"Hungarian" Friday

Friday's weather was more of the same. But, who cared? It was Friday and payday!

After eating lunch, I worked backwards and washed the main bathroom and kitchen floors as I exited the house.

After work (and "Banging the Drum") I treated cats, changed clothes and started hauling the kitchen furniture back in from the living room.

The cats were all somewhere else, so I stripped the bed to get a jump on weekend chores. The bedding went into the washer and I went out back.

I checked out the raised bed garden and picked six more tomatoes. I noticed the leaf lettuce had sprouted, so I watered it.

Back inside, I started dinner. I am doing a riff on an old recipe Lu got from her step-mother Gerry. Gerry called it "Goulash," but I call it "Gerry's Ground Beef Stuff." Maybe "Gerry's Ground Beef Medley" sounds better... Whatever. It's just that I've tasted Hungarian goulash and this ain't it.

So, I browned up a pound of hamburger I'd thawed out. While that was browning, I searched the fridge for "stuff" and came up with a quarter of a red onion and a half of a small yellow onion. I finely diced them. Inspired, I went back outside and picked a green pepper. I finely diced that. Then I minced up three cloves of garlic.

When the beef was browned, I drained the grease. Hmmm... what spices to use? I settled on a pinch of red pepper flakes and about half a teaspoon of smoked paprika. I stirred that in for a minute or so and then added one cup of water and one cup of V-8 juice. While I brought that to a boil, I went to get some elbow macaroni.

Crap! I don't have any!!! And, it's traditional!!! I settled on using Farfalle (also called "bow-tie" I believe) and added a cup to the boiling mix. I turned it to simmer, covered it and set the timer for 8 minutes. I checked the pasta and it was still too hard. I ended up doing that every two minutes until it was where I wanted it. I made the bed back up during this phase.

Also, I went out on the patio and got some flat leaf parsley. I diced that up and, when the pasta was ready, I added it to the pan to brighten the dish up. I tasted it and added salt and pepper.

I got a bowl of it and placed a dollop of sour cream in the middle. Then I wandered off to watch TV and eventually, go to sleep.