Who doesn’t love a good old fashioned sloppy joe?  I grew up on their yummy tomato-ey ground beef goodness (remember when school cafeteria lunches were delicious? Or ground beef was cheap?). The most awesome part was the bread options: open face, sandwich-style, ghetto style on toast (’cause buns cost extra), chopped up with bread like warm panzanella (more like goulash, panzanella was definitely not in the 80′s housewife vernacular). The first time I resurrected the meal, I served it up to my family ghetto-style because we simply don’t need all of that bread or the inevitable bread pudding I would be forced to make before it went bad. Later that week I had my ever unpopular leftover night (you know, everyone picks a leftover ’cause there is only one or two servings left of each?) and little Mr. Picky Pants said he wanted sloppy joes. Well apparently they tasted better on Wednesday, when he told me they were the best thing ever, because now he was refusing to eat and doing that push-the-food-around-on-the-plate-while-making-gagging-noises thing that he does. The husband usually takes a hard-line approach to dinner time infractions and that night was no different. They were in a full standoff, one in the “eat it or else” corner and the other in the “no way am I eating this, I will puke and cry not necessarily in that order” corner. Referee and peacemaker that I am, I tried to defuse the situation through a compromise and what I thought was a masterful re-purposing of the hated meal. I heated up the oven to 400 degrees and put a delicious cheesy, garlicky slice of texas toast in the oven. Five minutes later I was spooning the refused sloppy joe mixture on top of the texas toast and sweetening the deal by topping it with Mr Picky Pant’s favorite cheese du jour: pepper jack (the fancy pants Sargento kind with the habaneros. spoiled.)! I was pleased with my inventiveness and certain he would find this iteration as yum-tastic as it looked. I presented it to him triumphantly with hopes that my efforts would earn me a “mom this is soooo good you have  to try a bite“. Instead I got a dubious look. After all of that you are seriously giving the same yucky meal back to me? You would’ve thought I put a plate of worms in front of him.  I know my kid and there was NO WAY he was even going to give it a chance. Score! Dad and I shared it and it was so.freaking.delicious. The End.