Since Rick Is Napping!!!

I'm not a big fan of Sloppy Joes but my wife and kids love them. I am reminded of my School cafateria's version when ever I have one. To me a sloppy Joe consist of ground beef browned with some onions, peppers, some garlic and seasonings and then sauced with about a half a bottle of catsup to pull it together enough to hold it on a bun.

My wife likes to use Manwhich Sauce.

Last night I was in an expierimenting mood. I wanted meatloaf. My wife wanted sloppy Joes. I was the one cooking.
Of course I usually make what the wife wants. I'm whipped, lol. I of course have to throw a curve ball and see if it's going to be a hit or a miss and what I ended up doing was a pretty good hit.

I took about 2lbs of ground beef, seasoned it up with salt, pepper, a few cloves of garlic minced up, a medium sized onion diced fine and a small green pepper diced. I mix that all together and then mixed in a couple eggs. I cut up 4 pieces of white bread into small cubes and then used them to firm up the meat mixture to form a meat loaf. I shaped the loaf into about an 8" round giant burger. It was about 4-5" high.

Now for the twist. I put a couple tbls of olive oil in the pressure cooker and heated it up on medium high. I then browned the meatloaf, top and bottom, then stood it up and rolled it to brown the sides. Just to get a good crust on it as if doing meatballs or a pot roast. After the meatloaf had the nice brown crust all the way around I removed it from the pot.

Into the pressure cooker now went 2 cans of Manwhich Sauce. Thats about 3 cups. I tasted it and thought it needed a bit more tang so I added about a half cup of catsup and a shot of vinegar. That seemed to give it the flavor I wanted. I brought this liquid up to a boil, gently set the meatloaf into the sauce, covered, waited for the pressure to come up, lowered the heat and allowed it to pressure cook for 20 minutes.

I preheated the oven to 375*

After the 20 minutes I released the pressure and then removed the meatloaf to an oval shapped casserole dish that I like to use for meatloaf. It has high sides on it. I placed the meatloaf into the oven.

In the pressure cooker is the sauce. I put it back on the heat on medium high and while stirring I reduced the Manwhich Sauce to a BBQ sauce consistancy. (The stirring spoon left a trail in its wake) This took maybe 6 minutes over medium heat.

I then glazed the meatloaf with the sauce. I baked the glazed meatloaf for another 20 minutes.

After removing the meatloaf from the oven I let it rest for a good 10 minutes before cutting slices for the serving platter. I took the remainder of the sauce I had leftover and spooned it over the pieces on the platter. It was a good looking presentation.

I served homemade buttered noodles and a nice salad along with the meatloaf. The Meatloaf turned out excellent. I had a nice sandwich later in the evening that was very enjoyable too.

The pressure cooker is a great tool for making things like pot roast, stuffed peppers or cabbages or anything else you want to have flavor injected into.
We usually have meatloaf either made and served with a brown gravy or our Italian version which is slow cooked like a giant meatball in sauce with mozzarella cheese over the top. This was the first time attempting a meatloaf by starting it in the pressure cooker and I'm glad I did.

sounds good!

and I know what you mean about the sloppy joes served in school - today they use mystery meat - that's even worse

Sounds real good IC, but if you're gonna pinch hit for me, you need pics

Speaking of Sloppy Joes- and then half-referring to Rick's pics of the pizzas over on his other thread...

Sundays up north in the Oil Camps were always "Pizza Day". We made many full-sized sheet-pans of various types of pizza.

I recall one cook, Char, spread bbq sauce onto a crust instead of tomato sauce, then used leftover Sloppy Joe Meat and topped it w/ red onions and shredded cheddar and a bunch of the guys went NUTS over it!

Every Sunday after that we always had the added chore of making a small batch of Sloppy Joe meat to ensure we had a sloppy joe pizza for them! (Damn that Char!)

we always called that the "poorman's pizza" - spreading sloppy joe mixture on the crust - and we've done it taco meat style, etc.

dad liked it like a huge cheeseburger!