By Popular Request....;-)

Hungarian Goulash in a Crockpot

2 pounds of veal cut into ½ inch cubes (I use round steak)
1 cup of chopped onion (I just chop the whole darn onion. Onions are good)
3 cloves of garlic, minced (ignore recipes that say 1 clove. The more garlic, the better)
2 tablespoons of flour
½ teaspoon of salt (put in as much as you want! You’re the cook!)
½ teaspoon of pepper (remember what I said about the salt)
4 teaspoons of sweet Hungarian paprika Pride of Szeged ( ignore recipes that say 1and1/2. Paprika is good. The more the better!)
¼ teaspoon of crushed thyme
1 bay leaf (Dad and I hate bay leaves, so we ignore this)
A couple of chopped tomatoes,or 1 fifteen ounce can tomatoes (My husband has diverticulosis, so I use tomato sauce, making it less authentic, but keeping my husband’s colon intact, priorities you know)
1 cup of sour cream.

Put the veal cubes (or round steak cubes), onion, and garlic in the crockpot. Stir in flour and mix to coat the meat. Add all remaining ingredients into the crockpot except the sour cream. Stir well. Cover. Cook on low setting for 8 to 10 hours. Add sour cream 30 minutes before serving by first putting it in a bowl, and adding juice from the crockpot into the bowl gradually, mixing the juice and sour cream until they are well blended. Now add it to the crockpot, and again, stir thoroughly. Serve over hot noodles (Polish kluskis are good, if not authentic. Spaetzle would be authentic. My mom was Polish, so we used Kluskis.)

My dad liked it with veal, making it purkay (spelled phonetically, not correctly) instead of goulash. I am too cheap to buy veal unless it is a birthday, major holiday or something, so I use round steak. Dad would be proud that I can now make a decent round steak. He would be for anything that makes round steak tastier. My parents never had a crockpot, but dad used to say it should be on a "slow fire". I once had a nightmare that he refused to eat my goulash because (I said a slow fire, not slow electricity!). In real life, he was for anything that made food good, and the crockpot does make good goulash. My comments at the top alongside the recipe correspond with the difference between "American" Hungarian goulash recipes verses my dad. My dad was an authentic Hungarian until October, 1963, when he became a naturalized citizen of the United States of America. After that, whenever anyone asked his nationality, he said "I am American. I had to take a test and I passed! What about you?" I love my dad. I miss him. May he rest in peace. God bless you.
I don't know who is playing this Csardas, by it rocks at two minutes and thirty seconds, and a little after four minutes. Don't worry, Annie, I have easier ones on C.D. for us to demonstrate at Mare's party in August. :-)

Chicken Pot Pie

I made this for supper Tuesday night, and my husband and mom loved it. Mom doesn't usually like Chicken Pot Pie, so I don't know if that means that this is a super recipe, or that it is nothing like real Chicken Pot Pie. It doesn't matter to us, we liked it. I used generic brand "Asian Style" vegetables, because that is what I had in the freezer. I'm sure "Italian Style", "Fiesta Style", "California Style", etc. are equally tasty.



Chicken Pot Pie
1 2/3 cups frozen mixed vegetables, thawed
1 cup cut-up cooked chicken
1 can (10 3/4 oz) condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 cup Original Bisquick® mix
1/2 cup milk
1 egg

Total Time: 30 min

1. Heat oven to 400°F. In ungreased 9-inch pie plate, stir vegetables, chicken and soup.
2. In medium bowl, stir remaining ingredients until blended. Pour into pie plate.
3. Bake uncovered about 30 minutes or until crust golden brown.
High Altitude (3500-6500 ft) Heat oven to 425ºF.




P.S. An idea for what to do with leftover Halloween Candy
I found on a blog called Brandiandboys (or something like that) a recipe which was to wrap a milky way snack size bar inside the triangular crescent rolls and bake as long as the cresent rolls take. I haven't tried it yet, but I plan to. I plan on using snickers. Helen likes snickers. Snickers. Yum.

Spam Quiche

I made this quiche for my husband on Thursday. I usually use tuna, but didn't feel tuna-y, so I used spam instead. He really liked it. I did too, and I am not normally a canned luncheon meat fan. Please click on the title of yesterday's post for a funny story about a presidential candidate.

Spam QUICHE

1 can of spam, chopped (tuna, crab meat, or salmon also work, but you must then rename the quiche)
1 c. shredded mozzarella cheese (American, Mexican, Cheddar, or any combination of what you have in the refrigerator also turn out tasty)
4 oz. cream cheese, cut in cubes
1 whole onion, chopped (it originally called for 1/4 of a cup of onion, but I like onion. Besides, I must change recipes)
2 c. milk
1 c. Bisquick
4 eggs
3/4 tsp. salt

In a lightly greased 10" pie plate put spam, cheeses and onion. Blend milk, Bisquick, eggs and salt together. Pour over spam mixture. Bake at 400 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes.

