Ground Beef

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

For some time now I've wanted to get into sausage making, and finally made the leap today! Actually, I tried it once about 10 years ago but only the once. And now I recall why - that Kitchen Aid sausage stuffer attachment is just terrible! Really difficult to work with, and incredibly slow. The basic problem is that the vertical tube leading into the feeding chamber is tapered when in fact it would be most effective if it were the same diameter the whole way down. The plunger should be perfectly engineered to fit snugly down in there, but it is not. You start plunging down on the mixture and more of it oozes back up the sides than makes it down into the feeding auger. If you take a look at purpose-built stuffers they are exactly as I describe how the Kitchen Aid should be.

Nonetheless, it did get the job done, and the results were really good. But I cannot for the life of me imagine using this thing very often because it would just get way too frustrating. I'm going to buy a proper stuffer for sure.

One of my all-time favorite comfort foods is Goulash! It is simple, both to make and in terms of what it consists of - hearty, and versatile since you can put just about anything into a goulash and spice it any number of ways. I've been on something of a thyme kick lately, so there is is lots of that in there.

Two of the main ingredients are beef and diced tomatoes. For the former we are using ground beef from one of the local farmers that we deal with. It is non-certified organic, and absolutely fantastic tasting! For the tomatoes we are using a pint / 500ml jar of diced roma tomatoes that we put down in the fall of 2006. We do a lot of tomatoes every year - buy them by the bushel at the farmers' market at the end of our street, and process and can them up.