Comfort Food in a Hurry
Go Go Goulash just might be an answer to prayer. Anyone else with a house full of hungry kids getting a teensy bit tired of cooking these days? I mean, togetherness is great and all but running the dishwasher twice a day is not the way we want to spend our time during “social distancing”, right?
GB to the rescue with an old favorite you can whip up in one pan with just a pound of hamburger and a few simple ingredients from the pantry. Bigger family? Bigger appetites? This one’s super easy to double and the leftovers are awesome. Me? I call them plan-overs and I love having some to pack in my lunch for the next day! This one’s one of my slick go-to supper dishes because it’s one of Papa’s favorites.
How’s this for easy? Brown the beef and crumble it right in the skillet. I love my Pampered Chef hamburger thingamajig. I use it for lots of stuff but it’s a must for quickly getting ground beef ready for so many dishes! It does a great job of breaking up the beef just the way we like it.
Now it’s a simple dump-dump-dump process of adding the tomatoes, soup, macaroni and the rest. (Hint: If you can’t find the petite tomatoes, you can grab your kitchen scissors and snip them into smaller pieces right in the can!!) Experiment with some of the already seasoned petite diced tomatoes you can find nowadays and adjust the garlic and onion accordingly. You may find a flavor your family will love! Fire roasted? Basil, garlic and oregano? Yum!
Stir it all up, cover it tight and give it another stir or two while it’s cooking til the macaroni is nice and tender. While it’s doing it’s thing you’ve got time to toss a salad (bagged of course), heat a veggie like some french cut green beans or peas if you like ’em. Oh, and maybe pop some garlic toast in the oven. Mmmmmm! heavenly smells wafting from the kitchen!
In the top picture, I served GO GO Goulash with Millie’s Dilly Bread, toasted and buttered! SO good!!
Here’s one more hint. Whoops, one night I didn’t have tomato soup on the shelf, what the heck?? What’s a girl to do? I grabbed a can of mushroom soup instead and it was awesome! I dubbed it “Golden Goulash” instead of “GB goofed!”
GB’s Go Go Goulash
Comfort Food at it’s finest!
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground beef browned and crumbled
- 1 can petite diced tomatoes
- 1 can tomato soup
- 1 soup can water about 1 1/4 cup
- 1 1/2 cup dry elbow macaroni
- 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 Tbsp brown sugar
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 Tbsp instant minced onion
- 1 tsp garlic powder
Instructions
-
In a non-stick skillet with a tight fitting lid brown the beef and season to taste.
Add the rest of the ingredients and give it a stir.
Reduce heat, put on the cover and simmer for about 20 minutes until macaroni is tender.
Remove lid and stir a couple of times while it’s cooking to make sure it’s not sticking.
You may need to add a little water.
Goulash is such a cozy comfort food, perfect for the weird and stressful time we’re living in right now. I’ll bet a favorite dish will emerge from your quarantined kitchen and someday, years from now, you’ll call it something silly like Covid casserole or stay-at-home soup. What are you cooking out there folks? I’d love to hear from you. Tell me how you improvised and made a dish your own! Stay safe, say your prayers, and wash your hands! Blessings to you and yours!
Love, GB (Betty Streff)
Thank you!! I LOVE to feed people! It’s my love language.
We had a similar dish growing up in New England. We called it American chop suey. My Chinese husband says doesn’t look like any chop suey he ever had. But chop suey is not a Chinese dish.. Yours looks gourmet with canned tomatoes. My mother used Ragú jar sauce. Getting ready to make some this week.
Yay!! You go girl! The only gourmet I do is quick and easy make it at home! I think you’ll really like it- so far, it’s been a hit with folks who tried it! I really do prefer the petite diced tomatoes but as I said if you have trouble finding them just chop them up right in the can with kitchen scissors! And, there are several varities and brands to choose from!
Let me know how it goes!!!
Looks very similar to a Ohio dish called Johnny MarzettI invented for Ohio State hungry students by a cook in the restaurant of the same name. Could DD GREEN PEPPER AND SOME CHEESE. POPULAR IS SCHOOL CAFETERIAS IN THE 50’S & 60″S.
I’ve heard of that but didn’ know it was so close to goulash! Thank you!!! Our girls went to a small town school where lunch in the cafeteria was the highlight of their day! They even put out a cookbook after the school closed. Now you prompted me to see if I can still get one!
My son spent a week at Grandma’s and came home saying she added peas to hers and he said it was funny but good. My daughter said it needs some cheese just before serving
Peas and cheese are sure to please!! 🙂 Grandma probably LOVED cooking for the grandkids. I know I sure do! Thanks for sharing!! ❤
I used your recipe as a guide (for lack of a better word) and used what I had in my pantry/freezer. Ground turkey instead of beef. RoTels instead of petite dice tomatoes and cut down the macaroni by 1/2 cup. It’s got a little bite to it from the RoTels which my husband is happy about. I’ll circle back and make the original at some point. Thank you for sharing.
You go girl! The kitchen is my laboratory and I LOVE a fellow free styler! Good for you!!!!
So you don’t precook the macaroni?
Nope! That’s the go-go part of it! One pan, super easy!!