Goulash Stew

Yes, I know it has been a while and I have been neglectful in my writing duties. Sue me. I've been busy. However, I *did* manage to take lots and lots of pictures of all the stuff I have cooked over the last while. Today's difficulty was in deciding what to blog about first. At least I have the pictures to remind of the dishes I made over the last month or so.

Today's blog post is going to be about Goulash Stew. It was super easy to make, tasty and works great as leftovers, so you can make lots and have it for a while. It also freezes well so you can use it for those days when you haven't got time to cook. This can also be made in a slow cooker, which I don't have, but would work very well.

Note to self: Keep eye open for a slow cooker. Anybody looking to get rid of theirs? Let me know! I promise to make you a stew with it.

Back to the goulash. I have always loved a good goulash. Its hearty and rich and very satisfying. To make a decent goulash, you need stewing beef, a bunch of vegetables, a wodge of tomato paste, a big oven proof pot (or that slow cooker), some decent red wine, caraway and of course, paprika.

As you can see, I used a couple carrots, onions and some garlic, and a couple potatoes. You could always add other root vegetables or celery or peppers or whatever you have in house. I used what was on hand. Pretty well I ALWAYS have carrots, onions, garlic and potatoes. They are staples. For this stew, you don't even need to brown the veg or the meat. You can just chop it all up, throw it into the oven proof pot, add the tomato paste, a huge wodge of paprika, a generous spoonful of caraway (ground or whole is fine) and some salt.

I added about half a bottle of red wine. The other half I served with dinner. The nice thing about serving goulash with wine is that even if you are drunk, you never slur "goulash". Try it. You sound drunk just saying the word. You can blame the goulash!

As you can see, none was left by the end of it. Theres a moral here: If the food sucks, at least you have wine, and everybody is happy!

Don't you love stories with happy endings and good morals? I know I do!

But I digress. Put roughly half a bottle of wine in, and then add either water or broth to just cover everything. Boxed broth is fine. If you don't have fresh or boxed, you can use the water and add some boullion. It can be vegetable, chicken, beef... whatever. I used a box of organic chicken broth and it worked out fine. Cover your pot and stick it in a 350 oven for about 3 hours.

350 is the perfect temperature to keep a light simmer on, while you forget about it until dinner time.

This also tastes great with a dollop of sour cream on top, to serve. My 13 year old loves it that way, it gives it an extra creamy richness. My husband can't have the sour cream so has it on its own. Either way its delicious.

And if it's not, there is always wine.