Hybrid Cornbread

I knew I was making Sloppy Joes for dinner last night, and I planned to make some sort of bread to go with them.  I was thinking about making Cider Rolls, but then it occurred to me that I have not made cornbread in a long time, and that it would probably go quite well with Sloppy Joes.  So I set out to make cornbread.  When it came time to add the cornmeal, I discovered that I only had 3/4 cup left, and my recipe calls for 1 1/4 cups.  Since I already had most of the batter thrown together, it was too late to change my mind.  So I used whole wheat flour as a substitute for the missing corn meal, and hoped for the best.  It worked out pretty well.  Hooray!

Hybrid Cornbread

preheat oven to 425

mix together:

2 tbsp melted butter

1 c milk

1 egg

mix together separately:

3/4 tsp salt

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp sugar

3/4 c flour

3/4 c cornmeal

1/2 c wheat flour

Dump the dry ingredients into the wet and stir until just combined.  Grease a 9x9 pan and pour in the batter.

Bake for 20-25 minutes (until a toothpick comes out clean)

Tastes like...cornbread.  The substitution of wheat flour for some of the cornmeal does not significantly diminish the cornbread taste.  

And it is excellent as a Sloppy Joe base. 

This picture is from last night's dinner.  Tonight, I added an avocado on top.  Major deliciousness. 

Sloppy Joe & Fries

I make sloppy joes every week or two, they are so delicious.  Since I don't measure, they never come out exactly the same twice.  Tonight's had a little bit of chopped onion and garlic, about 3/4 c red sauce, 1/4 c white sauce, a generous amount of ketchup, 1/4 c brown sugar, and 1 lb of ground beef.  Also, I added 2 shredded carrots.  Apparently I add shredded carrots to everything now.  I love finding ways to eat veggies without tasting them.  

The french fries were of the frozen variety, but I fried them in bacon grease.  

I put some sliced roma tomato and muenster cheese on the sloppy joe.

melty cheesy goodness

a bowl of broccoli on the side

I do recognize that a little bit of shredded carrot in my sandwich doesn't count as a full serving of vegetables.

The ranch I had for my fries helped make the broccoli taste better.

Guinness Bacon Joes

Guinness Marinade Part 1 (fish)

Guinness Marinade Part 2 (pork)

Guinness Marinade Part 3 (ground beef)

Bacon Guinness Sloppy Joes

Used up the remainder of the marinade, and I must say, I put it to good use!

So glad I didn't just pour it out like I would normally do to a leftover marinade. 

I don't think I've ever made sloppy joes the same way twice, but it's been my favorite thing to do with ground beef for awhile now, and they always end up delicious.  Tonight's were made with onion, bacon, garlic, tomato sauce, ketchup, brown sugar, and the guinness marinade.  I let them cook til they were pretty thick and delicious looking.  

Pictures from the Making

Dinner is Served

Here's the sign of a good meal:

oh and I had a salad too.  gotta eat those veggies.

Arugula Rolls and Bacon-y Joes

The original Sloppy Joe recipe can be found here.  Today's was mostly the same, but I added two big, thick, strips of bacon.  And didn't measure any of the ingredients.  And instead of tomato soup I used a bunch of leftover sauce from the last time I made meatballs.  And I used a bit of heavy cream this time too.

Here's the Arugula Rolls recipe:

Side note:  these are still a work in progress.  They were pretty good, but not nearly as taste-full as I had hoped.  I will definitely be playing with this recipe some more in the future!