Sloppy Joe Casserole

A coworker gave me this recipe when I told her that we didn't have a lot of dinner ideas, and I hesitated to make it because it sounded so undeniably white trash, but then I remembered that white trash people eat the tastiest food (like carnival food, which is sent by the delicious calorie gods, may they be praised).

Anyway, I finally made the recipe and it was all at once a monumental achievement in the culinary world and an abomination to the gourmet. It's just crescent rolls, sloppy joe, and cheese. I will let you recover from that sentence because I know your mind has been blown and you may need a drool cloth.

The first time I made the Sloppy Joe Casserole, I followed the recipe given by my coworker and it only called for 1 lb of ground beef (and one can of sloppy joe mix). The final product was unarguably amazing, but it seemed lacking and Jeff and I both agreed to use more sloppy joe next time. Having doubled it this time, I think that was a great improvement because it made it thicker and heartier. However, this did leave us with too little cheese since we stuck with the initial measurement, and next time I would at least do half another bag more if not two.

We did run into a hiccup early on when I was getting out the ingredients. I didn't notice that Jeff put my cans of crescent rolls in the freezer instead of the fridge when we got home from the store, so they were frozen when I started cooking. This hurt the meal in a few ways:
     1.) Opening the cans was worse than usual because they were frozen shut and unwilling to pop
     2.) Unrolling crescent roll dough that is frozen both to itself and in its current shape is next to impossible
     3.) Cook times were thrown off in ways I did not correctly predict so the rolls were not cooked through

In the end, it was still delicious, but had room for improvements. Like I said, the rolls did not cook thoroughly, so the top crust was nicely browned and crispy, and the bottom one was still Pillsbury squish. This probably also happened because I'd recently been experimenting with where the oven rack sits and I'd shifted it up one position. I've since moved it back down. Also, I would add another half or whole bag of shredded cheese since it was a little off without it. This is still one of my favorites and I see it being a staple in the house when we're in a hurry and there's kids to feed.

-Aly

Recipe (ideal version)
Ingredients
-2 cans crescent rolls
-2 lbs ground beef
-2 can Manwich mix
-3-4 cups shredded cheese (I prefer the Mexican mix)

Directions
-Preheat oven to 375
-Brown ground beef and drain well when finished
-Unroll one can of crescent rolls and lay in the bottom of a 13" x 9" pan, pressing the seams together
-Add Manwich mix to beef and cook on medium-high heat for 5 min
-Place sloppy joe mix in pan on top of crescent rolls
-Top with shredded cheese
-Unroll second can of crescent rolls and lay across top of cheese, pressing seams together as possible
-Bake for 20-30 min until top crust is lightly browned