Oh, yummy deliciousness.  Now I’m promise I’m not going to bombard you with tales of everything I eat from now on, but last night the hubster and I concocted a meal that was much too fun not to share with you guys.  And by fun, I mean this is a meal that would normally be enjoyed by children – juice and Sloppy Joes.  Except it’s all been kicked up a bit for those grown-up palates.

We started out with the micheladas – enjoying a frosty beverage while slaving over a hot stove always makes things a bit better, don’t you think?  And don’t worry, I didn’t know what micheladas were either (and I’m a Texan!) until I visited my friends Jen and Kyle in San Antonio last weekend.  Basically, a traditional michelada is like a Mexican Bloody Mary made with beer instead of vodka – you can learn how to make one here.  But these are no traditional micheladas – nope, they’re made with passion fruit juice!  Sounds fancy, doesn’t it?

Here’s all you need to make this delicious drink – 2 Mexican beers (I love Dos Equis), some passion fruit juice from the grocery store, and 2 frosty pilsners from Ikea (that last part’s optional):

Here’s a demonstration of my preferred beer to passion fruit juice ratio – my guess is that it’s 3 parts beer to 1 part passion fruit juice.  Feel free to keep adding until it tastes right – the fruitier the better, if you ask me!

Trust me, it’s delicious!  Even Jason became a huge fan, and he’s one of those guys that feels like beer is best left untouched by anything but a frosty glass.  Go try it out tonight!

And while you’re at it, you should definitely give my friend Tessa’s Not-So-Sloppy Joes a try – we were wooed by this grown-up version of the classic many months ago when Tessa invited us over for dinner.  It was almost embarrassing how much we liked these sandwiches.  And now that we have the recipe, we can make them whenever we want!!

With my michelada in hand, I set out all my ingredients and went to work.  You’ll probably already have most of these goodies in your fridge and pantry, which is a total bonus.

The first step was chopping up the onion and red bell pepper and throwing them in a pan along with the garlic and some olive oil to get all sweet and delicious.  I used jarred garlic instead of chopping up a clove because chopping garlic is just about my least favorite thing to do in the world – anybody else feel that way?  The jarred stuff gets the job done and lets you keep your sanity.  And if I were a better person I probably would have chopped both of those veggies a little smaller, but the food police never showed up so I think it was okay.

After the veggies cooked down, I tossed in the ground beef, cinnamon (yes!), chili powder, cumin, salt, pepper, and tomato paste.  As you can see, the result is not-so-sloppy as your average Joe.

We piled this tasty goodness on top of toasted Hatch green chili buns that we had on hand from the grocery store and topped it off with shredded dheddar and light sour cream (I’m aware of the irony).  We each had 1.5 Joes because they were just that delicious.  Along with a side of grilled corn (and our trusty micheladas), these Not-So-Sloppy Joes made for a seriously awesome and fun meal!

I know, I need to work on my food photography skills.  Anybody know a good food stylist?  But seriously, give this recipe a try tonight:

And it’s one of those recipes where you can totally play with the spices to get the exact taste you want.  Next time, I’ll probably add some more chili powder and maybe even some red pepper flakes – this girl likes her spice!  If you guys give either of these recipes a whirl, let me know how you like them!!

But enough of that food stuff.  Now it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for – the winner of that gorgeous rug from the Gnarly Giveaway!!

As you can see, Random.org picked entry 43 as the winner:

Ellen Price!!!

Congrats, Ellen!!  I’ll be in touch to get your info, and you’ll have your beautiful rug in no time!!  And thanks to everybody that entered this giveaway, what an awesome turnout!

This post is shared with Hooked on Houses.