Did They Eat It: Sloppy Joe's

I swear I have fed my children since the last time I made a Did They Eat It post on March 16th. Wow, how did that happen.

I got a craving for Sloppy Joe's after sitting in the car at the market flipping through Simply Recipes on my phone. Here is the recipe. 

There's a joke in my family that I purposely mis-estimate the time it will take to make dinner on Wednesdays since Logan has to dash off to his bowling league. To keep from being the punchline of that joke I try to find things that are quick to make for Wednesday dinners. 

Dice up 1/2 cup of carrots and add it to a pan with heated olive oil. Cook for about 5 minutes.

Then add 1/2 cup diced celery and 1 cup chopped onion (I only used 1/2 cup because my family is a bunch of lunatics. Said, with love.) Cook for another 5 minutes and then add two cloves, minced garlic for about 30 seconds. Remove the mirepoix to a medium sized bowl.

Brown the ground beef. I liked Elise's method (in the recipe). Add back the vegetables. 

Now you add all the sauce ingredients. I didn't photograph this part because I was in a race against the clock you see. Here it is though, all sauced up.

Did They Eat It?

I bet you can't  tell who's this is. See that ONE bite gone off the very left side. That bite? Nearly KILLED this person.

Surprise! It's Maddie's portion.

I had better luck feeding this to Max. You can tell he likes it because he's making a goofy face.

I don't have pictures of Logan and I eating our Sloppy Joe's but rest assured we loved them and made goofy faces while we did. 

Another 3 out of 4 meals, though Logan's friend Nick ate over last night so it was actually a 4 out of 5 meal.

The full recipe is at Simply Recipes, here.

Comments

[Alison of a Gun]

I love Maddie. I mean, as much as you can love a stranger's kid from the internet. But if I cooked every night and got that face, I'd probably be so mad my blood would boil right out of my body. Argh! Now I feel bad for being such a picky eater when I was growing up. With my younger sister, my dad gave up and just let her have ramen every night.

[Krysta]

I'm sorry but who, in their right mind, doesn't love sloppy joes?!

[Finn Reeds]

Team Maddie! (you lost me at the cooked carrots - bleck! :)
May I ask, what would Maddie choose to eat if given the chance? I've got a 6 yr. old who basically eats buttered egg noodles for every meal and I'm wondering if that was the path Maddie started out on.
Thanks for the laughs today!

[melissa]

She did start out with PB&J and plain noodles, but now she'll eat anything plain (for the most part) so we have a lot of plain chicken, plain steak, plain hamburgers, plain shrimp (!!!) and salmon, she'll accept a honey maple glaze on the salmon and occasionally bbq sauce.

I mean, never mind that the sauce on the BEEF was in essence BBQ sauce.

[Brady's Mammy]

We eat a lot of sloppy joes at our house. I usually make them with turkey to keep it lean. It sounds strange but we like our joes with yellow mustard and dill pickles!

[sarah]

I was SO Maddie as a kid. Fear of the unknown + some neuroses that I didn't understand until much older = just plain scared to try certain foods. Learning to cook and being allowed to experiment in the kitchen (with friends! Who liked the things that I didn't! and peer pressured me into trying black beans! and tomatoes!) made me a far less picky & more open-minded eater.
I have a feeling that Maddie will get to that stage someday (long after you have given up) and then will become *such* an intuitive cook. Does her middle school have "life skills" aka home ec where they cook? That might help...

[diana]

just wanted to chime in to say i love the pictures! they are a welcome, hilarious addition to "did they eat it".

[ella]

Love Maddie's look. LOL!

We had sloppy joes 2 nights ago. Yeah, I'm lazy. I just opened up a can of sauce and poured it over the ground turkey I browned.
And tater tots!

[kay]

Maddie + Sloppy Joe = Bershon

[Crabby Apple Seed]

That's a high-maintenance sloppy joe recipe right there! Sure it's yum, like everything Elise publishes, but wow. in our house, we brown a pound of beef/turkey/morningstar crumbles, add a jar of heinz chili sauce (NOT cocktail sauce), a Tbsp of yellow mustard, and a Tbsp of brown sugar, and stir. simmer. voila. takes five minutes. and no visibly different ingredients! however, if Maddie is opposed to sauce, that may not matter.

