Veg Sloppy Joes via That Much Further West

When I emailed Megan about doing a guest post here I knew right away that I wanted a recipe/step-by-step. Her blog always makes me hungry as it's full of awesome recipes and wonderful pictures of food. Seriously, this girl should take pictures of food for a living! Anyway, It just so happened that she offered this mouth-watering (vegetarian/vegan) sloppy joe recipe just as Jon and I were talking over making some! Thanks for sharing Megan, we'll be having these tonight! For more recipes, definitely check out her blog.



Hey Guys! I'm Megan from That Much Further West and I'm one of My Little Artichoke's sponsors. My blog is filled with day-to-day updates and recipes. I'm all about cooking even if cleaning up and doing the dishes is a drag. I've been craving sloppy joes for quite some time now and when Ainsley asked me if I wanted to do a DIY and/or recipe post, I figured this would be the perfect time to make some. Fortunately, her and her boyfriend had just been discussing sloppy joes too!

At first, I was going to use Rachel Ray's recipe but when I showed my boyfriend he said they weren't "sloppy" enough. So, I went on a hunt for ones that looked sloppy enough for him and this recipe is what we agreed on. I tweaked the recipe a little bit as I do not like cooked celery (weird, I know) and added ketchup to get a more sloppy joe vibe. These didn't taste quite like a true blue sloppy joe but we both devoured them within seconds and my boyfriend even had seconds! You definitely have to be a BBQ fan to enjoy these.

Sloppy Joes


minus mushrooms, totally forgot to photograph

Ingredients:
4 Kaiser rolls
1 tablespoon vegetable oil, or more as needed
1 onion, diced
12 ounces soy ground beef, crumbled
1/2 cup diced celery
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
3/4 cup barbecue sauce
1/4 cup vegetable stock
Dashes hot pepper sauce to taste, optional (I used Tapatio)
4 ounces low-fat cheddar cheese



















Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 450°F.

2. Slice the rolls in half, cutting off the upper third of the roll to leave the larger bottom section. Scoop out the inner portion of each bottom section, and set the tops and bottoms aside on a large baking sheet.

3. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When hot, sauté the onion for about 5 minutes.

4. Stir in the soy ground beef, celery, mushrooms, barbecue sauce, stock and hot pepper sauce, if using. Cook over medium heat for 4 to 5 minutes, or until the mixture is heated through. Remove from the heat.

5. Spoon equal portions of the mixture into the bottom sections of the rolls. Sprinkle each filled roll with cheese, and spray the insides of the top sections of the rolls with nonstick cooking spray. Set the tops on the baking sheet, cut side up.

6. Bake the tops and bottoms for about 5 minutes, or until the tops brown and the cheese melts and spills down the sides of the rolls. Remove from the oven, and serve.

Tweaks I made:
I skipped scooping out the inner portion since I couldn't find kaiser rolls and used hamburger buns which weren't thick. I also added more bbq and veggie broth because it just kept soaking everything up but you don't have to. It depends how sloppy you want yours to be. I added about 1/4 cup of ketchup too but that's not necessary although I'd definitely do it again. I butted my rolls instead of spraying cooking spray since I don't have that in my kitchen.

Ps: Don't forget dessert!