goulash

You can do this same recipe in a slow cooker.

• 3 lbs beef cut into 1″ cubes (I used bottom round – wanted to use top round chuck – any kind of stew appropriate beef works, even hamburger)
• 1/4 lb bacon
• 1 massive onion or 2 large ones or 4 medium – chop
• 1 lb carrots, cut into 1/2″ cubes or approximation thereof
• 1 lb sauerkraut (sold here in bags in the meat section, next to the pork. Canned is fine. Amt is approx.)
• 1/4 cup hot Hungarian paprika
• 1/4 cup sweet Hungarian paprika
• salt and pepper

1. Cook the bacon, brown the beef in the bacon with some salt & pepper, maybe some other spices as you choose (I used a little homemade “Montreal Steak Seasoning”)
2. Remove beef, soften the onion with high heat (add oil if needed), then stir in paprika. add beef back in, with carrots and sauerkraut (with the liquid). Simmer for a couple hours. Done!
3. Serve over what you like – I used wide egg noodles tossed with a little olive oil and poppy seeds. Also served with some sour cream on the side. This recipe will help keep your sinuses clear. You can use all sweet paprika, or adjust the ratio as you like.

lekach (honey spice cake) sans nutmeg

We don’t make desserts often, but ever since we first got How to Cook Everything Vegetarian I’ve wanted to make a cake soak. For our first two attempts, we make lekach (Eastern Europe, BRW, p 646 or CEV, p 854-855).

The first time, we replaced the coffee with water, included rum raisins (as per the “raisin cake” variation), and soaked the baked cake in boozy cake soak, using rum as the booze. The second time we followed the recipe in spiced coffee cake soak and doubled the soak recipe. (The soaks are on p 858-859 of How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.)

notes

• We left out the nutmeg.
• The first cake had a solid crust and the soak didn’t penetrate at all.
• The second cake had a more porous crust, but still the soak only penetrate a quarter inch or so.
• Next time, we’ll poke holes in the cake (e.g. with a fork) so that the soak can penetrate into the cake.

sbiten, a.k.a. spiced honey drink

I made sbiten (Russia, BRW, p 668), and it was awesome! I was forced to make two changes due to shortcomings of our pantry: we left out the mint and used rum instead of brandy or vodka. I drank it both hot and cold, and I vote for “hot”. When cooled, it became syrupy and the spices were muted. When hot, it was a stupendous hot toddy.

potatoes, potatoes everywhere

Some recipes that we made with our Costco bag of potatoes:

• home-fried potatoes with onion an amchoor (India, BRW, p 477)
• peasant-style potatoes (Spain, BRW, p 477)
• potato dumpling (Eastern Europe, BRW, p 479
• caramelized potatoes (Scandinavia, BRW, p 482
• potato “nik” (CEV, p 349)

some recipes (techniques) that I should really get down:

• crisp panfried potatoes, i.e. home fries (CEV, p 343)
• oven-roasted cottage “fries” (CEV, p 344-345)
• oven-roasted hash browns

The Best Recipes in the World, part i

Just last week, Mom got me a cookbook: The Best Recipes in the World, by Mark Bittman. I’ve already made a number of the dishes.

• sauteed spinach with sesame (Korea, BRW, p 33)
• fleica (Romania, BRW, p 346)
• pasta with tuna sauce (Italy, BRW, p 555)
• hummus (Eastern Mediterranean, BRW, p 19)

They were uniformly delicious! I especially liked how easy the hummus was to make; I’ll a) never buy hummus again and b) always keep a can of chickpeas in the pantry.

slow cooked goulash and sauerkraut

I’m living in a dorm room (sans Juliana) until mid-August. I have to provide my own meals, and I made sure to bring my slow cooker to facilitate that. I am preparing meals that I can save and reheat as leftovers. The first dish I made was a stew strongly inspired by Hungarian goulash.