Also, while I can see how it would be exhausting to get it every night at the dinner table, I love love LOVE the look on Maddie's face in that picture.

[Mary]

What exactly does Sloppy Joe possess?

*ducks*

[Melissa Summers]

Cute.

Let's say goodness and no editor!

Sent from my iPhone with fat fingers on tiny keys.

[Ange]

Hi, as a parent, I am just wondering what you do if one of your children eats only a bit of the meal and they aren't full after? Do you make them something else? Do they just make themselves a snack later? I am curious because I have a four year old and I am always at a loss - I hate to see him go hungry, but I also don't want to cook a separate meal! Now that your children are older and you have been doing this for a while, how have you handled this?

[Melissa Summers]

That used to be a bigger issue when they were little. I used to be sure to put 1 or 2 things on the table I knew they'd eat. Simple things like bread and butter and raw carrots.

We never had a clean plate rule and "dessert" is generally an Oreo or yogurt. But! To have anything else after dinner you have to try one bite.

That's still our rule one bite and it's because we read an article about how your tastebuds change over time so you never know when you'll like something you didn't like before.

Maddie has always been a little stubborn about it but she is 1000% better than she was at 4. There's hope.

I also used to make just 1-2 "real dinners" at first when I decided to challenge maddies pickiness. That's all I could handle without feeling angry and resentful. I wanted no stress or pressure at the table.

I can cook more often now but try to make one or two things a week that challenge my family. Otherwise I keep it simple. Plain chicken, plain broccoli, plain rice. Easy, easier than watching maddie turn her nose up and not unhealthy.

Sent from my iPhone with fat fingers on tiny keys.

[Lisame]

I too love Maddie as much as one could via the internet without being creepy BUT I think I would come unstuck on a child that wouldn't eat!

I do love me some Did They Eat It's though! The berson of it all.

[Molly]

I agree with whomever said that seeing the look on Maddie's face every time we sat down to eat would unhinge me. I am sympathetic to being served things I don't especially want to eat (my mother was an appallingly bad cook) but that look, every night...bless your heart, Melissa, for continuing to serve things other than the "plain."

[Kelly H]

We cook similarly for our kids. Stick with plain stuff most of the time - or things we can add yummy stuff to that the kids won't like (like tacos - they have meat and cheese and I have half fridge on mine). But I also agree with other commenters about Maddie's face! It's hilarious but I'm guess not so much when you've spent time to make this great dinner for your family.

And for the record, NO ONE in my family will eat sloppy joes but me. So the first time I hosted Bunco at my house - sloppy joes baby!

[KarinNH]

There is hope...much like Maddie, my oldest defined picky when he was little. And having grown up with epic battles at the dinner table, I didn't want to go there.

One night, I told him he didn't have to eat any salad, but just put some on his plate for color, to humor me. After a few weeks of that, I told him he didn't have to use any table manners if he was eating fruits and vegetables--none whatsoever. It almost killed me to sit across from him and watch him chew with his mouth open and use his hands, but I grit my teeth. And he gleefully went at it.

A semester abroad in Budapest got him to eat many things he would never eat here. It was either that or starve.

Now, at 25 he eats just about every single vegetable known to mankind. With his mouth closed. Using his fork. And just to add to my delight? He lives with a girlfriend who hates vegetables, and now he is the one coaxing her to eat them. Oh, that makes me laugh!

[Melissa Summers]

I made pasta tonight and because she likes shrimp I bought some garlic shrimp while at costco that she and I could add to our portion (max had marinara, hates sshrimp)

She didn't like the shrimp and I'm sorry I've come to accept the picky part of her but I had no choice i killed her with my mind.

I'm sorry. In jail serve me flavorless shrimp, chicken and steak.

Sent from my iPhone with fat fingers on tiny keys.

[Melissa Summers]

Yeah usually I handle it, it's a power play I don't want to get involved in. But GAAAAAA tonight? With the shrimp? I'm still recovering an hour later

[Irene]

My daughter didn't turn into a picky eater until around 6 years old. Before then, anything I put on the table was devoured. Oh how I miss those days. I've zeroed in on a couple of things she'll eat like say bbq chicken. So I'll make the damn bbq chicken that I know she'll eat because hey, she just ate it last week.Gets to the table, looks at the plate and says I don't like that anymore. Can I have pb&j instead? grrrrr!!!

