What Did We Ever Do?

It is well known in our inner circle of friends and family, I am NOT a naturally cool person. And no, I'm not talking about my personality. I mean my actual body temperature. As my grandma has always said about me, I'm a "hot box." 

I have two temps...warm and hot. There is not in between. I'm the girl who sweats in the winter. I drive around when there is snow on the ground with the AC cranked. When I was pregnant with little man, I made Mr. E turn the air conditioner on in March and it didn't get turned off until he was born in September.

So you can imagine my utter despair a few weeks ago when just as the thermometer started to rise to 85 degrees and higher, with 80% humidity, our central air quit working. Literally, one minute it was blowing nice cold air and the next the temp in the house was climbing to 75 degrees. I was pretty miserable, pretty quickly. I started to think back to when I was a kid and we didn't have AC at all. We had fans. And open windows. Those hot sticky nights when you would wake up in the morning soaked from sweltering all night long. Not fun. 

We are so addicted to our AC we don't even own fans!!! Luckily my parents hooked us up, and we got some up in this joint very quickly! So we had air circulating, but at one point, it was still 80 degrees in here. Needless to say, I thought I was going to spontaneously combust! 

Come Monday night I had a repair company scheduled to come look at it, but in the meantime I had to cook supper, which I hadn't done since it went out. Between the weekend and Mother's Day, I had yet to be made to prepare a meal in the sauna, but my time had come. 

I was craving barbecue, but knew it needed to be stove top because I wasn't turning on the oven, and I didn't really even want to grill either...that just meant being outside in the heat, and no relief once I came in. So, this is what I came up with. It gave me the bbq flavors I was craving but without the time and effort, and most importantly high temperatures I couldn't deal with. 

These would be fantastic for a party, potluck or cookout that gets interrupted by rain! Think sloppy joe texture but a different flavor...perfect for summer time.

I'm not sure what we did before the days of AC. but I know I don't want to find out any time soon again. Oh, by the way, I am currently typing this...in my nice and cool house...so thankful it's working again!

BBQ Ground Beef Sandwiches

1 lb. ground beef

1 small onion, chopped

3 ribs celery, finely chopped

1 c. ketchup

1/2 c. water

1 TBS butter

2 TBS apple cider vinegar

1/2 TBS. lemon juice

1 TBS Worcestershire sauce

1 TBS brown sugar

1 tsp. garlic powder

Salt and Pepper to taste

 Buns

Pickles

In a large skillet over medium high heat, saute beef, onion and celery in butter until no longer pink. In a medium bowl whisk together ketchup, vinegar, lemon juice, Worcestershire, brown sugar, garlic powder, salt and pepper. When beef is cooked, add ketchup mixture and water. Stir to combine. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, for 40 minutes. Serve on buns with pickles.

Shared on The Country Cook June 5, 2015