Sloppy Joes & Scrapbook Pages 🧡

Sloppy Joes & Scrapbook Pages 🧡

For the last 20 years, Blakely has asked me to make Sloppy Joes for her birthday.

And you can BET…if I deviate from the recipe, she will call me on it. Apparently, birthday Sloppy Joes come with a quality-control department. Her name is Blakely. 😂

This year was no different. Dylan planned a surprise party, and I made the Sloppy Joes…by the book!

The recipe originally came from the Southern Living 1982 Annual, and somewhere along the way, it became part of our family’s story.

Get the Recipe

That’s what I love about my cookbooks. They’re scrapbooks, really.

I write in them—when I made something, how we liked it, what I changed, and sometimes who was sitting at the table with us. There, beside this recipe, is a note from Blakely’s 16th birthday party. Open the book, and there’s my girl…all those birthdays ago. 🧡

The handwritten recipe cards have their own history, too. A little splatter. A few adjustments. Proof that something was worth making again.

My kitchen has changed over the years. Coconut sugar is now our household sugar. Greek yogurt stands in for sour cream and sometimes part—or all—of the mayo. Gluten-free flour and almond flour have found their places, too, depending on what I’m making.

Except for sourdough activities. That’s a whole other relationship. 😂

But even as ingredients shift, there are familiar flavors our people count on. Blakely knows exactly what her birthday Sloppy Joes should taste like, and I love that she still asks me to make them.

Of all the meals she could choose…this is the one she wants from Momma.

So I’ll keep making them. And I’ll keep writing in the books.

The date. The changes. The people. The little things I’m certain I’ll remember but might someday be grateful I wrote down.

If you’ve never made notes in your cookbooks, consider this your invitation. Write who came to dinner. Mark the favorite. Leave a little of yourself in the margins.

What are some of your favorite recipes that keep showing up on your table? The birthday request, the holiday regular, the one your family notices you’ve “adjusted” before they’ve finished the first bite? 😂

I’d love to hear the story behind yours.

Find your way home.

With love from my kitchen table,
~Karen 🧡

The Twisted Compass

Notice More. Love Well. Gather Often.