Supper Surprise

One of the most-served meals in my house is a dish called "Supper Surprise."  It earned its name thirty-some-odd years ago, when our oldest son, then a toddler, tore all of the labels off the canned goods in the cabinet.   Think we're having green beans for supper?  Surprise!  It's corn.

One makes do.

Over the years, Supper Surprise has evolved.  Sometimes it starts with a recipe (any old recipe will do, actually, because you're not going to make it like it says, anyway).   Eliminate all the things you don't like or don't have, and add what you do like/have.  Throw in a little bit of something you once had, and liked.  Top it with a whole bunch of grated cheese.  Sometimes, it turns out okay.

We've just come home from a camping trip.  We had breakfast at the campsite early this morning and then spent six hours on the road with only one stop to potty.  By the time we unloaded the camper and showered off the sweat, we were starving, but there were "slim pickin's" in the refrigerator.  I figured we'd go get a pizza later (when you live in the boonies, they don't bring the pizza to you); meanwhile, I sat down to catch up on e-mail and see what folks had been doing on Facebook.  Someone had posted this recipe: 

http://www.bunsinmyoven.com/2015/03/08/sloppy-joe-cornbread-bake/

Sloppy Joe Cornbread:

1 box of Jiffy cornbread mix
1/3 cup milk
1 egg
1 cup cheddar cheese, divided
1 can of cream style corn
I pound of ground beef
1 jar of sloppy joe sauce
Small diced onion
1 diced bell pepper
Green onion blades, chopped, for garnish

Man, that looked good to me. 

I read the ingredient list and figured I could come up with something close.  I knew I had eggs and milk.  Sure enough, there was a box of Jiffy cornbread mix in the pantry.  I figured I could come up with most everything else but the sloppy joe sauce - but, hey, there might even be an old can of Manwich way back in the cabinet.  I didn't have a bell pepper, but I wouldn't have put one in if I'd had it (though I might have used a jalapeno if there'd been one in the vegetable drawer).  I saved the recipe on my Kindle and headed for the kitchen.

Eggs, milk, Jiffy, onion - check. 

Got green onions in the flower bed - check.  (Garnish is a very important component of Supper Surprise.)

Cheese - hmm, no cheddar.  We had individually-wrapped American slices, a couple of pepper jack slices that were dried around the edges, 2 half blocks of Velveeta (what IS that stuff, anyway?) in both colors (yellow and white), a wedge of parmesan, and a little chunk of some crumbly, flavorful stuff called "MontAmore." 

No corn, cream style or otherwise. 
No ground beef, but a half of a roll of pork breakfast sausage. 
No sloppy joe sauce, no Manwich.  But, look!  A can of chili beans and a can of tomato sauce. 

Close enough. 

I dumped the Jiffy into a bowl, broke an egg in it, measured out the milk (sort of).  Grated the MontAmore into the bowl, and began to stir it all up.  There was a bug in the Jiffy.  I hesitated only an instant before I dug the bug out and kept stirring.  More bugs came to the top.  Now, two bugs is usually my limit (I would prefer one, for who knows what two bugs might have gotten up to in the box), but I was hungry, so I kept stirring and digging.  I called it quits at five bugs and some unidentified specks.  I knew I had corn meal mix in a canister.  I'd just start over. 

But I had already put in the good cheese.

I put the whole mixture into a collander and washed the Jiffy off the cheese.   Some of the cheese went down the drain with the Jiffy, but I stirred what was left into a fresh batch of bug-free cornbread batter.  Gave it a healthy squirt of honey to sweeten it.  Boom.  Done.

The recipe said to cook the cornbread a little bit, then put the meat/sauce mixture on top, but this thing was turning into a cornpone/chili casserole in which the chili goes under the bottom.  So I fried the sausage until it was thawed, added a chopped onion, and cooked it until the sausage wasn't pink anymore.  Added a can of chili beans and about a half a can of tomato sauce.  Sprinkled some chili powder and garlic in it.  A little salt, a little pepper, and into the casserole dish it went.  Since it was a little light on cheese, I laid some American cheese slices on top of it, and then topped it with the cornbread batter, which by that time had risen and was foamy and thick.  I smeared it on top of the meat mixture as best I could, and baked it in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes.  Lovingly added the green onion garnish after it had cooled a minute.

Looks good, huh?

I dug in.  The cornbread had soaked up almost every drop of the good juice.  I think there might've been a little too much cornbread, anyway, and it was too thick, and I think I should have baked it, first, and spooned the meat/sauce on top like the recipe suggested.  

Nevertheless, that Sloppy Joe Cornbread recipe is a keeper.  ;)