One more day until Halloween! Are your li’l punkins ready?

Here’s another great meal idea for this fun holiday from the Texas Beef Council. Be sure to read the Suggestions section for cute sandwich topper ideas like a black olive spider, cheese curl devil horns and green onion broomsticks.

What fun!

SPOOKY SLOPPY JOES

Ingredients

1 lb. ground beef
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 cup chopped orange bell pepper
1 can (8 oz.) tomato sauce with basil, garlic and oregano
1/2 cup chili sauce
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
4 Kaiser rolls, split

Instructions

Brown ground beef with onion and bell pepper in large nonstick skillet over medium heat 8-10 minutes, or until beef is no longer pink, breaking up into 3/4-inch crumbles. Pour off drippings. Stir in tomato sauce, chili sauce, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Cook an additional 3 minutes or until heated through; stirring occasionally.

Spoon equal amounts of beef mixture on bottom half of each roll. Decorate beef mixture or roll tops with vegetable decorations, as desired (see below). Close with top half of each roll.

Suggestions

To make one spider: Cut pitted black olive in half lengthwise and place each half slightly overlapping in center of ground beef mixture or on center of roll top. Slice orange bell pepper into eight 1/4-inch thick strips. Place strips in spoke fashion around olive to make legs. Cut two small pepper pieces to make antennas. Place above olive slices.

To make jack-o-lantern face: Cut out pumpkin shape from Cheddar cheese slice with cookie cutter. Using small thin-bladed knife, cut out mouth, nose and eyes from pumpkin shape. Place cheese cutouts on top of ground meat mixture or on roll top.

To make cheese curl devil horns: Insert two cheese curl snacks vertically into roll top.

To make green onion broomsticks: Cut off the root end of green onion with small thin-bladed knife. Carefully cut thin slits 1/2-inch deep lengthwise into the white part of the onion. Soak sliced part of onion in cold water so ends curl up. Place on plate with Spooky Sloppy Joe.

I gave some of my coveted order of steakburgers to my mother. She took a mix of sweet Vidalia onion steakburgers and some classic steakburgers home with her.

She called me the next day to tell me what she did with them. It was fast and simple and I’m going to try it myself.

She pan fried those steakburgers with a bit of salt and pepper. Then, she removed the burgers for a minute, poured in a can of cream of mushroom soup and half a can of water. She mixed that up with some more salt and pepper (sea salt works best!) and thickened up that gravy.

She then put the burgers back into the gravy mix to thoroughly cook them. After just a few minutes, she served these with some scrumptious mashed potatoes, a vegetable and some dinner rolls.

I think my father fainted over the heavenly smell alone. 

The fun part about this (besides the fact that it doesn’t take much time) is trying out the onion steakburgers versus the classic ones. They both have a slightly different taste.

You decide which one you like best. Or, pick a different flavor all together.

This is just another great way to stay inside and cook until it’s warm enough to fire up the grill!

This is the story of two newlyweds. Like many recently-married ladies, this gal was excited to try new recipes for her husband.

One day, the new wife found a recipe for Salisbury Steak in a magazine. 

“This’ll be great!” she thought.

The next evening after work, she hurried home with all the ingredients for a wonderful, home-cooked meal.

Little did she know she was about to create a “meal” that would go down in family lore as “the grossest thing ever. . . ”

Okay, so the wife was me.

And I hadn’t quite perfected the art of paring down a recipe for six into a meal for two.

The beef looked like a puffer fish because there were way too many eggs and bread crumbs for the amount of meat.

And the onions I used were not “finely chopped.” They were more like something you might see contestants on “Survivor” eating.

But my husband was sweet about it . . . until he saw that I hated it, too. Then all bets were off.

Now, 10 years later, we still talk about that meal. During cold and flu season I’ll ask my husband how he’s feeling when he’s under the weather.  His answer?

“Like I just ate some Salisbury Steak.”

It’s taken on a new meaning in our house. But I prefer to think it brought us closer. Like one of those traumatic events you live through together and nothing seems that important anymore. Like in a hurricane, a tornado, floods, fires . . .

I’ve grown so much as a cook in 10 years. So I think a decade is enough time to break the spell of the Salisbury Steak. I’m ready to get back on that oniony saddle again, so to speak.

This time it’s personal.

So here’s a much better recipe for Salisbury Steak I found on www.cooks.com.

I know how to follow instructions now and I’m thinking I will use this ground beef so I won’t have to do my own onions at all. They’re already in the meat. 

Try it and see if you have great results you can share!