Slow Cooker - Goulash

Now here is one to remember. A goulash by way of a slow cooker. Another step in the quest to finding 8 hour slow cooking ideas for that Time-Tugging-Tuesday of ours. Check it out:

We started by cutting up 2 pounds of good quality happy cow beef into chunks and searing it well in olive oil together with 8 slices of chopped up bacon (we have since seared the bacon first, all crispy, and have set it aside).

We chopped up 1 whole big onion and 3 cloves of garlic. When the beef looked good we added first the onion for 5 to 8 minutes and then the garlic for a short bit.

Next we added about 1 tablespoon of caraway seeds, 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, red pepper spice, salt, and pepper.

After another minute we added 1 glass worth of red wine and let it cook away.

That gave us enough time to cut up 1 red pepper. 

All that we placed into the slow cooker and covered it with 1 quart of vegetable broth. We let it cook on low for 8 hours +.

To serve we offered creme fraiche, parsley, and some crusty bread. Voila! 

It was delicious. Despite the fact that a discussion broke out on what the 5 major food groups are. And that we were basically shoving down a big bowl of meat. Which Lena especially had no objection to.

Yup - Sauerkraut

Okay. So just to verify that yes, indeed, we come with German heritage to the stove, here now a dish with sauerkraut. And good and tasty it was.

We began this affair with starting a pot of water to boil 1 pound of ziti pasta and cutting up 6 slices of bacon.

We fried up the bacon nice and golden in some olive oil.

Meanwhile we halved one huge onion and sliced it into quarter strips.

We also drained 500 g of store bought sauerkraut.

The onions we added to the bacon and

fried them for another couple of minutes.

When it was all browned we removed it from the pan for later.

With some extra olive oil we fried up the sauerkraut for a few minutes

and then added a pat of butter and 1 tablespoon of sugar and got the sauerkraut browned a bit.

Lastly we added the bacon and onions back in, 100 ml of veggie broth, 200 ml of cream, and brought it all to a boil.

Then we made a mad dash outside to get a bit of parsley from our small garden. 

Just in time to drain the pasta. We added the sauerkraut sauce to the pasta, salt, pepper, and some of the cooking water we had reserved. To serve we added the parsley and caraway seeds. Those caraway seeds added just the perfect touch.

It was absolutely delicious The original recipe for this one we found in a cookbook from the German master Tim Mälzer. Guten Appetit!