Beef Paprika

so Jake is finally home from two months at sea.  one thing he definitely looks forward to is homemade meals.  one thing I look forward to is cooking for him.  yes, I love the gesture of making dinner for my man.  and tonite- I decided on making one of my childhood favorites, Beef Paprika!  we found these amazing egg noodles at a German Delicatessen by our house today and it sparked my desire to make this recipe (since it's the only one I know of that calls for egg noodles.)  this recipe is also not from one of my cookbooks, its from a recipe card that mom gave me.  it's so very...  vintage.

how adorable is this recipe card?!

the ingredients:

1/4 c. shortening*

2 lbs. beef chuck or round, cut into cubes

1 c. sliced onions

1 clove garlic, minced

3/4 c. Ketchup

2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 tbsp. brown sugar

2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. paprika

1/2 tsp. dry mustard

dash cayenne red pepper**

1 1/2 c. water***

2 tbsp. flour plus 1/4 c. water****

3 c. hot cooked noodles

*I used olive oil- I told you this recipe was old.

**not an ingredient I have in my house, I used a pinch of red pepper flake.

***I use 1/2 stock, 1/2 water combination.

****I skip this step.  I dust the meat in flour before browning, I find that this method thickens the sauce nicely and also lets you off the hook from making a thickener.  if you want to do this method, I would use corn starch instead.  (it gives a nice glossy look to the sauce and you don't run the risk of it tasting like flour.)

browning the meat, onions & garlic.

making the sauce.  be sure to scrape the good bits off the bottom of the pan!

I can not put into words how delicious this sauce is!  I just think you all need to make it and tell me what you think.  you can't go wrong.  oh, AND it's all made in the same pot so that's nice.  well, except for the noodles- but you get what I'm saying.

we also found these amazing Pretzel Bread Rolls @ the German Delicatessen.  OMG

for dessert I'm making Jake Erin's recipe for Salted Brown Butter Rice Crispy Treats.  if you guys haven't tested that recipe yet, make that one first,  then come back to this one!

~pam

Simmering Tomato Sauce with Butter

I was perusing my cookbooks on Saturday trying to figure out what to make the kids for dinner.  Normally I wouldn't have a problem deciding on one recipe however nothing was sounding good with my current list of recipe requirements.  Mind you, I have a 15-month-old son that will eat anything and everything under the sun - except lately because he's teething and his mouth is sore when he chews.  I also have a 4-year-ol daughter that doesn't like anything she hasn't tried before and apparently doesn't trust dear old Mom and Dad to assure her that whatever we give her will be really good.  We promise.  Isn't she supposed to stop trusting us when she's 16 and finally realizes we've been telling her lies all these years just to see her reactions?

So, mushy food and something relatively similar to meals we've had in the past.  And it must be quick.

Awesome.  That makes for an exciting dinner from one of my cookbook recipes.

So I decided to skip dinner for the time being and focus on dessert.  We normally don't have dessert but I was in "a mood" and wanted to cook or bake something sweet.  That reminded me of an amazing recipe at Smitten Kitchen that was recommended to me from Violet, and if my memory served me correctly the recipe was both easy and quick. Perfect!

Now that the dessert is out of the way, back to the main course.  I decided to scroll through some of the other recipes at Smitten Kitchen and I came to a rediculously fast, easy recipe that catered to all of my meal requirements.  Four ingredients with one of them being pasta?  Heck yeah!

Tomato Sauce with Butter and Onions

Serves 4 as a main course; makes enough sauce to lightly coat most of a pound of spaghetti

28 ounces (800 grams) whole peeled tomatoes from a can (San Marzano, if you can find them)
5 tablespoons (70 grams) unsalted butter
1 medium-sized yellow onion, peeled and halved
Salt to taste

Put the tomatoes, onion and butter in a heavy saucepan (it fit just right in a 3-quart) over medium heat. Bring the sauce to a simmer then lower the heat to keep the sauce at a slow, steady simmer for about 45 minutes, or until droplets of fat float free of the tomatoes. Stir occasionally, crushing the tomatoes against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon. Remove from heat, discard the onion, add salt to taste (you might find, as I did, that your tomatoes came salted and that you didn’t need to add more) and keep warm while you prepare your pasta.

Serve with spaghetti, with or without grated parmesan cheese to pass.

 
I followed the directions and it took literally 3 minutes to get everything into a saucepan and the temperature to medium-high.  And then I was done.  I stirred it every once in a while and broke up the tomatoes but that was it.  I actually made my dessert while dinner was cooking because I felt lost just standing there.

When I was done both Kate and Oliver decided that they wanted only buttered noodles instead of having sauce with it but I'm sure it was just because the noodles were so cool to look at.

Overall, I felt it was a good recipe to have when the summer days are long and there are too many tomatoes in the garden to know what to do with.  Although this recipe called for a can of whole tomatoes and the sauce ended up being a tomato-y sweet goodness, I have the idea that fresh tomatoes are going to make it taste even better.  Next time I'll also add italian seasoning and maybe some fresh garlic to cater more towards the family's tastes.  Nevertheless, this recipe was a great, fast, easy addition to my growing collection of "good 'uns."