Eating the Kansas Way

Happy Kansas Day, January 29. 156 years ago our state became the 34th state of the United States. We in Kansas are proud of our heritage and celebrate Kansas Day as an 'almost holiday'. Here in our house we do that with food. While most of our meals center around products common in Kansas, it's fun on Kansas Day to consider how much of our food is produced locally.

This year's Kansas meal included sloppy joes (beef from our ranch and whole wheat buns), baked beans, coleslaw, strawberry jello, and apple pie (the pie will be the next blog post). 

The sloppy joe recipe is one I developed for our church Fall Festival last October. The recipes I inherited with the United Methodist Women's box of files just didn't sound right, so with bits of those and some ideas from my own recipe files, we added and tasted and added some more. Luckily I wrote down the additions as we tasted and the end result is a recipe that we'll use again and again. I adapted it from 20 pounds of ground beef to 2 pounds for my family, and that version is what I'm sharing here. 

Beef sloppy joes are the main entree of this Kansas
food meal

UMW SLOPPY JOES

2 pounds ground beef

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/2 cup catsup

1 can (6 oz) tomato sauce

1 1/2 Tablespoon brown sugar

1 Tablespoon vinegar (I used Balsamic)

6 oz. tomato paste

Brown ground beef, add additional ingredients and simmer to develop flavor. 

What I discovered: The brown sugar and vinegar make a good balance of sweet/sour flavor. Tomato paste brings a bolder tomato taste to the mixture. Thanks to fellow UMW member Chef Deb for the help in finding the best combination. 

Baked Beans: One can of Pork 'n Beans in the cupboard, how to 'jazz' them up? I cooked bacon in the skillet, crumbled it and added chopped onion. After the onion was sautéed, I added the can of pork 'n beans with a little brown sugar and catsup. Let this reduce and thicken to make a tasty and quick baked beans side.