Is it already November?\u00a0 I’m just….what happened?!\u00a0 We just had Christmas like two months ago.\u00a0 I still have tomatoes on the vines out there.\u00a0 They are refusing to die and, frankly, I’m starting to get perturbed about it.\u00a0 I’ll just keep ignoring them.<\/p>\n
Amanda is coming over today.\u00a0 She’s got the next several days off so we’re going to play with food in the kitchen.\u00a0 It’s like being a kid and playing with Play Doh, but it tastes better.\u00a0 And there’s wine.\u00a0 She wants to make what she calls ‘real super fancy cheese balls’.\u00a0 I’ve never actually made a cheese ball so this should be fun.\u00a0 I’ve got some sugar pumpkins so she want to make some hand pies.\u00a0 So much glee today!<\/p>\n
But for dinner tonight, I’m making slumgullion.\u00a0 For the record, it is NOT goulash.\u00a0 It is also NOT Nov. 13th.\u00a0 It’s Nov 8th.\u00a0 But I’m making up for being late last time.\u00a0 Anyways.\u00a0 Goulash is something else entirely…it’s Hungarian and uses large doses of paprika.\u00a0 Slumgullion has English roots and was a Depression era dish my gramma made.\u00a0 In England, it emerged out of the slums (hence the name) and utilized undesirable proteins like rats or pigeons.\u00a0 Kind of gross.\u00a0 One blogger claims it came from Ireland.\u00a0 I kind of doubt it, but who knows?!\u00a0 But the name does sound Irish~y.\u00a0 Upon further inquiry, I discovered that there is an Irish stew, and it was called Slumgullion, but it was a beef stew…yanno with red wine and carrots, potatoes, and celery….chunks of beef.\u00a0 I yelled at the computer screen, “Well, that’s beef stew lady!\u00a0 Not Slumgullion!”\u00a0 Others claim that it basically had no rules whatsoever and you could throw anything and everything into it.\u00a0 The audacity.\u00a0 In America, it morphed into a ground beef, onion, tomato, elbow macaroni dish, which is probably where Hamburger Helper got it’s start in the “convenience” food industry.\u00a0 After the travesty of Hamburger Helper emerged, the dish became the less interesting “skillet mac”.\u00a0 Blah.<\/p>\n
Gramma used lots of pepper and we ate it like we’ve never seen food.\u00a0 As a single mom, it was a lifesaver dish that came together quickly and the leftovers were never ignored.\u00a0 It takes the same amount of time to make a little or a lot, so of course I always made extra.\u00a0 The ingredients are few, very inexpensive, and it didn’t require washing forty seven dishes, utensils, and pots and pans.<\/p>\n
While I no longer use canned tomatoes…I mean I have a serious tomato problem here…opening a can of tomatoes right now would be ridiculous….I’ll still post canned tomatoes in the recipe just in case.\u00a0 As a single mom, I would have never had the time to cultivate the fresh tomato supply I have hogging up an entire chest freezer right now.\u00a0 I almost feel bad about it.\u00a0 Ok, I don’t.\u00a0 One day, your prince will come too….and he’ll come bearing chest freezers and a tiller.<\/p>\n
I typed Slumgullion recipes into the Googles and I was kind of alarmed at what I found.\u00a0 People are using all kinds of bizarre ingredients and some of the ingredients lists are quite long.\u00a0 Cheese isn’t that far fetched, but cans of pork and beans?\u00a0 Gross.\u00a0 Processed spaghetti sauces, cans of tomato soup….ketchup?!\u00a0 Just say no.\u00a0 I swear I saw one pic that looked like it had bologna it.\u00a0 What is happening?!\u00a0 Resist these urges.<\/p>\n