This week, Karis and I made two new things, at least new to our house: Sloppy Joes and Scones.My first scone, or the first I can remember, came about 1 year ago, when Karis and I spent Christmas in NYC with Karis' parents. We were at a little cafe underneath the UN, and I had a very hard time ordering a chocolate chip scone (because I didn't know what it was called):
Me: Do you have any chocolate chip muffins?
Cafe Worker: No, only blueberry.
Me (seeing a chocolate chip scone): Oh, can I have that chocolate chip thing right there?
Cafe Worker: No chocolate chip, only blueberry.
Me: But what about that, isn't that chocolate chip?
Cafe Worker: No chocolate chip! Only blueberry!
Karis: Oh, he means the scone, can he have a scone?
Cafe Worker: Scone? Here is scone.
Karis: No, not that one, the chocolate chip one.
Cafe Worker: No chocolate chip!
Karis and I together: It's right there!
Cafe Worker: Oh... here.
That's basically the story, except it took 5 minutes longer.
But anyway, Karis made scones using a recipe from Epicurious (Chocolate Chip-Toffee Scones, but we just made Chocolate Chip ones).
We were also inspired to make Sloppy Joes, I used part of 2 different recipes (Epicurious and Betty Crocker) but then also changed and add things on my own - mainly due to our lack of Worcestershire sauce:
Heat 2 Tbls Olive Oil (on medium high)
Add 1/2 cup chopped Onion
Add 2 chopped celery stalks
Add 1/2 green bell pepper
Add 1 jalapeno pepper
Add a lot of minced garlic (maybe 6-8 cloves)
Add 1 lbs ground beef
After brown add 1 cup ketchup
1 tsp Crystal Hot Sauce (my favorite)
1 tsp soy sauce
a dash of apple cider vinegar
a pinch of ground clove
Salt and pepper to taste
Served on potato rolls, makes about 6 Joes.
By adding the veggies in that order, they all had just enough time to cook and soften without getting mushy (ie. add olive oil, then start to chop onion, oil will be ready by the time you're done chopping, add onion then start chopping celery, etc...). The recipes I looked at said to let it all cook together and soften more after everything was added for another 15 minutes or so, I skipped that and it turned out great - it was nice to have a little bit of textural differences.
The last three ingredients (besides s&p), and extra garlic, were to substitute for the Worcestershire sauce, but the Joes were so flavorful, I think I'd do it the same way every time.
