My Happy Accident

My friend Schelle and I were having one of our marathon phone conversations the other day. The kind where you’ve been talking for an hour and don’t have anything new to say, so instead of just getting off the phone like a sane person would, you end up going around the house doing your chores together. I was planning my meals for the week and she was cleaning out her pantry when she told me about a recipe she invented that her family just loved, and she loved it because it was a leftover meal that was very nearly a free nights cooking.

She said that on Sunday, she would throw a pot roast in the crock pot and they’d eat that one night with vegetables. Then on Monday night she’d take the leftover pot roast, shred it, and simmer it in a yummy sauce to make sloppy joes. She gave me the following recipe which she has graciously allowed me to share with all of you. All measurements are approximate:

Schelle’s Sloppy Joes
Leftover pot roast
1 C tomato soup
1 1/2 to 2 T Worcestershire sauce
1/4 C onion, diced
1/4 C green pepper, diced
1/2 tsp salt
2 T vinegar
1/4 t garlic
1/4 C brown sugar
1 t chili powder
6 to 10 drops tabasco sauce

Saute onions and peppers in butter. Add all other sauce ingredients and cook till warm. Shred meat and add to sauce. Simmer for 20 minutes to an hour. The longer the better. Serve on good rolls.

This sounded great to me so I wrote it all down, but I didn’t label it “Schelle’s Sloppy Joe Recipe,” I just scribbled it on the back of my grocery list. So by the time I got around to actually remembering to defrost the roast in time to cook it, I had forgotten all the actual instructions. I had in fact forgotten that it was a sloppy joe recipe. I thought I had written down her recipe for pot roast.

So I sauteed the onions and peppers, I mixed up the sauce, I chopped up potatoes and carrots, threw it all in the crock pot and set the thing on high.

Then I saw I had written something about shredding the meat and a lightbulb went off in my head. I was super disappointed because I thought I had just ruined the dinner I had spent days forgetting to make. I decided that since I had already put the work in, I might as well just let ‘er rip and see what came out.

Turns out, I can out-Martha Martha even without reading the instructions.

It was so incredibly good. Apparently, I just invented a crock pot swiss steak recipe. I did go on to make the sloppy joes, which were very very good themselves, but I was more thrilled with the swiss steak because I fell butt first into this great little concoction.

So I give you all my wonderful new recipe. I’m very proud.

Schelle's Sloppy Joes Tresa's Swiss Steak 

Leftover Pot Roast Big Hunk of Raw Roast
1 C tomato soup
1 1/2 to 2 T Worcestershire sauce
1/4 C onion, diced
1/4 C green pepper, diced
1/2 tsp salt
2 T vinegar
1/4 t garlic
1/4 C brown sugar
1 t chili powder
6 to 10 drops tabasco sauce

Saute onions and peppers in butter. Wonder why you need to cook the onions for a pot roast. Shrug your shoulders and don’t think about it too hard. Realize you didn’t buy tomato soup so scour your shelves for some tomato based product you can add to the mix. Figure watered down tomato paste would work fine. Toss it all together. Chop potatoes and carrots and throw in the crock pot. Drop hunk of meat on top. Slather tomatoey sauce all over the top. Wonder how carrots would taste cooked in tomatoes. Put the lid on and turn the crock pot on high. Ignore until it smells really good. Get lucky.

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