Adam Sandler's Lunch Lady has nothing on mommy!

So, the experiment where we are only eating out of our pantry is working fairly well. Tonight's menu was sloppy dogs!

Okay so Big Papi has a thing about bread when it comes to sandwiches. Hamburger buns can never be used as hotdog buns. Ever, no exceptions. As a child he had a terrifying experience with a hotdog in a hamburger bun and has since be completely OCD about bread. So when I told him I was making sloppy joes he informed me, "but we don't have hamburger buns. How can we have sloppy joes without hamburger buns?"

When I explained that we still had a pack of hotdog buns he for the second time this week looked at me like I was growing horns. I think he does this a lot I just don't notice.

As I learned in my Russian Politics class, diplomacy is an incredible gift. Instead of explaining to my husband that buns were buns, and our no spend money on groceries challenge again, I choose the diplomatic route.

"Honey we're having sloppy dogs, not sloppy joes."

Big Papi: "Oh well alright then."

Seriously!? Just change one word and I avoid a depressed Big Papi.

I made the sloppy dogs with a ton of celery (had to use it up it was starting to go south) a tiny bit of red onion left over from the other night, two garlic cloves, one pound of ground sirloin, kosher salt, freshly ground pepper, ground mustard, dried thyme, chili powder, ground coriander seed, a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce and paprika. Once that was browned I added in a large can of crushed tomatoes and became worried because it was too runny for sloppy dogs. So being clever I created a slurry of flour and hot water in a two cup Pyrex measuring cup and poured the slurry into the sloppy mixture. In just a few minutes the sloppy mixture thickened nicely. I also toasted the buns in the oven to help with the messy factor.

As you can see from the Alien's picture it was a success.