halfwacksnacks | delicious juice dot com

You look like you could use a sandwich.

Ingredients

One package of lean ground beef

One can of Manwich sauce

Some squishy buns

A diced onion

Spicy/Dilly pickles in your preferred format

Cheese? Sure, cheese.

BBQ sauce

Mayo, according to Ed

Prep

Fry up the ground beef. After it’s cooked, stir in the can of man sauce. Let simmer.

Prep your buns. We use submarine buns because they don’t dissolve when wet (looking at you, Kaiser rolls) and they taste good. Pro tip: scoop some of the bread flesh out of the centre of your bun. It makes for more meat room.

If you’re into mayo and butter, slather up the roll. I am a purist who does not need cream to go with my man-sauced meat, but you do you.

Spoon some of the meat into your bun and bun-channel. Add onions and pickles – I use Oh Snap Hottie Bites because a) they’re hot af and b) they’re friggin’ delicious. Ed is a delicate flower who prefers the less-spicy Dilly Bites which are also very tasty but I want my sandwich to make me hurt. Add cheese if you’re into that sort of thing, then top it all with as much BBQ sauce as you can handle. We’re both super fond of Trader Joe’s Sriracha BBQ sauce, coz it adds a really nice flavour to the meat and spicy pickles.

That’s it. Super short recipe today, but it’s very big on flavour. I call it the Sloppy Jorge because I am very fond of naming things “George”, even if they are not a George at all. This is our go-to quick meal when we’re sick of chicken and fish and poblano peppers, and it never fails to fully satisfy. It’s really just a Sloppy Joe with extra steps, but they’re worthwhile steps that result in a very tasty and filling meal and actually somehow covers all four food groups nicely. If you can avoid eating an entire bag of potato chips alongside your Sloppy Jorge, you might actually have a decently balanced meal. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.

It’s Shan’s birthday! Celebrate all things Shan by making her awesome breakfast casserole!

Necessary Ingredients

Many eggs

Plain kefir

Many cheese

Pesto

Mushrooms

Soy sauce

Salt/Pepper

Small frying pan

Casserole dish

Optional Ingredients

Anything in your fridge that goes with eggs: tomatoes! onions! that one sad red pepper you can’t bring yourself to throw away! Ham? HAM! Corn! Watermelon? Maybe skip the watermelon. Peas! Broccoli! Spinach! Leftover potatoes! Basically, anything. As long as it goes with eggs.

Prep

Pre-heat your oven to 400. Dump your mushrooms in a frying pan, and douse them with soy sauce. Fry ’em up nice and tasty. While that happens, grab a tablespoon or so of pesto and smoosh it all around the bottom of your casserole dish. Spread the soy-fried mushrooms on top of the pesto. Add in your optional ingredients.

Open up many eggs into a bowl. Salt n’ Pepa them liberally, then pour in some kefir. This will make your eggs thick and chunky and weird, but bear with me here.

Pour the eggy kefir mixture into the casserole dish, then top it with an entire bag of shredded cheese. While I am a Tex-Mex cheese girl, I use the Italiano blend for this dish coz it’s super good. If you’re a little extra, decorate the top of the cheese with pleasing shapes and flavours. I like to halve a bushel of grape tomatoes and line them up to spell dirty words on top of the cheese.

Put the casserole dish in the oven and let it bake for at least 30 minutes – basically, you want it to not only cook but also firm up (unless you like your eggs damp at which point what is wrong with you) and let the cheese on top brown. I usually start checking it at the 30 minute mark, but leave it in for up to an hour. Use the cheese as your guide. If it’s still cheese-coloured, leave it in the oven. Brown cheese is the key.

Take your nicely-browned casserole out of the oven, and let it sit for 5-10 minutes to both settle and also not be catastrophically hot. Slice and serve with a spatula and a variety of delicious sauces, then celebrate Shan for the delight of ingenious flavours inside your mouth holes.

Today is Shan’s birthday! She is one of my very favourite people and I love her madly. We haven’t been able to hang out as much as usual because of the apocalypse, but I hope that will change soon with our shiny new vaccinations and 14 months of non-stop mask wearing. We have *plans*. Birthday plans. I am excite.