Sloppy Turkey Joes – A Better Bag of Groceries

Choosing the Healthiest Foods for Your Family

Welcome! I am a mom of a busy 8 year old and an adventurous 6 year old. I also happen to work for a great company called NuVal. NuVal is a nutritional scoring system that rates foods on a scale of 1-100, based on how nutritious they are. We are implementing NuVal in grocery stores around the country.

NuVal may not be in your area yet. But I see the scores while they are "hot off the press" and because of that I am able to make better decisions about what to feed my family.

Cooking with Kids: Sloppy Turkey Joes

Friday, March 26, 2010 at 07:09 AM

I pulled a fast one on my kids this week. “Guess what?” I said. “Tonight, it’s your job to cook dinner!”

My Daughter: “Hooray! Let me get my apron!”

My Son (incredulously): “What? Mom, that’s your job. And SpongeBob is on right now.”

“Nope,” I said, with a smile. “Tonight, we’re changing the rules and you are reponsible for making dinner.”

Reluctantly, my son turned off the TV and joined us in the kitchen to make Rachel Ray’s Sloppy Turkey Joes.

I love Rachel’s recipes for kids because they are written especially for kids. Also, she leaves nothing out. For example, this recipe begins with telling your kids how exactly to open a package of ground turkey. And what to do if your hands actually touch the turkey (Answer: Go wash them!)

The ingredients for this recipe score well on the NuVal scale:

1 1/3 pounds ground turkey (NuVal score: 33)

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) (NuVal score: 11)

1/2 red onion (Nuval score: 93)

1/2 red bell pepper (NuVal score: 96)

1 tablespoon grill seasoning blend, such as McCormick brand Montreal Steak Seasoning (not scored yet)

2 tablespoons brown sugar (NuVal score: 1)

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce (NuVal score: 4)

1 cup tomato sauce (Classico Cabernet Marinara, NuVal score: 45)

4 crusty sandwich rolls, split (Country Kitchen, 8 Light Wheat Rolls, NuVal score: 39)

12 celery sticks (NuVal score: 96)

12 carrot sticks (NuVal score: 99)

After my son (who was in charge of reading the recipe), opened up the package of ground turkey, my daughter browned it:

I was right there to make sure she did not get burned!

My son measured the ingredients for Rachel’s “Special Sauce”

And my daughter mixed it up. She loves to mix.

You can see the exact instructions (again, written so well for kids) on the Rachel Ray site here. We paired it with the recommended celery sticks and carrots sticks but we also added our favorite French fries: Cascadian Farms Organic Shoestring Fries (NuVal score: 81).

In keeping with the theme of Role Reversal, the kids sat in Mom & Dad’s seats at the table. And the Sloppy Turkey Joes were enjoyed by all.

It’s interesting to note that I first made this recipe about 2 years ago and the kids did not like it then. This week, they gobbled them up. And they thought that it was sooooooooo funny to eat something “sloppy.” So, I guess it is true. If you keep trying new foods, your kids will eventually eat them.

Honestly, it probably would have been easier, faster, and way less messy to let the kids continue watching SpongeBob and just make the Sloppy Turkey Joes myself. But I am hoping that there will be a day when I will say, “Your turn to make dinner!” and it will magically appear on the table. We’ll get there!

Posted by: Melissa 10 comments

Posted in: Cooking with Kids