Sloppy Joes. It doesn’t initially make people’s mouths water. There’s a certain skepticism about the idea. Sloppy Joes? That’s what they served in the cafeteria. When they ran out of real food. Adam Sandler. It’s just bad. But we decided to try it anyway in our dutch oven, camped along our favorite spot on the Eel River, and guess what? It was damn good! And our friends even had seconds. So there. Recipe below.

Tools:

12″ dutch oven

stirring spoon

cup

hot fire

 

Ingredients:

2.5 lbs ground beef

2 tablespoons butter

half a large onion, diced

1 green pepper, diced

5 cloves garlic, minced

1.5 cups of ketchup

1 cup of water

2 teaspoons chili powder

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Worcestershire sauce

salt + pepper

Buns of your choice

 

Do:

A lot of this you can prepare at home so you have it ready to go to toss into your hot dutch oven. So at home dice your onion, green pepper and garlic and throw into a ziplock. Also at home combine in another bag the brown sugar, chili powder, and red pepper flakes. Get your fire nice and hot with a good bed of embers. Find a snug spot for your dutch oven and get it heated, which only takes a minute, but make sure it’s not getting too much direct flame.

Melt the butter in the dutch oven, then add your ground beef and cook/stir it until it’s all brown. Try to drain most of the fat if possible. Then add in the contents of your onion/pepper/garlic bag, and let these cook until they are getting soft. Squeeze in your ketchup, and then add in the seasoning bag, salt + pepper to taste, Worcestershire sauce, and the water. Stir this all up and then let it simmer for about 15 minutes.

Now you are ready to feast. Toast up your rolls on the fire and top them with a helping of Sloppy Joe. Take a big messy bite, and enjoy!

All Sloppy Joe photos taken on an iphone 5.