Loch Alpine Hungarian Goulash

There is nothing even remotely Hungarian about this goulash, but it is the ultimate comfort food and perfect for a rainy Friday supper.   My dear friend and former neighbor Ann contributed this great recipe to our Loch Alpine Cookbook.   It was one of her Pennsylvanian mother's specialties.

It was a favorite of my kids and very flexible.    It can be made with any cuts of beef you might have or even venison.   Just cut up whatever is on sale or use stew meat.  Also, if you have an almost empty bottle of ketchup lingering in the fridge, use what remains and rinse out the bottle with some of the water you need to add and then you can throw it into the recycle bin! You can make it in a crock pot  or make it like I do, in the pressure cooker.   Over the years I modified it a bit to suit our tastes....a little less fat, a bit more cayenne. This is how I make it:

Ann's Hungarian Goulash

Serves 4 people

3 T. olive oil

2 lbs beef cubes

2 onions, sliced

2 cloves garlic, minced

3/4 c. ketchup

2 T Worchestershire sauce

2 T brown sugar

2 t salt

1 t pepper

2 T sweet paprika

1 t dry mustard

1/2 t cayenne

1 c water

Brown meat and onions, then add remaining ingredients.   

Cook in a dutch oven for about 2 hours on the stove top, or until beef is tender

OR

Cook in a crock pot on low for 8 hours

OR

Cook in a pressure cooker on the lowest setting for 15 minutes.   

I'm not an instant pot person, but I am sure it will work in one.   I own 3 pressure cookers, my favorite for this recipe is a Kuhn Rikon Duromatic skillet sized cooker.   It gets dinner on the table fast.

Serve over hot egg noodles.   Enjoy!

End of an era

We moved into our Loch Alpine house in 1992, right when we first got married. I still remember when we saw the house for the first time.   We got married on Oct 3, and when we got back from our honeymoon in Hawaii, we went house hunting.  It was Halloween, which is a great time to be in L.A.  We used to have this big bonfire in the sub and the kids all got cider and donuts from the Dexter Cider Mill.  You could feel the excitement!  (sadly, the bonfire was discontinued after the year that the bonfire got a bit out of hand and the Scio Twp. Fire Dept. was quickly invited to the Halloween party to put it out).   We knew we wanted to live somewhere near Ann Arbor, I was working in Dearborn and Andy in Jackson and so it was the halfway point of our commutes.    Plus, I knew I was going to be starting classes soon at the University of Michigan for my MBA, so it made sense to be near Ann Arbor for that reason.   

A fond farewell to the bilevel house we dubbed the "doublewide", due to it's complete lack of architectural style. Despite it's lack of design, it was a great house and it served us well. It was a fixer upper, except it never got completely fixed, but we tried. The guy that built the house in 1978 with his first wife was getting remarried and the place was decorated in what I liked to call "frat house chic", complete with a couch on bricks.   He didn't spend much time there as his fiance had a place in Burns Park, so he was "moving on up".   He was a psych prof at Eastern Michigan University and had one whole cork board wall in his kitchen devoted to sexy photos of his conquests, many of which looked to be his students. In the pre #metoo movement era, this was probably typical, butI can remember being disgusted by it. For whatever reason, he decided his Burns Park lady was "THE ONE",  thankfully.  He decided to move to her place and so we were able to get a great deal on this old house.  He wanted out!  He had replaced the ankle deep shag carpeting that needed a rake to maintain with the world's cheapest berber carpet that we didn't get around to replacing until we put the house on the market ourselves.  So, honoring the now longstanding tradition, we replaced it with the world's cheapest berber carpet in 2020.    When we bought the house, we walked through the night before the closing and the psych professor told us it had a "great kitchen for cooking" and he was right about that.    We did a ton of cooking in that house.    I still remember the kitchen had countertops of Formica that featured a picture of butcherblock, and the vinyl flooring was printed with a picture of bricks.   There was a lot of fake wood and fake bricks in 1970s home decor.   The place was decorated in avocado/harvest gold/orange and if it were still decorated that way, we'd call it "mid century modern" and it would be hip and cool.  My college friend Liisa dubbed it the "Very Brady House".  For the record, I always said "Don't play ball in the house...."

We moved out of our Dearborn rental and in to our starter house (which we never moved on out of shear laziness and fear of packing) on Christmas Eve 1992.   I can remember checking out at Meijer on Ann Arbor-Saline Road that day with 3 toilet seats in my cart.   The checkout attendant asked if I was giving them as gifts and I told her I was replacing the 3 vinyl covered padded toilet seats in our new house.  Why did anyone in the 1970s think the world needed padded toilet seats? 

Over the 28 years we lived there, we redid the kitchen a couple of times, but it always remained a "great kitchen for cooking".   I will miss it, but we will have a great place to cook in our lakehouse up north, too.     I will miss is the marks I drew in the kitchen closet to keep track of how talk the kids were (see above).   I will also miss our great wooded lot and the excellent bonfires we would have in the back yard, and all my gardening exploits there.   We had the best neighbors ever!  Loved raising kids here.  The neighborhood was always teeming with kids, there were woods and streams and lakes to play in.   Most of the play group parents of my era have moved on to other places and there are new parents that have moved in.    Their kids are having a blast playing all over the neighborhood just like mine did.     

We aren't leaving just yet; we found a rental house in Loch Alpine until we retire and move north.  But I will miss the old place.   It had a great kitchen for cooking!

  

 

Lemon Poppy Seed Zucchini Bread

 

It's that time of year again, when I have way too much zucchini and basil.    I've never loved zucchini bread with warm autumnal spices like cinnamon and nutmeg mid summer.  Looking for something different to do with it, I came upon a recipe for lemon poppy seed zucchini bread that I knew I could make work with what I had in the fridge after a few tweaks. The original recipe used Greek yogurt but all I had was light sour cream, so I chose that instead.   Also, I opted for more lemon than the original recipe suggested.   Lastly, I garnished with my beautiful basil my daughter Jane and I grew this year.    To make this a true covid remembrance, I grated this zucchini during a webex meeting while I was waiting for my turn to present.....#covidblessings.    One of the joys of working from home!!!! 

Lemon Poppy Seed Zucchini Bread

for the loaves
2 sticks butter room temperature
3/4 cup low fat sour cream (or Greek yogurt)
2 cups sugar
juice and zest from one lemon, (save one tablespoon and half the zest for the glaze
3 eggs3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 cups zucchini, grated (about one large zucchini)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp poppy seeds

for the glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice reserved from above
extra lemon zest and basil leaves, for garnish if desired

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Spray two 8 1/2 inch x 4 inch bread pans with baking spray (the kind that has the flour in it) and set aside.  Beat the butter, sour cream, sugar and lemon juice in a large bowl until smooth and combined. Add in the eggs one at a time, scraping down sides of bowl as necessary.  In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder and half the lemon zest, whisk to combine. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and stir to combine.

Stir in the zucchini, vanilla extract and poppy seeds until evenly distributed. Try not to over stir. Pour the batter evenly into the prepared pans and bake for 55 to 60 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool for at least 10 minutes in pans before removing to wire rack to cool completely.

For the Glaze:

Combine the powdered sugar and lemon juice in a small bowl and whisk until smooth. Drizzle over the bread and garnish with lemon zest and garnish with basil leaves. t if desired. Store bread in an airtight container. Or, wrap tightly and freeze one loaf for later.