"Man Slop"- a recipe the whole family will love (EF, GF, CF)

Alright, so- you're always searching for just the right thing that your children will actually eat and not complain about. Yes. I totally understand. Here's what I put together last night, and the troops DEVOURED it. I don't eat red meat, so I can't attest to how yummy it is, but the babysitter for whom I made the meal raved about it, and said that every bite the kids stuffed down was met with MMMMMMmmmmmmms all around.

"Man Slop" (so named by my friend Brett, even if his recipe is different- thanks dude)
1 small package organic lean ground beef
1 small jar simple organic pasta sauce (about 1.5 cups)
1/2 chopped onion
2 cloves chopped garlic
veggies of your choice (I used 2 stalks celery, 3 Swiss chard leaves, 3 small carrots, 1 zucchini, 5 mushrooms)
pasta of your choice (As for amounts, I use enough to make it fun without using so much pasta that they ONLY pick out the noodles. Know what I mean?)
3/4 c of water

1. Okay, so first off, you put the beef in a nonstick pan and cook it on medium low. Put a lid on your pan so it stays moist.

2. Put a pot on the stove with water and set to boil (this is for the pasta). You're cooking it separately, so whenever it boils, cook your noodles and remove when "al dente", rinsing in cold water when they're done.

3. Meanwhile, in a food processor, dump all your veggies and pulse until it's all crumbs (you could do this by maniacally chopping on a cutting board, but it'd take you a long time to chop it down- remember: the point is to hide the veg so it must be a very fine dice).

4. When the beef is about 1/2 way from pink to brown, then drain off all the fat. Add in your onion and garlic on one side of the skillet but don't mix it in until it's softened a bit. Continue cooking for another minute or two after incorporating the onion and garlic into the beef. You want the beef to be almost pink but not quite.

5. Mix in your veggies, water and pasta sauce. Simmer on medium low or low for probably 20 minutes, stirring often. You want the veggies to basically disappear!

Once it's all soft, mix in your pasta (allowing it a minute to reheat) and serve.

I don't have any pictures, but I do have some shots of the sauce and noodles I used. For this recipe, I used Bioitalia.

You will note that it does have sugar on the ingredient list. This doesn't thrill me, but it's quite low on the list, so I am looking the other way on this one... :)

For the noodles, I upped the fun-factor by using farm-animal-shaped corn and rice noodles that I found at the health food store.

How fun are these??? 

Enjoy! Let me know how your "man slop" recipe turns out.

"Man Slop"- a recipe the whole family will love (EF, GF, CF)