Month: January 2012

SO…chances are good that if you have crossed my threshold…I have made this dish for you.

In our family, we call it goulash. However, Wikipedia defines the dish a bit differently than the dish I make. 

Goulash (plural: goulash) is a soup or stew of meat, noodles and vegetables (especially potato), seasoned with paprika and other spices.^[1] Originating in Hungary, goulash is also a popular meal in Austria, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Romania, Scandinavia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and the north-eastern Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. It is one of Hungary’s national dishes.^[2]

It’s really more of an Italian dish for us. It was one of the staple dishes I would make when I started cooking in my first apartment that I shared with my friend Teresa. My Dad taught me how to make it and told me that he would make it for my Mom, when they were first married and had no money. Hence, I made it numerous times for friends, when none of us had any money. It was our go to pre-party meal in The House of Hooch (an amazing apartment I shared with my friends Kate and Annie). It provided a good base if you will. It is still my “go to” dance move.

Here are the ingredients:

1 medium size onion chopped

2-3 cloves of garlic chopped (i love garlic so used 4 last night)

1lb of ground beef or turkey (or chicken if you like)

1 14 oz can of tomato sauce

1 14 oz can of stewed tomatoes

1 box of small or large shells

You don’t have to get all fancy with the sauce or stewed tomatoes. Just use what you have. You can use whole wheat pasta if you like, or fiber filled. Whatever works for you.

This recipe is so easy. So let’s get started.

Start your pasta water, add a bit of salt to the water.

Coat a large pan, with some extra virgin olive oil. Add your chopped onion and garlic to the pan and let them get fragrant.

Add in your meat, I used turkey this time, and let it brown. It will look like this.

Add in your can of sauce and stewed tomatoes and let it simmer. By this time, your water should be boiling, so go ahead and cook your pasta per the directions on the box.

 

NOTE: I only used half of the pasta in the box…because I was making enough for my boyfriend and I. I still had enough to make him a lunch and could put some sauce in the fridge for a weeknight dinner for me.

Once your pasta is cooked, add some sauce and pasta together add some of your favorite shredded or grated cheese (mine is grated pecorino romano from Trader Joe’s) and ENJOY! Serve it up with a fresh salad and/or some garlic bread and some wine…perfection!

Next time…notes from my recent trip to NYC!

This dish is one of my earliest childhood memories and is where I think this blog should start!

 My grandmother, Bea Fields, who passed away last year, taught me how to make this. She made the biscuits from scratch, with some shortening and flour and milk. It was my job, to add the milk as needed while she formed the dough. Then once she had patted them out and formed them and put them in the pan, my second job was to top each biscuit with a spoonfull of butter so they got golden brown in the oven. YUM! Somewhere there is a photo of me doing this alongside Grandma, but I couldn’t find it this morning. So instead, here is a photo of Bea Fields. I can hear her saying “dadgumit” as I type.

Bea had five children…four boys and one girl, my mother Ginger. She used to make this recipe to feed those kids. When I was a kid, this was (and well quite frankly sitll is) our “special” morning breakfast. We’d eat it at Christmas, birthdays, and the morning of the Indy 500 (which was a holiday in our house).

Today…my parents and I both cheat a little bit. Instead of making the biscuits from scratch like Bea did, we use Pillsbury frozen southern style biscuits. It’s just easier and they are almost as good as Bea’s. Almost. Just follow the directions.

We still make the homeade sausage gravy. Here is that recipe…

Brown 1lb of sausage. Today I used Neese’s country sausage, a local NC company, and it rocked. So fresh and full of flavor. A link to their website…http://www.neesesausage.com.

Once the sausage is cooked, you essentially make a roux for the gravy. Add some flour to the pan to absorb the grease rendered by the sausage. I know, not the healthiest thing in the world and you are asking…can I use a leaner sausage like Turkey Sausage? The answer is yes. HOWEVER, and this is a big however, you are going to need to add shortening into that pan of turkey in order to make the gravy. So what’s the point? Nobody said this was a low calorie dish and this is a “special” morning. One Christmas, my brother bought turkey sausage for this dish, which my mother and I were making in his kitchen. We added Crisco to the pan, but acted as a team to do it, when he was out of the room. HA!

So once you add the flour and a bit of milk, you pan should look something like this. There is no official amount of flour to use, just use your best judgement. You want the flour simply to absorb the grease. It’s going to make your gravy thick.

Keep adding milk (I used 2%) as it gets absorbed, and then add a bit more, and a bit more, and a bit more. Really scientific right? Eventually you will get the amount of gravy you want and your desired consitency. Your heat should be about medium. You don’t want to boil it but keep it hot enough to thicken up the gravy.

All the while, your biscuits are getting golden brown in the overn. Takes about 20-25 minutes according to the directions.

So eventually your gravy (patience is a virtue) will end up something like this. YUM.

And you are ready to plate! Now every person in my family does this differently. My mom, splits her biscuits in half, only puts gravy on one, and puts orange marmalade on the other. My dad, splits his, puts butter on the biscuits, and then puts gravy on them. Me? I mash my biscuits and put gravy all over them. It ends up looking like this.

So there ya have it. My first recipe and blog post! I promise that future recipes will have more step by step instruction and exact measurements, but this one you just make with your gut. Just don’t make it too often or you will have a big gut!