Mom’s Goulash (Mostly)

What the Fork?

My mom made a pretty authentic goulash in certain respects.  In certain other respects it wasn’t really goulash at all.  I’m now making something somewhere in between.

The Hungarians would make a sort of soup called goulash and serve that with or over cubed boiled potatoes.  The Germans like a thicker version and serve that over spaetzle.  My mom used elbow macaroni.  I have a spaetzle maker but usually just reach for a nice orzo lately.

My mom used a combination of tomato juice and tomatoes.  I skip the juice.  Feel free to include some to make a thinner version.  You could also add chicken stock to take it more into the soup dimension.  My mom used stewed tomatoes but I use just diced.

My mom used ground beef, but I’ve gone more traditional here and cube nice beef and brown that.

Finally, my mom didn’t use paprika (I know!) and I use a lot.  If I can brown the beef and saute the onions over fire I use Hungarian sweet, but if I can’t I use Spanish smoked paprika instead.  Or maybe a combination.  I’m not too picky about this detail.

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb beef (browned)
  • 2 large onions (sauted but not browned)
  • 1 T garlic (optional)
  • tomatoes (2 cans of Muir Glen diced is typical for me)
  • salt and pepper
  • ¼ paprika (yes, a lot)

Directions:

  • brown beef and set aside
  • saute onions in whatever fat remains, scrap up the bits, and let them go translucent (take your time)
  • add everything into the pot (except the pasta) and let that simmer for a long while, relax
  • cook the pasta you chose (or potatoes or make spaetzle)
  • you can combine the starch and sauce together and server or serve portions (I usually combine in the pasta just prior to serving time so it’s a one pot stop)

That’s it.  Basic.  Easy.  Fucking delicious.

JamesIsIn

No More Young Earth, Please

Sophia Irreligulosa

This article, written by a christian, outlines all of the different methods currently used to age geological phenomena as well as how they are used in conjunction with one another.

Radiometric Dating:  A Christian Perspective

It is all one needs presently to understand that the Earth is very much older than what young Earth creationists are likely to contend.  Read it and carry this knowledge with you into your future.

JamesIsIn

i fell into a field of flowers

Wordsmithereens

   i fell into a field of flowers
and lingered here for ten long hours
because on every petaled face
caressly lips  i could retrace;

my swiftly simple soul was spilt
as i watched  one flower wilt:
as each petal    soft as felt
fell to the Earth where i was knelt,

     i realized how cruel time
  steams up the ridge of pantomime
 whereby the tracks,  upon the lip
 of the hill, we toil and somewhen slip

   and fall off the trecherous tracks
into the languid flowers. on our backs,
  yawning  exhaustly  from the fall,
 too timidly tired to utter a call,

 we stare  into the freckled blue
sky high above this flowered view-
ing bed; we listen to the distant   whistles
with ourselves amidst the stamen and the pistils

   as now here i nestle,  sitting
with the empty stem of love spitting
      hard, dry petals  at my hand,
   holding my body  to the land

   again   i will not rise un-
     til the face of the luminous sun
   crests the western rise of pine
    and oak, until her eyes shine

    on my precarious body
     against this sod.  me,
   with what memory whispers
¡ah, crescendo! in lead-lined slippers,

   i left my work, my hammer
   i left the cracked tracks clamor
   to sift memory  from the day
   to knead the bread of heart; i say,

   i fell into a field of flowers
and lingered here for ten long hours
because on every petaled face
caressly lips i could retrace.

JamesIsIn