Goulash

This recipe is not what I thought of when I think of Goulash, but it is yummy and delicious. I would say it is a cross between Goulash and Chili Mac. The base recipe is a recipe from Paula Deen, Bobby's Goulash...

2 pounds lean ground beef
1 pound ground turkey
2 large onions, chopped
3 cups water
1 (29-ounce) can tomato sauce
2 (15-ounce) cans diced tomatoes
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons Italian seasoning
3 bay leaves
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon House Seasoning, recipe follows
1 tablespoon seasoned salt
2 cups dried elbow macaroni
Directions
In a Dutch oven, saute the ground beef and ground turkey over medium-high heat, until no pink remains. Break up meat while sauteing; spoon off any grease. Add the onions to the pot and saute until they are tender about 5 minutes. Add 3 cups water, along with the tomato sauce, tomatoes, garlic, Italian seasoning, bay leaves, soy sauce, House Seasoning, and seasoned salt. Stir well. Place a lid on the pot and allow this to cook for 20 to 25 minutes.

Add the elbow macaroni, stir well, return the lid to the pot, and simmer for about 20 minutes. Turn off the heat, remove the bay leaves and allow the mixture to sit about 30 minutes more before serving.

House Seasoning:
1 cup salt
1/4 cup black pepper
1/4 cup garlic powder
Mix ingredients together and store in an airtight container for up to 6 months.

I change this up in a few ways. I add Worcestershire sauce when browning the meat, extra garlic powder, and sometimes a little Tabasco. I also brown the meat and saute the onions at the same time. You can obviously use a regular pot instead of a dutch oven and switch around your ground beef to whatever you have on hand (we usually use venison). This most recent time we made the recipe x1.5 and added one can each of dark kidney, light kidney, and pinto beans. Further advice is this...the recipe is huge! The 1.5 recipe basically would have fed 14 adults and this does not freeze well (the noodles get a little too mushy). Also I would highly recommend grating sharp white cheddar cheese on top, it adds a nice sharpness and cheesy flavor.

Enjoy this wonderful dish that is warm and filling!

Self Rising Flour and Big change to a recipe

For all of you out there getting ready to make my Snickerdoodle recipe that can be found here, I want you to stop immediately. Put down the mixer, put down the measuring spoon, put down the cinnamon sugar. Today I made a batch of the cookies (my friend Karlin is making me mushroom soup, I make her Snickerdoodles...we have a symbiotic relationship based on food) and was dismayed when mid cooking (and mid nap for Baby Girl) I discovered that I was out of AP flour. I had just used almost all of my AP flour in replacement of Bread flour which I was out of to make foccaccia (more on that later) for the same person. Lucky for me I was in possession of five other flours... The first was Tapioca flour, used more for thickening it was automatically out. The second was Pasta flour, with too grainy of a texture, it too was gone. The next three were Whole Wheat (possible, but would definitely alter the taste and probably would alter the texture), Cake flour (definite possibilities there, but would it be too light and airy), and Self-Rising flour (could work, but would it leaven the cookie dough too much). As I muddled over my conundrum, munching on a corner of the aforementioned foccaccia, I saw two stars next to the flour on the recipe. What is this I thought? I looked at the bottom of the recipe and to my delight there was a replacement for the AP Flour! I could use Self-Rising and merely omit the salt, baking powder, and cream of tartar. An approved replacement and less things to measure...Yippee!!! I mixed up my ingredients, baked my cookies, and marveled at their puffy shape as they came out of the oven 8-10 minutes later. I tried one hoping that it would taste as good as the standard gems I made even if they were a little rounder. I only have this to say...when Betty Crocker says you "could" change the recipe, what she meant was that you "should" change the recipe. I marveled at how light, fluffy, and perfectly sweet this cookie had become. The cinnamon sugar barely coated the outside of the cookie and it was like eating a puffy cloud of soft sweetness. I will make a note (along with the note that this makes about 45 cookies) in my cookbook for this to be a permanent change.

What will I do with all of this extra self rising flour you may ask? That one is easy. As Self-Rising flour has a somewhat legitimate expiration date (unlike the fake date of AP flour, salt, and other staples that could last indefinitely), you do need to use your flour within a year or so. Now the Snickerdoodles are easy and delicious, but something equally delicious and even easier to make is your very own beer bread. I got this recipe from an old college roomie who I did not get along with...one time she made this recipe and replaced the sugar with salt...that was gross, but this is not! Pre-heat your oven to 375. Mix 3 cups Self-Rising flour, 1/2 cup sugar, a sprinkle of salt, and your favorite bottle of beer (I recommend Shiner Boch, but Shiner is my recommendation for almost everything...Guinness is good too). Butter a loaf pan and put the very sticky batter in the pan. Bake for 55 minutes, buttering the top of the loaf for the last 10 minutes. Serve and enjoy.

Have fun with your Self-Rising flour!!!

Turkey

You may be thinking to yourself that this is way too late to be posting about Turkey...not so my friend. In fact, in my book, this is the perfect time to be posting about Turkey. I am the proud owner of 5 Fresh and Delicious Jennie-O Turkeys ranging in weight from 10 to 16 pounds and I didn't spend over $5.00 on each turkey.

See, I look at Black Friday differently than most girls. While they are busy trying to get into Macy's, Kohl's, or Target at an insane hour, I am trying to resist going into the grocery stores until they put the fresh turkeys on sale. The frozen turkeys they will let sit around until after Christmas (they are already frozen, why would they need to rush them out the door?), but the fresh turkeys (which the FDA or some other arbitrary regulation organization has mandated must stay above freezing temperatures) have a finite shelf life and thus need to be sold out the doors. So on Black Friday I went out and bought a lovely 16 pounder (her name was Shelly), brought her home, and got ready to roast.

