Sloppy Joe

What do you cook when you’re feeling lazy but don’t fancy a takeaway?

Imagine the skies are overcast with dark grey clouds spitting down on you the entire day. You look outside from the comfort of your own home desperate to find a ray of sunshine but to no avail.

A good burger might cheer you up but you can’t even be bothered to shape it. A takeaway might be the easier option but you’re trying to eat more healthily. Yes, it’s the sort of night to make a Sloppy Joe.

Ingredients (Serves 4)

1 onion diced
1 garlic clove diced
1 green pepper diced
250g minced beef
Half tbsp mustard
Half tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp vinegar
Ketchup (be generous!)
Half tsp chilli spice (optional)
4 burger buns
Pre-washed salad (optional)


Method
  1. Heat a small amount of oil in a frying pan. Throw in the minced beef, onion, garlic and green pepper. Cook till the beef is browned.

2. Add the mustard, vinegar, ketchup, chilli spice and brown sugar. Use as much or as little ketchup as you want. I like my mince well coated in ketchup so I’m really generous with it.

3. Mix well and cook on medium heat for 15-20mins.

4. Prepare the burger buns and place the pre-washed salad on the bottom half of the buns.

5. Serve the mince on the buns!

We make Sloppy Joe when we want a quick fix. Not only is it filling, but also tasty. The recipe isn’t get in stone and that’s really why I like it. Instead of peppers, I could substitute with diced carrots and throw in additional mushrooms.

Sloppy Joe for a sloppy me on a rather uneventful day – perfect!

Chilli Chicken Sandwich with Avocado

I was craving for a sandwich for dinner. In fact, I crave for sandwiches a lot in a country that doesn’t know what a sandwich is. However, Germany does itself proud in many other ways so I shall compromise and make myself a homemade sandwich instead. I didn’t want anything too heavy after waking up at 2am last night with indigestion. That was a horrible pain and I don’t wish to go through that for two consecutive nights.

I wanted a zesty (and slightly spicy) sandwich so I marinated 400g of chicken breasts with lime juice (from 2 limes) and two tablespoons of chilli powder mixed with garlic for 2 hours.

As I’m currently addicted to avocados after reading its amazing health benefits, I added them to my sandwiches in addition to some green salad. They are surprisingly filling which is great if I’m only making a sandwich for Daniel at dinner time.

We don’t have a grill at home (unfortunately) so I pan fried the chicken breasts with olive oil and melted Chester cheese on them before serving with toasted muffin bread. Definitely sounds more complicated than slapping cold meat and cheese between slices of bread, but it was well worth the effort.

The lime juice gave the sandwich a citrusy taste which definitely did stimulate our taste buds. The chilli and garlic spice mixture wasn’t too spicy; it was just enough to give the chicken breasts some flavour. I reckon I’ll have to look for more chicken sandwich recipes!!!

Cumin Burgers

I love burgers. Not fast food burgers, but actual homemade beef burgers. I'm really skeptical when someone tells me a restaurant serves THE best burger in town. I've taken those advice plenty of times only to find myself disappointed at the end of the night. Most places freeze the meat, which is understandable. However, freezing those burger patties means they lose the natural, flavourable juices which make your burger very tasty. That's why MOST restaurant burgers are dry and taste mediocre.

I started making my own burgers at home in 2007 by following a recipe. After 6 years I have made enough burgers to change its taste as and when I like. One of my favourite burgers is Cumin Burger. It has a slight tinge of spiciness and the cumin adds fragrance to the burger. 

Copyright Yoyo's Kitchen Adventures

Here's the recipe for it.

Ingredients (Serves 2)

• 150g minced beef
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 small carrot, finely shredded
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp cumin spice
• Half tsp cayenne pepper
• Half tsp dried rosemary herbs
• Half tsp black pepper
• Salt (just a little sprinkle)
• 2 tbsp of oil
• Grated cheese
• Iceberg salad
• Burger buns
• Jalapeno (Optional)
• Sunnyside ups (optional)

Instructions

1. Mix the minced beeg, onion, carrots, cumin spice, cayenne pepper, rosemary herbs, black pepper and salt in a bowl.
2. Add the egg and use your hands to combine it well.
3. Divide the mixture into 2 equal portions and flatten them. Make sure they are about the same thickness (and not too thick).
4. Wrap the individual patties separately in cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
5. Heat the oil in a frying pan at high temperature. Put the patties in when the pan is sizzling hot. 
6. Fry each side for 3 minutes and then lower to medium-low heat.
7. Continue frying on medium-low heat for 5 minutes on each side.
8. Sprinkle some grated cheese over the patties and turn off the heat.

Tips

I always put some vegetables on the bottom half of the burger bun before placing the patty on it. This is so the bun doesn't get all soggy from the meat juices (yum! yum!). I love eggs so I always fry a sunnyside up to go with my burgers too but this is optional. If you like your food to be a little spicy, feel free to add some jalapeno to your burger. Go easy on them though!