Cheesecake recipe

Cheesecake recipe

Last week at a birthday party I tasted this wonderful cheesecake. I made it for my husband and mom yesterday, and they loved it. Mom wasn't at the party, since she is disabled and the house did not have accessibility, so she keeps crediting me with it, even though I keep telling her that I got it from Bob's cousin. She then responds, "Well, you’re the one who made it for me and with Splenda. You changed the recipe, so it is now your cheesecake recipe". So since my mom has dubbed it mine, I thought I would share it with you. (Bob's cousin won't mind. She freely shares her recipes with everyone).


Ingredients
2 containers of refrigerated dinner crescents (I used Pillsbury)
2 eight-ounce packages of cream cheese
1 cup of Splenda (originally called for sugar, but my mom is diabetic)
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
Cinnamon and Splenda mixed together, between 1-3 teaspoons, depending on your preference. I used 3 teaspoons.

Unroll one package of refrigerated dinner crescents, and place in greased rectangular pan. In a medium bowl, mix the two packages of cream cheese together with the Splenda and vanilla extract. Spread over dinner rolls. Place second package of unrolled refrigerated dinner crescents over cheese mixture. Sprinkle cinnamon mixed with sugar over the top.

My husband’s favorite cousin gave this recipe to me. She used sugar instead of Splenda.

Salami and Pasta Salad

Today I am going to my cousin's Fiftieth birthday party. I offered to bring two salads, a Three Bean Salad, and a Pasta Salad. I feel perfectly comfortable sharing this recipe, because, first of all, I found it on the Kraftfoods.com website, so I know they want the recipe floating out there. Second of all, I added sliced black olives, so I changed the recipe, making it mine now. I think that legally holds up. If not then Helen Moschnossgepup is in big trouble. The people at Kraft call it Bow Tie Pasta Salad. I have made it with spaghetti, so I call it Salami and Pasta Salad.

Salami and Pasta Salad

1 8 oz package of pasta ( specifically bow tie at the website.)
1 8 oz package of hard salami (specifically Oscar Mayer at the website)
1 8 oz package of frozen vegetables, thawed ( I like California style, the website suggests Italian style)
1 4 oz package of Kraft shredded mozarella cheese
1 bottle of of Kraft Light House Italian Reduced Fat Dressing
1 can of sliced black olives

Cook pasta as directed on the package. Cut salami into 1/4 inch strips. Separate the strips. Toss all the ingredients in a large bowl and cover. Refrigerate for at least one hour, or until ready to served.


I made this recipe several times, and I really like. The main reason I am posting this is that my printed copy is looking pretty bad, and I want to make sure I know the recipe with the changes I made if the copy becomes illegible. I thought you'd like to know that because I find that recipes which become illegible are usually the best ones. Have a great day!

Creamy Bratwurst Stew

Yesterday I made this great dish called Creamy Bratwurst Stew. It was awesome. Yeah, I know self praise stinks, but I'm not really praising myself, I'm praising this cooking magazine called Taste of Home. I looked at this recipe, and it reminded me of this White Bosch (not sure how to spell it) my mom used to make when I was a kid, except she used sour cream, paprika and Polish sausage. Now, if anyone out there reading this is Polish, you probably already know how to spell the meal, and that using sour cream is cheating. You are supposed to use egg white and flour to get white bosch (as opposed to red bosch, which is made with beets and my mom had the good sense to never try to inflict beets on me as a child, making it tolerable to me as an adult now).
Anyway, my dad was Hungarian before he became naturalized (now he's Heavenian), and Hungarians add paprika and sour cream to just about everything. My dad even said a good Hungarian adds sour cream and paprika to his coffee. He would then say "I, However, am not a good Hungarian". That is why none of the recipes my mom made were traditionally Hungarian, or Polish (like my mom). My mom, bless her sweet heart, has always tried to make everybody happy. She couldn't be happy if anyone was unhappy, and would be happy making other people happy. I'm more likely to try to convince people they are happy with the way I do things, that's why I do it, so smile, like it, and be happy. But mom always went out of her way for others.
Creamy Bratwurst Stew brought back many happy childhood memories of mom, dad, and me in the kitchen, adding things to otherwise traditional dishes and making them unrecognizable. I am not going to include the recipe in my blog, because I don't think that would be fair to the Taste of Home people. I am going to readjust the recipe to make Creamy Polish Sausage Stew for Half-Hungarians next week, and will post that next week (unless the Taste of Home people come after me with a barbecue fork, and threaten to skewer me if I do, which I don't think they will). Have a great day!
'

Slow Cooked Stuffed Peppers

I ran out of bread crumbs and needed to make something with the ground turkey in my refrigerator, using ingredients I already have because I didn't have time to go to the store. This is what I came up with. I will mention in the future how it turned out.



Slow cooked stuffed red peppers

4 red peppers
1 lb. of ground turkey
1/3 cup of instant rice
½ of an onion, chopped fine
1 can of tomato sauce , 8 ounces
salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons of water

Spray your slow cooker with butter flavor cooking spray. Cut the tops off of the red peppers, clean out the inside and rinse. Cut a small piece from the bottom of each pepper. Mix rice, onion, tomato sauce, salt and pepper in a mixing bowl. Put the mixture inside the peppers and place them inside the slow cooker. Add 2 tablespoons of water to the slow cooker. Cover and cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours.