Beefy Comfort Food! With Noodles! Slow-cooker Paprika Beef Goulash

The slow cooker was still out on the counter in the aftermath of the Quinoa Squash preparation, and it helped to inspire this next dish. I had an old Better Homes and Gardens Slow-cooker cookbook, and among the offerings was a recipe for Goulash. I am not sure what happened to the book. It did date back to the time with the boring boyfriend who watched TV. All. The. Time. It may have reminded me of him, and may therefore been donated in one of my periodic attempts to purge Excess Stuff.

But I remember the savory Hungarian goulash recipe, with lots of paprika and caraway seeds and finished with sour cream. I found the recipe on line. I actually add the sour cream, or in this case, half sour cream/half yogurt, in at the end rather than using it as a topping.

And of course, being a slow-cooker dish, I was able to shove everything in the pot in the morning and go on with my day until it came time to finish with the last few steps. God bless the person who invented the Crock Pot. Who was that, by the way?

The Naxon Utilities Corporation of Chicago, under the leadership of Irving Naxon, developed the Naxon Beanery All-Purpose Cooker. Naxon was inspired by a story his Jewish grandmother told about how back in her native Lithuanian shtetl, her mother made a stew called cholent, which took several hours to cook in an oven.^[2] The Rival Company bought Naxon in 1970 and reintroduced it under the Crock-Pot name in 1971. Slow cookers achieved popularity in the US during the 1970s when many women began to work outside the home. They could start dinner cooking in the morning before going to work and finish preparing the meal in the evening when they came home. In 1974, Rival introduced removable stoneware inserts making the appliance easier to clean. The brand now belongs toSunbeam Products, a subsidiary of Jarden Corporation. Other brands of this appliance include Hamilton Beach, West Bend Housewares, GE, Magic Chef, KitchenAid, Cuisinart, and former American Electric Corporation.

Thank you, Shill for the Slow-cooker industry! Cholent is good. I should make it sometime.

I served this with a green salad. Mangia!

Paprika Beef Goulash
Adapted from Better Homes and Gardens

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds beef stew meat

4 medium carrots, bias-cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices

2 medium onions, thinly sliced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/4 cups beef broth

1 6 ounce can tomato paste

1 1/2 tbsp Hungarian paprika

1 tsp finely shredded lemon peel

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp caraway seeds

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

1 bay leaf

1 red or green sweet pepper, cut into bite-size strips
2/3 cup Dairy sour cream or yogurt (I went half and half)

Hot cooked noodles

Hungarian paprika (optional)

Directions

In a 3-1/2- or 4-quart slow cooker, combine meat, carrots, onions, and garlic. In a small bowl, combine broth, tomato paste, the 1 tablespoon paprika, the lemon peel, salt, caraway seeds, black pepper, and bay leaf. Stir into vegetable and meat mixture in cooker.

Cover and cook on low-heat setting for 8 to 9 hours or on high-heat setting for 3-1/2 to 4-1/2 hours.

If using low-heat setting, turn to high-heat setting. Stir in sweet pepper strips. Cover and cook for 30 minutes more. Discard bay leaf. Mix in sour cream or yogurt. Serve with hot cooked noodles. If desired, sprinkle with additional paprika.