Sloppy Joes & Mustard Potato Salad: old school comfort food

I did my strength training work-out that I do at home yesterday for the first time in a week and a half (I didn’t work-out while sick), and ohmygosh my muscles are in a world of hurt today. I’m also extremely sleepy this morning. If I do a super intense work-out, or like in this case, work-out for the first time in several days or a week, inevitably I’m super sleepy the following morning. Go figure.

I’m trying to decide if I should go to my karate class this afternoon or not. On the one hand, I may finally be well enough to handle the intense work-out. But on the other hand, I don’t know if I can handle it in 90-degree temperatures (with 80% humidity). For whatever reason, our dojo’s teacher doesn’t believe in turning on the air-conditioning while training. Something about sweating being good for you. *sigh* I grow weary of the Japanese aversion to air-conditioning. This could just be the sleepiness in me talking, but I’m tired of the idea that air-conditioning should only be used sparingly (and only when absolutely necessary), and we should just tough it out the rest of the time. I say life is too short to spend a good chunk of the year being miserable from the heat (and the cold in the winter as well, because we don’t want to use the heater too much either). If we have the technology to make ourselves comfortable and not miserable, then I’m going to use it. I don’t want to tough it out. Did I mention I’m tired and sleepy?

Okay, I’m done with my mini-rant now. I feel better.

Moving on, I recently realized that I haven’t had a sloppy joe in years. In years people. I think the last time I had one was when I was a kid. I then discovered that my husband had never had a sloppy joe, and had no idea what they were. I decided that this needed to be rectified, so I made sloppy joes on Monday with my homemade hamburger buns. I also made some mustard potato salad to go with them, because, well, I just love mustard potato salad. It reminds me of home and church pot-lucks.

My husband tried to eat his sloppy joe as neatly as possible, and pointed out that his was less messy than mine. I told him that if it wasn’t messy he was doing something wrong. I then proceeded to pour more of the sauce from the meat on top of his sloppy joe so it instantly became messier. I’m a super helpful wife like that. Teehee.

As I hadn’t had a sloppy joe since I was a kid, and had never made them myself, I had to find a good recipe to use. Whenever faced with a recipe search for something super southern and/or good ‘ol home cookin’ kind of food, I always first turn to the Pioneer Woman’s website in my search. I think it has to do with the fact that we’re both Oklahoma gals, so her recipes tend to have the familiar home-cooking taste I’m looking for.

And I was not disappointed!

I tried both her sloppy joes recipes here, and her mustard potato salad recipe here. Both were delicious and hit the spot.

Look at that delicious sloppy mess of meat falling out of the bun! Now that’s what I’m talkin about!

Just like when I was a kid. Good times.

On a side note, there’s been a lot of commotion in the news this week about radiation-exposed beef circulating the market here in Japan. For any worried family of friends out there, all the beef we buy is Australian. ;-)