Recipe: Peg's Sloppy Joe

This is an old family recipe which came from my Aunt Peggy. It is titled Beef Barbecue but everyone calls it  Sloppy Joe. For many years Aunt Peggy was a cook at Oneida High School. Family lore says that she made this recipe at school, but there is no way to confirm that now.  Prepared for Sunday Dinner on April 29, 2013.  Makes 8-10 slider-sized sandwiches.

28 Feb 2014:  I noticed that I had omitted sugar from the recipe when I first published it, so I added it.

Ingredients 

1 pound ground beef

1 onion

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

1 tablespoon water, plus more if needed
1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon yellow mustard

¾ cup ketchup

Salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Dice the onion finely.
2. Combine the ground beef, chopped onion, vinegar, 1 tablespoon water, sugar, mustard, and ketchup in a medium sauce pan.
3. Using a spoon, break up the ground beef until no large pieces remain.
4. Simmer over low heat for several hours, stirring occasionally and breaking up any remaining large pieces of beef. Add additional water to maintain the right consistency. (This is more likely if you use lean ground beef.)
5. Season to taste with salt and black pepper.
6. Serve on hamburger buns.

Chop an onion.

Combine the ingredients in a sauce pan, break up the ground beef, and stir.

Simmer for several hours, adding water if needed.

October 2024: My current version of this recipe has a few changes. One carrot and one stalk of celery are diced finely. These are cooked in a little vegetable oil with the onion until the onion starts to turn translucent. The other ingredients are added then cooked until there is no pink left in the ground beef. Finally, off heat, 1 teaspoon of liquid smoke is added, followed by salt and pepper to taste,