[shawnadammit]

I love cheese slices on my sloppy joes... have Maddie try it that way next time. Cheese makes everything better.

That is, unless she hates cheese, too.

[Melissa Summers]

She hates cheese on anything but pizza and grilled cheese sandwiches and DO NOT try to convince her!!!!!

Sent from my iPhone with fat fingers on tiny keys.

[Samantha]

Maddie's face reminds me of the look Sarah often gives us. We're finding 11 quite an emotional age! Love sloppy joes here, well, everyone but Zach who just wants to exist on chicken nuggets, chicken patties, chicken tenders...

[maggie]

Can't hear or read the words "Sloppy Joe" without singing Adam Sandler's "Lunch Lady Land." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWmKH0rXG7A I doubt it'll make Maddie change her mind, but she will laugh.

I was extremely picky but I did grow out of it for the most part -- I'm a vegetarian now so I guess I'm still picky according to some people.

[kelli]

We love Sloppy Joes, but we have to call them Neat Sweet Meat and serve smaller portions (that can be picked up) so that my 6yo won't freak out. It works -- he eats it up!

[Heather]

I love that site! I cook a lot of her recipes.

My family loves those sloppy joes.

To cut down on the cooking time, I use either bagged shredded carrots or grate a whole carrot, chopping both up into shorter peices.

I highly recommend the chili bean and meatloaf recipes. I made both this week and we will have the leftovers tonight.

[Lisa]

My older son (the one who never went to daycare) eats only the white/brown/beige foods. The only "color" he eats is the red in pizza.

HOWEVER.

When he is not with us, or my in-laws, he eats whatever is served. (Except for veggies, of course, THAT IS CRAZY TALK) Last year he went to the Dominican Republic and ate all the native foods! WTF?! But try to get him to eat that here? No way.

Kids are weird.

[Lisa]

Oh, my younger son? Who did go to daycare? Eats everything.

[cj coppola]

My son won't eat sloppy joes on anything but tater tots.

[Becky]

My kid isn't picky and will pretty much eat anything you put in front of her.
But I get that look from her on any number of other topics. Frequently and have pretty much since she was born.
She & Maddie may have been seperated at birth.

[Slim]

We have a "you only have to try it if you complain about it" rule. I think making that face would count as complaining.

[Robin]

Could your daughter be a supertaster, and thus, many things that are just right for everyone else are too highly flavored for her?

http://supertastertest.com/

[Cori]

I think I've been reading your blog too long... As soon as I saw the recipe I thought, "There's no way Maddie would eat that."

[velvet]

i may have to make these for my husband...he won't stop talking about sloppy joe's lately, and i just can't face a can of manwich...although my oldest son is sooo picky i know he would totally give me that exact maddie face :)

[CinAA]

I accept that some people just don't like some things. I hate bananas (too mushy feeling) and maples syrup (just yuck). My oldest hates artichoke hearts (just yuck), cherry tomatoes (the way they squirt when you bite them), and canned tuna (too dry). Those seem reasonable to me.

Her brother, though, hates things at first glance unless they are sweet. Hates anything eggy, except french toast. But! If his sister makes a statement, "This is not my favorite..." he immediately decides he loves it, and eats it to make her look bad in comparison. So tuna salad? Even with hard boiled egg chopped in it? Bring it on!!! It is definitely a power struggle with that one, and the Force is strong.

So, we do the one bite thing and if you are still hungry, have some crackers and some cucumbers or whatever.

[Kristyn Eagleton]

You grilled the buns. Duh. Why didn't I think of that.

[s]

I was the pickiest eater ever...no pizza, no tomato sauce. I am sure I made my mother insane at dinner time. We used to go out for pizza EVERY week and EVERY week they would get me a special meal from a fast food restaurant at the opposite end of town just so they could sit and enjoy the meal with the rest of my (not spoiled) family! It is a running joke that I took McDs to a pizza place every week (Talk about offending the owner huh?) Anyways, I grew out of it eventually, but my parents could not have forced me to expand my range - it happened very very slowly. I have a super picky eater myself and a so so picky eater - I am just not going to engage in that struggle (or so I say but some nights, I stoop to that level bc its honestly so frustrating to cook something and get THAT face or the fake gag). More power to you that you keep trying - I love these posts on the Did they eat it!