I love turkey and I never seem to have enough leftovers to enjoy my extra sides and to make all of those wonderful turkey dishes that people talk about getting tired of. So I make an extra turkey for exactly that purpose.

I decided to cook Shelly on Sunday when Matt and Mac were resting...here is my method (which worked well for a neutral Turkey who was going to mainly be used in dishes). I think I have posted this before...but I am too tired to look!

Get out roasting pan, turn on over to 400 degrees. Take Shelly out of bag and rinse her off, removing gravy packet (I discarded) and leaving the neck in... While Shelly is draining from her bath, place a rough chopped onion, 4 or 5 whole carrots, and 4 or 5 whole stalks of celery in the bottom of the pan. Pat Shelly dry and place her on top of the veggies. Massage with oil and butter, sprinkle with seasonings of your choice (this time I used salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning). Throw in a beer or two. Roast in the oven for an hour, reduce heat to 325 and finish cooking until Shelly is about 160 degrees (just shy of 4 hours)...remember about carry over cooking. If Shelly was going to be used for eating alone I would have placed her breast down for that first hour, then flipped her over for the remaining part to help all the juices run into the white meat.



Shelly has since been turned into dinner with leftover sides, three turkey potpies (shredded meat, a bag of frozen mixed veggies, cream of chicken soup, and a pie crust) for the freezer, two two-person portions for the freezer, and boiled into a turkey base for soup also for the freezer.

Why the other turkeys you ask? I was at Kroger today and the turkeys kept looking at me like puppies asking me to take them home...so I took three home...then went back for something I forgot and picked up one more...

Three (Randolph, Lorenzo, and Ling-Ling) are in the deep freeze for later use.

Dmitri is in the fridge waiting to join a comrade in the smoker a friend is firing up this weekend...can anyone say smoked turkey quesadillas?!?!?

Best burgers in a loooong time

We had heard from a few friends to try Husky's for burgers. We had passed by the place several times as we have friends that live in the area. Last Tuesday when running errands we drove right by Husky's as we were trying to think of a place to stop and get lunch and decided to give it a whirl. Boy are we glad we did!

The place looks like a typical burger joint where you can grab a beer and watch the game...and it is totally that...plus some really incredible burgers! The customer service was good, the cashier didn't gab my head off, but was friendly, polite, and took care of our order. You have to take time to order too because the selection is impressive. At the top of the menu they have their standard burger choices- choose your bun (we got white sourdough which was a little sweeter than sourdough but still soft and freshly made), choose your meat (beef, Kobe beef, buffalo, veggie burger), choose your cheese, with a Fuddruckers style topping bar to the side of the window. At the bottom of the menu are their suggestions for add ons...we got the California burger...
You also choose your type of fries, you have to see the menu for all of the different combos.

Our food came out in a reasonable amount of time for a fresh burger and it is a huge amount. We gladly shared the 1/2 pound burger and fries. As I said the bun was soft and fresh and had the correct amount of "fall apart-ability" that I think is a great component of a good burger. The hamburger patty (we had buffalo) was tender, flavorful, and juicy, with only a little seasoning which was perfect for the type of burger we had. The toppings (avocado, mushrooms, mont jack cheese) were all copious in amount and the cheese melted perfectly over the burger to adhere all of the toppings to the top part of the burger. I will say that the avocado tasted "packaged", but that is my only complaint with the entire meal. Our fries were well seasoned and perfectly crisp. All in all this is a great place to just go and get a burger.

Scanning other people's plates, the salads and sandwiches offered also looked good and they had some delicious sounding desserts on their menu board. The restaurant was clean and while the price for a burger (about 9 bucks) might seem high, keep in mind that these were seemingly fresh ingredients and the meal included fries and a drink.

Would I suggest you go here? Yes. Will we be there again? Most enthusiastically yes. Am I on my way out the door? Sadly no...but that is only because we are trying to eat well and watch our dining out budget!

I know, I know...another website...

...but some of these are so I can come back to them too!

This website was too good to pass up, from twice baked potatoes to chicken fried steak, it lightens up a lot of "no-no" diet foods!

More recipes online!

I know I have been heavy on the websites lately, but we are cleaning out the freezer in preparation for chilis, turkey, soups, and other wonderful fall foods. I watched The Biggest Loser this morning while folding laundry and what not and was really impressed with the Vegan recipes Bob served some of the contestants. With a little online searching I found the recipes on his blog! I hope to try some of them soon. While I don't normally eat vegan, I like having more veggie filled sides to try. Many of these look a lot like the foods I ate at JFR and in Israel. While I will never adapt even a partially Kosher diet, I still contend that the healthiest I ever feel is when I attend some of the conferences and I am forced to eat Kosher or Partial Kosher diets. Maybe Matt and I can look at eating partial Kosher for a certain number of meals a week! Give the recipes a try, but only if you love delicious and healthy veggies!

Great website

One day when looking for an Irish Soda Bread recipe to make for Matt's mom I stumbled across this website. The recipe for soda bread looked simple and it was. The bread turned out great (perfectly moist and cakey and should be easy to modify in the future (with extra golden raisins, dried apricot pieces, and maybe some tart dried cherries). I was looking through the website using the side bar and realized it had a plethora of great recipes waiting to be enjoyed. Most of the recipes have a picture and the site loads fast enough that you can quickly scan through it. I was drooling over the soups (I am really into soup right now) and was distracted by the sandwich tab as well (soup and sammie night anyone?). I wanted to make sure to share it with anyone that was looking for some inspiration.

Enjoy!