Wo-manwich

In our house, Manwich isn't a word that gets used very often.  With mom not being a big fan of the Sloppy Joe's from a can, it's an extremely rare treat to eat them... until now.  I found a homemade Sloppy Joe's recipe that not only was loved by the Sloppy eaters of the house, but also mom.  Now, I will state ahead of time.  I've made the sauce for this recipe two completely different ways.  The first time was with the wrong kind of tomato sauce and a misreading of the garlic powder; the second time was the way it was supposed to be made.  Now, we personally prefer a thicker sauce, which is how the directions/ingredients list will show it, but this can be made to be a bit runnier if you prefer yours to be really sloppy.  But enough talk, let's get down to business.

Ingredients:

• 2 cloves garlic, minced 
• 1 pound ground beef (or turkey if you prefer)
• 8 ounces tomato paste
• 8 ounces water 
• *This can be gotten using the tomato paste can and your preferred water choice.
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon prepared mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• Hamburger buns

Directions:

1. Set a large pot over medium-low heat. Add a few drops of extra-virgin olive oil, and saute the garlic for a minute or two until just fragrant and very light golden brown. Add ground beef, increase heat to medium/medium high, and cook until no longer pink, breaking apart and stirring as meat cooks.
2. While meat is browning, make sauce. In a medium bowl, stir together tomato paste and water until smooth.  Then, add ketchup, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, garlic powder, onion powder, and freshly ground black pepper to taste, then stir until well combined. Pour over browned meat, stir, and simmer for a few minutes until warm.
3. Serve on hamburger buns or rolls.

I love this dish!  And the wonderful thing about a homemade sauce is that if you make it too onion-y or too garlic-y, you can increase another flavor like ketchup or brown sugar to balance it out until you like how it tastes.  You can use an 8 ounce can of tomato sauce if you want, just cross off the water from your ingredients list.  For us, though, as I said earlier, it's just too runny for us and we don't care for sloppy buns if we don't have to.  I love this dish on its own or accompanied by some mac and cheese and/or mashed potatoes.  

As always, I share the original recipe here as this isn't originally my recipe.  This is just my adaption on it.  As English class always teaches, no plagiarism!  If you have questions about the recipe or you want to share your adaptions to my recipe or the original recipe, leave a comment.  Happy eating!