Jonathan's sloppy joes

In a medium pan over medium high heat, brown the ground beef, breaking up the beef as much as possible. As it is cooking, season the beef with salt and black pepper. 

Once the beef is browned, remove beef to a bowl or plate to rest while you cook the vegetables.

Reserve one tablespoon of the grease left behind from browning the ground beef. If you are using a lean ground beef, you may not have much grease left over. In that case add one tablespoon of olive oil to the pan. 

Turn your heat down to medium and add the diced onion and diced red bell pepper.

Cook for 5 minutes or until vegetables are softened.

Add minced garlic and cook for 1 minute, making sure not to burn the garlic.

After one minute, add the beer and stir the pan really well, making sure to scrape up any of the bits left on the bottom of the pan. Cook the beer for about a minute. 

Add tomato sauce, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, Dijon mustard and chili powder. Stir everything to combine well. 

Add your browned ground beef to the pan with the combined sauce. 

Bring everything to a slow simmer and cook for 15 minutes. You can continue breaking up the ground beef during this time if it's not the texture/size that you desire. If you really want very small pieces of beef, you can use a potato masher to mash everything even more.

After 15 minutes, turn off the heat and let everything cool for 5 minutes or so. After things are cooled slightly, add sloppy joe to your buns and enjoy.