Quick and Easy Rice Goulash

I started out to make my regular goulash recipe and it was not until I had the beef in the frying pan that I realised I was out of whole wheat pasta for this recipe, so I quickly decided to improvise by using brown rice. It worked fantastically and both of the boys love it! I started out as I always do by taking the ground beef out of the freezer and plopping it straight into the pan - I started with a 5L dutch oven because I knew I'd fill it all. I turned the burner on about 3, put the lid on, and started into my onions. When it comes to onions in things like this I usually puree them these days just because the boys will balk if they see onions in something. They actually like the taste of onions, they just have this odd idea in their head that they do not.

Here is everything in the recipe :

• 2 things of beef ( about 1 lb each, total 2 lbs )
• 4 medium / large onions, pureed
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1 tsp salt
• 1.5 tbsp thyme
• 1.5 tbsp oregano
• 1 tbsp savory
• 3 cups organic brown rice
• 500ml tomatillo
• 750ml tomato and basil from 2005
• 125ml home made ketchup
• about 5 cups boiling water
• 1/2 cup pot barley

Basically I fried the beef, pureed 4 medium to large onions and tossed them in as well, and added the spices at the same time, and put the lid on. Then I went looking for what format of tomato to add - down into the dungeon known as my larder! Actually, before I went looking, I tossed 6 cups of water into the microwave to boil it. Down in the larder I found a 750ml jar of tomatoes and basil from 2005, so figured I should use it up finally. Pretty sure it was the last jar of that batch. And when I went grabbing for a smaller jar of tomatoes, what actually came back in my hand was a jar of tomatillos that I canned up last year. Sounded good to me! The 2005 batch was relatively thick, and the tomatillos relatively thin. I also had half a jar of home made ketchup in the fridge that I decided to use up, mainly for the taste.

Once all that was in and stirred, I had to decide how much rice to use. I guess at 3 cups and it was a pretty good guess! When adding rice, pasta, barley or anything else in a recipe like this, you add it according to the cook time required. My brown rice takes about 30 minutes of cooking, while the barley takes only half that time. So the rice goes in early, and the barley 15 minutes later. Based on how watery the mixture was I decided after adding the rice to add 5 cups of the boiling water, and this turns out to have been a bit much which is why I ended up adding barley. Though the barley was a bit of a bribe for my oldest son too, since he's been on a big barley kick lately.

Then I basically turned the heat on about 6 til it came up to the boil again. At that point I reduce the heat to 1, put the lid on, and set the timer for 10 minutes, then 10 more, then 10 more for a total of about 30 minutes. The intervals are simply reminders for me to come and check the progress, and to stir.

The rice and barley use up all the extra water, and you end up with a really nice meal in the end.