I really wish I liked sloppy joes.

The idea of browning up a pound or two of ground beef and adding a can of sauce and having dinner ready is undeniably appealing.

The problem is… they always fall short of my expectations.

I used to make a dish called chili burgers. It was introduced to me by Mrs. Bean, a wonderful teacher and the head of the English department of Pearl River Central High, the first high school I ever worked in.

The idea for that recipe came from a regional burger chain in south Mississippi named Ward’s. Its claim to fame is chili burgers and homemade root beer.

Now, to butcher a quote from “Steel Magnolias,” I can’t even begin to think how you make root beer.

But, thanks to Mrs. Bean, I can begin to imagine how you’d make chili burgers. And she had managed to make them without even bothering to cook a hamburger.

She browned a pound of ground beef with diced onion, added a small can of tomato paste and two cans full of water, and seasoned the whole shebang with garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper. That’s it.

The part that really took it over the top, though, was the chili burger sauce, which was spread liberally on both cut sides of the bun. The sauce is made of – wait for it – a mix of about two parts mayo and one part mustard.

And that lovely sauce – the piece de resistance of the chili burger experience –  is also the reason my chili burger dreams died. Yours would, too, if you were married to an avowed mayo-hater.

So I turned to the sloppy joe as an alternative. I tried using the sauce in the can. It was pretty sweet.

Then I tried a homemade sauce – an untidy Joseph, if you will. I still didn’t like it much.

I gave up on the whole idea until I ran across a recipe that seemed like a winner: a riff on a Philly cheese steak, it called for items I already had in my fridge and pantry.

That sounded like a winner to me.

It was indeed a winner. At least one daughter and a husband (mine, in case that was unclear) commented on how good it was.

And, of course, I made way too much meat. We had enough for another meal, but we were out of buns.

I grabbed a pound of pizza dough and turned the leftover meat mixture into a stromboli. It was far better than the original, in that way that wrapping something in dough and baking it in the oven is almost always better than heaping it into commercially prepared buns.

Next time I make this (and there will be a next time), I will try grilling it between slices of bread with provolone, in a patty melt-type situation.

I think Mrs. Bean would approve.

Philly Cheese Steak Sloppy Joes

Ingredients

1 Tablespoon butter

1/2 large onion, diced

1 green bell pepper, cored and diced

1-2 pounds ground beef

1 Tablespoon worcestershire sauce

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 cup beef broth (or 1 teaspoon beef base and 1 cup water)

1 Tablespoon cornstarch

Provolone cheese slices, 1-2 per sandwich

Directions

• In a skillet over medium heat, melt butter. Add diced onion and bell pepper. Cook until onion begins to turn translucent. Add ground beef to the vegetable mixture in the pan. Mix and crumble beef, continuing to cook until beef is uniformly brown, around 5-10 minutes. Drain off any rendered fat.
• Add worcestershire, salt, and pepper to the meat mixture. Mix cornstarch with room temperature broth or water plus beef base. (It is fine if the beef base is not incorporated into the water; it will incorporate as you mix it into the meat.) Pour cornstarch mixture into meat mixture and mix.
• Continue to simmer until meat mixture reaches desired consistency. Serve on buns with provolone cheese, bake in pizza dough with provolone cheese as a stromboli, or grill between slices of bread with provolone as a patty melt.

Amelia Plair is a mom and high school teacher in Starkville. Email reaches her at [email protected].

Amelia Plair is a Starkville resident who writes occasional food columns.

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