Turkey Sloppy Joes

On tonight's menu: Turkey Sloppy Joes 
Taste of Home: Casseroles, Slow Cooker & Soups, Copyright 2008

1 lb ground turkey breast
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
1 can (10 3/4 oz) Healthy Request Tomato Soup
1/2 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons prepared mustard
1/4 teaspoon pepper
8 hamburger buns, split


In a large saucepan coated with nonstick cooking spray, cook the turkey, onion, celery and green pepper over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain if necessary.  Stir in the soup, ketchup, brown sugar, mustard, and pepper.
Transfer to a 3-qt. slow cooker.  Cover and cook on low for 4 hours.  Serve on buns.
Yield: 8 servings


I must admit I'm always on the lookout for something new to do with ground turkey.  We don't eat a lot of ground beef - honestly I've never even cooked it myself.  Our substitute is turkey.  The 99% fat free lean ground turkey breast.  It's more expensive, but worth it in the end.  I always am trying to stretch it out and do multiple things with it.

So, in my new cookbook from my grandparents for Christmas I came across this recipe.
Ground turkey -- check --
Crockpot -- check --
Easy enough -- check --

Here it goes:

And it starts off with a bang.  Of course, I have a stash of red peppers and no green peppers to use in the fridge.  So, true to form, substitution starts early in this recipe.  I also didn't feel like measuring out 1/2 cup celery or 1/4 cup green (red) pepper, so I again, just threw some in :) {Or maybe it was a time issue: Insert suspiciously-quiet-baby-in-the-living-room-so-I-keep-going-back-and-forth-from-kitchen-to-living-room-to-check here} It ended up being 2 stalks celery and 1 small red pepper.  Instead of using non-stick cooking spray, I poured in a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Then put in the turkey.

And cooked until turkey was no longer pink.  Now, in hindsight, I would have cut the veges up smaller and broken up the turkey into smaller pieces.  I think it might be a little hard to eat on a bun.

I poured in the ketchup, soup, mustard, and brown sugar.  And who really measures pepper?  I few grinds from the pepper mill were used here.

I put it in the crockpot.

And the final product:

All nice and bubbly and I guess the word 'sloppy' suits it :)

The verdict: 

It doesn't look like the picture in the cookbook.  I'm assuming they didn't use the 99% fat free turkey.  Most people don't.  And it tastes reminiscent of sweet and sour pork.  But, I think that may have to do with the fact that red peppers are sweeter than their green counterparts.  And I probably used more than it called for.   I'll definitely try this recipe again.  Next time, I'll cut up the veges smaller and break the meat into smaller chunks.  It would be delicious served over rice.  Tonight we'll try it on some hamburger buns!