Circling Through This Life

I haven’t done a recipe for a long time.   A few weeks ago, I mentioned on my FB Blog Page that I was making this and I commented that I better post the recipe.  If you are looking for a healthy, “from scratch” recipe, you’ll want to skip this.  If you’re looking for “really easy, very tasty comfort food” then keep reading! I was so diligent to take pictures while putting it together but I completely forgot to take pictures *after* it was done and we gobbled it all up! NO leftovers.  None. Here’s what it looked like assembled but not cooked: This is so super easy to assemble!  You’ll only need 5 ingredients (6 if you want to add optional cheese!): I only included one box of stuffing mix in the photo but I did use two boxes and I only used about 1 cup of soup cream not that whole big container!  The chicken is about 1 1/2 to  2 lbs.  I cut 3 chicken breasts in half (butterfly style) so that I had two thinner but still full sized fillets f...

I know I’ve posted a “ Hungarian Goulash ” recipe in the recent past but this one is different.  Years and Years and Years ago in time BC (Before Children.  Well actually Before Marriage but I didn’t like the sound of those letters together) I had a boss who made this incredibly tasty and yummy hamburger hotdish thingy for lunch.  He called it “Hungarian Goulash”.  Since I always think of a tomato based sauce when I think of goulash I’ve put the word “Hungarian” in quote marks and added the word creamy. My daddy used to make something very similar but it wasn’t creamy (or tomatoey (yes I know that is not a word.) He called his “hash”.  Neither of them however, used the crock pot.  This recipe combines the green pepper and onions  my dad added with the creaminess my boss, Rick, used  and added the convenience of the slow cooker.  I include green beans giving this dish a flavor that resembles the Minnesota favorite “Tator Tot Hotdish”.  F...

I love stir fry: fresh veggies cooked in a wok with an Asian style sauce and served over rice.  But right now my nice large front burner isn’t working so well and using the crock pot regularly means more school gets done *and* we eat a hot meal.   I’ve been wanting some stir fry though so I tried this experiment today in my crock pot: “Stir Fry in A Crock Pot, No Really!” Ingredients: Beef ~ about 1 1/2 lbs cut into cubes (or strips).  I used round steak 3 cups of water 3/4 cup soy sauce 1 teaspoon ground ginger 1 teaspoon granulated garlic frozen stir fry veggies (I used a mix from Costco…maybe 5 cups?  I eyeballed it to be proportional to the meat) What to do: combine beef, water, soy sauce, ginger and garlic in crock pot.  cook on high for 2 hours or about 4 hours on low (I usually use my high setting and 1 hour on high is about equal to 2 hours on low) after the 2 hours on high (or 4 hours on low) add the frozen veggies and continue cookin...

I never seem to follow a recipe exactly but instead take a bit of this and little of that and throw it all together.  This week I want to share my variation of Crock Pot Hungarian Goulash.  The original recipe came from the Complete Slow Cooker Cookbook by Carol Hedding and is titled “Hungarian-Style Goulash”  It is described as a stew.   I think of it as more of a saucy dish served over noodles, but Ms. Hedding’s version is more like a broth with chunks of meat and vegetables. If I created her recipe, I would be tempted to put the noodles in the crock pot or to put the noodles in a bowl and ladle the Goulash. But here is “Tess’s Hungarian-Style Goulash” What you need: 2 pounds of beef such as cheap roast or round steak or stewing meat, trimmed and cubed 2-3 medium onions thinly sliced (Ms. Hedding’s variation said 6 onions.  That’s too much for my husband <grin>) 2 cups slicked mushrooms (I used regular white but portobello appears in some v...