Paisley Pine

 

For the past three or four months, we’ve deliberately experimented with slow cooker meals. Several dishes we tried were clear winners: easy to make, easy to clean up, and very well received. I’ve shared these recipes here, and they’ll appear on our table again and again. But not all our experiments were successful. Last week we made Sloppy Joes in the slow cooker. We won’t be trying that again. For one thing, our family is used to Sloppy Joes with BBQ sauce or Manwich Bold involved. Without those, this recipe was really lacking in the tangy department. For another, the ground beef wasn’t browned and drained before being added to the slow cooker. That meant the finished product had a lot more fat than necessary. Even if I’d browned it first, the meat would have ended up soft and mushy. I suspect that’s why not many slow cooker recipes call for ground beef.