Sloppy Joes

Ingredients

Olive oil

Onion

Celery

Jalapeño

Red bell pepper

Garlic

Ground beef

Tomato paste

Canned tomato sauce

Worcestershire sauce

Hot sauce

Hamburger buns

Directions

Put a Dutch oven over medium-high heat on your stove, then add a glug of olive oil and sauté a handful of chopped onion, a couple diced ribs of celery, a diced jalapeño, and a diced small red bell pepper. When the mixture is super-soft, add a few cloves of minced garlic and cook for a couple more minutes. Dump a pound and a half of ground beef into the pot—ideally the sort that is 20 percent fat—and stir and sizzle until it is well browned, about 10 minutes. Bring the heat down a bit and add a lot of tomato paste say a few tablespoons, maybe a quarter cup— and let it get a little toasty before adding a cup or more of canned tomato sauce. Cook that down for a few minutes, then add quite a few glugs of Worcestershire sauce and hot sauce and continue cooking until the mixture is quite thick, another 15 or 20 minutes. Season with salt. Toast some buns, load them up, and set in.