Easy Homemade Sloppy Joes - Kids in the Kitchen

Meat and sauce on a bun, quick, easy and delicious. I was extremely tired, so I opened my kitchen to a couple of my favorite guest Chefs! Look at what they dished up and the recipe instructions are like no other! Enjoy.

I love adding extra veggies to canned or jarred sauces. I diced an onion, red bell pepper and crushed a few garlic cloves to add to Manwich sauce and that pretty much was the extent of my cooking for the evening. I handed things over to my guest Chef Amari (he is my son).

He was sauteing vegetables however, there was one major step he missed. Can anyone guess? I’ll tell you…. he never turned the heat on. LOL. I was standing next to him and didn’t smell a thing. I thought, this is strange? No aroma from the onions, peppers or garlic. His brother came in to assist and quickly realized that dinner was never going to be finished without heat. It was so funny watching my young men in the kitchen, cooking that is, they are always there to eat without hesitation!

They finally got the heat going on the stove and Chef Amari decided to get jiggy-wit-it and started flipping and turning the ground meat outside the skillet.

They were in a grove now. The meat was browned and the sauce was ready to be added. I will admit I did add just a pinch of salt, pepper and sugar at this point. They didn’t taste the sauce for flavor. I asked why not? I was told “because, we have the magic touch” and “we know it’s taste good without tasting”. All I could say was “interesting concept”.

They even went a step further and styled the plate for pictures. They called me over so that I could take final shot of their plate. My youngest son informed me that this post might be the best one of all time. He also said “you will get 1 million people to your blog to check out our recipe”. My kids don’t lack confidence!

Has anyone else noticed that the tater tots look like a serving and a half compared to the salad? I had to ask the kids what happen to the salad portion. Amari said mom I didn’t want to crowd the plate! OK whatever kid, more salad on the plate.

So here is the quick and easy recipe from Chefs per their instructions:

1. Get the ground meat from the grocery store (we used 2 pounds)
2. Get the Manwich from the pantry (used 2 (15) ounce cans)
3. Grab the sandwich buns and look at your mom strange because she purchased whole wheat
4. Attempt to start cooking, but you get interrupted because your mom wants to add vegetables to a perfectly fine sauce (the can even says a serving of vegetables included) (1 onion 1 bell pepper 2 cloves garlic)
5. Cook the vegetable that your mom chops. BIG REMINDER: TURN ON THE STOVE (cooked over medium-high heat with 1 tablespoon cooking oil)
6. Add in the ground meat once the veggies start cooking.
7. Cook the meat until it is no longer pink. It should turn grayish brown.
8. Add the Manwich sauce to the pan and cook for a few more minutes. Oh, wait we put the tater tots in the oven before we started cooking. Just read the bag and it tells you what to do. And the salad came out of a bag from Publix. We added ketchup to the tarter tots and salad dressing to the salad.
9. Add the meat and sauce on a bun and serve on a plate with tater tots and salad. Then have your sister load the dishwasher because she didn’t slave over the stove and cook this outstanding meal.

I hope everyone enjoys the food.

If you guys have any comments for the chefs please don’t hesitate to leave them. I’m sure they will be checking in to see what the readers are saying.