sloppy joes and seasoned potato wedges

 

So one of the recipes I've been keeping to myself is my mother's recipe for sloppy joes.  These things are so, so tasty they may just change your mind about sloppy joes for the rest of your life.  In my daughter's words, "These are much better than the school sloppy joes, Mom."  So, Friday night, I assembled my ingredients and got started, dessert first.  As usual.

 

This recipe for peanut butter no bake cookies is the best I've ever found, and I can't even give proper credit to my source because I copied it down in my recipe file over a year ago and no longer remember my source.  But here it is:  First, I assemble all six ingredients.  Then, because speed is the key to nobakes (you don't want them solidifying in the pot or over or under cooking) I measure out in the following manner:  In the pan itself, I put 1/4 cup (which is also 1/2 a stick) of margarine and 1/2 cup of milk, which I put on medium heat until the butter is melted.  

 

While that's happening, I measure out my 3 cups of oats and put them aside in a large tumbler, and stir two cups of sugar into the milk/butter combo, dissolving it completely.  I then turn up the heat on the pan to a medium-high and set the timer for four minutes.  In that four minutes, I measure out 1 full cup of peanut butter and 1 tsp vanilla.  I also set aside a cookie sheet with waxed paper on it, keeping the waxed paper handy (you'll need about 3 sheets).  Also, I stir it a couple of times so that the sugar/milk/margarine doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.  When your timer goes, your sugar/milk/margarine should be at a rolling boil.  If not, keep it on until it is, then let it boil about a minute more. 
 

 

Remove the pot from the heat and stir in quickly your peanut butter until smooth (beat it like fudge) and your 3 cups oats, then spoon quickly onto the waxed paper, putting paper between each layer of cookies.  Then put another sheet of paper (or another cookie sheet, or both) on top of the whole shebang, and put it in the fridge to cool.  The top layer helps prevent any potential in-fridge spills, of which there are surprisingly many in my household. 

 

These cookies are large (you can make them as large or small as you like) about twice the size of an oreo.  And there were 22.  But before they were even cool I ate one.  So we'll say this recipe made 21.

 

 

Then, I started dinner: I pulled out a 1-lb bag of burger (I had bought a 2.8-lb family pack and split it into 3 baggies for freezing) but realized that it looked small in my pan, so I added another (and was rewarded for my efforts with plenty of leftovers).  While the burger was browning I diced an onion (recipe calls for one small but I only had "medium-sized" ones so at first I only diced half, but with the extra burger added the other half) and pre-heated the oven to 375 for the potato wedges.  A good rule-of-thumb is one large or 1.5 medium potatoes for an adult serving.  I used one large and three medium.

The wedges were easy: slice the potatoes "long ways" into halves, then slant your knife and cut each half into "wedge" shapes.  The "medium" potatoes I cut the halves into four wedges each; the larger potoato I cut each half into six wedges.  That gave me 36 potato wedges.  I put them on a cookie sheet, sprayed that sucker with butter flavor cooking spray (generic Pam) and seasoned them; half the tray with "cajun" and half the tray with "italian".  I did it this way because (1) my oldest doesn't like the "cajun" and (2) after half the tray, my "cajun" was gone.

Then, into the oven. 

By now, the burger was done and so were the onions.  I didn't have a lot of grease because this was "quality" burger, but if you do have a lot of grease, this is where you drain it off.  Now, I add the rest of the sauce to the burger, in the same pan: 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup catsup, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup vinegar, 1/8 cup (or 2 Tbsp) mustard, and 1/8 cup worcestire sauce.  Stir it all together, put a lid on it, and turn the heat down to simmer.  Set your timer for 10 minutes and check on the potatoes.  If they need stirred, make sure you re-spray and re-spice them.  If they're done, they're done.  The sloppy joes should simmer for a minimum of 10 minutes to really soak up the flavor.  If they start to dry out, add more water and stir.  (I would also add that 25 minutes is kind of a "maximum" time, too.  If you cook them any longer, you're not going to get any more flavor, and you're just prolonging the deliciousness for no good reason.)

My oldest was really

tentative at first...

But then
he devoured his food




I've already said that
my daughter enjoyed the meal

And once he pulled out all of his onions,
my youngest enjoyed his meal, too.




Surprisingly, we each only ate one cookie. 
They were quite large, but that doesn't usually stop us.




Now, for the totals: 
The burger was $1.98/lb and I used 2/3 of a 2.8-lb family pack, which makes the cost of tonight's burger meat $3.70.  A single onion (1/7 of a 98-cent 3-lb bag) was 14 cents, and 4 potatoes (out of 15 in a $1.98 5-lb bag) was 53 cents.  Let's assume 25 cents for an ounce or two of generic Pam and some seasonings.  Let's also assume 50 cents for the combined cost of catsup, sugar, worcester and vinegar in the sloppy joes. That makes the "dinner" part of tonight $5.12.

The no-bakes are tricky to calculate, but I'll do my best: 1/2 stick of margarine (depends how much it is when on sale - can range from 59 cents on a dollar saver at Costas to 99 cents to $2.50 if you buy a brand name, I'm gonna go "middle of the road" and assume $1.29/pk, or 1/2 stick = 16 cents.  If milk is $3.60/gallon, then 1/2 cup = 11 cents.  If peanut butter is $2.50 a jar than 1 cup = (roughly half) $1.25.  If oats is $1.85 at DG for a "small" container (which, according to the label, contains 13 servings of 1/2 cup each, then 3 cups cost 86 cents.  The cost of a teaspoon of vanilla is negligible; let's assume 10 cents.  The cost of 2 cups of sugar when a $2 (4-lb) bag contains (according to the product label) 454 teaspoons.  Seriously?  Well, I wasn't a math major for nothin'...  Ok, so there are 3.5 teaspoons in 1 Tbsp, and 16 Tbsp in a cup, which tells me that 4-lb bag contains about 8.11 cups.  So each cup cost 24.67 cents and 2 cups cost 49 cents.  Which is about what I would've guessed anyway... But now I know.

So this batch of 22 (ahem) or 21 very large no-bakes cost 16 cents margarine, 11 cents milk, $1.25 peanut butter, 86 cents oats, 10 cents vanilla, and 49 cents sugar, which makes them 14.14 cents per cookie.  Like I said, we only ate four with dinner last night.  In fact, we still have some, which in this house is nothing short of miraculous.

So $5.12 dinner + 4 times 14.14 cents cookies = $5.69

 

And did I mention there were left-overs? 

There were left-overs, so I'm billing this dinner as "under $5"