to perfection, it would bake to mush. And I don't like mush.

But I was wrong.

It was still really friggin good though. And I can't wait for lunch tomorrow! :)

Also for next time: if making for just the two of us, I think I'm going to cut the recipe in half for four large servings rather than 8.