As our faithful readers know, Phil likes a good bargain. I always used to claim to be even thriftier, but the year that he was on sabbatical and cooked every meal was a real eye-opener. (You saw the big vats of vinegar, oil, and soy sauce in a post a few weeks ago.) The freezer has taken me a whole year to tame. Phil’s cooking year and his discovery of Wengerd’s was kind of the perfect storm. Don’t get me wrong, I love Wengerd’s too, but I have a simple rule of thumb. If the slab of pork or the chub of ground beef weighs more than a newborn baby, it is too much meat. Walk away.
While we work on reconciling our different meat purchasing approaches, enter problem number two.
A groundhog has taken up residence at the cabin and we have been trying desperately to encourage him to find another home. Short of walking him through Zillow listings, we have tried nearly everything. A friend got rid of her new resident by playing loud talk radio for a few days. During the month that our radio blared 24-7 outside, Chuck not only didn’t leave, he dug additional holes. Next, we borrowed traps from Sophia’s father-in-law and baited them with fresh farm to table veggies and fruits. Another friend said that if we could trap him, he would take it from there. He then told us how tasty groundhog meat is, which would, I suppose, add an interesting element to our meat purchasing conflicts! What do you know? The traps worked! That is, if we were looking to catch an opossum, who ate the cantaloupe, sacked out, and was so satisfied with the accommodations that he stayed and caught a little more shut-eye when our carpenter saw him and opened the trap door that morning. Our last attempt at trapping caught us a cat, who was not nearly as pleased with its lodgings as the opossum was. Obviously, our days of playing Daniel Boone are over, and we shall cease and desist our trapping attempts.
What most people have offered as the obvious solution is a .22, but we don’t own a gun and it is actually in city limits anyway. A stranger driving by said that he poured gallons of gasoline down his groundhog hole, and that was that. A relative who shall remain nameless used what he vaguely referred to as “aroma therapy.” It’s best we don’t go into details. Just today, a friend suggested gopher bombs.
Having exhausted all options that didn’t sound like a mob hit, and knowing that groundhogs are averse to human scent, we finally tried vitamin pee. We anointed the area around and in several of Chuck’s escape hatches with the liquid gold that Phil had reserved for this purpose. Urine trouble now, Chuck. Whether that finally did the trick, or if Chuck is just taking a break due to loud carpentry tools in use, I don’t know, but we have seen reduced activity and are cautiously optimistic. Did we finally chuck our woodchuck? I’ll keep you posted.
All things considered, ground chuck seemed like just the thing for us to cook this week. Just how much chuck would the would-be woodchuck chuckers cook? Following my careful formula of purchasing a package that weighs less than a newborn, I got the 3-pound pack of ground chuck (rather than Punxsutawney Phil’s typical 10-pound purchase) and froze two pounds, leaving us a reasonable pound to work with.
With our pound of ground chuck we made American goulash, which, like the wily groundhog, is incredibly adaptable. Though it likely bears little resemblance to the Hungarian dish, Ben first became enamored of goulash when they made it in class during his last year in school. He tried to pronounce it and describe it then, but it wasn’t until the recipe came home in his backpack that we finally understood what he was talking about. Below is what we threw together, but if our experience with Chuck has taught us anything, it is that we need to stay flexible. (Almost) anything goes.
American Goulash
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 tablespoons minced garlic
½ teaspoon dried thyme
2 teaspoons sweet paprika
1 ½ teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon salt
Black pepper to taste
1 pound ground chuck
2 tablespoons tomato paste
3 cups beef broth
1 14-ounce can crushed tomatoes
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 ½ cups uncooked macaroni
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- Heat oil over medium heat in a Dutch oven. Add the bell pepper and the onion and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, thyme, paprika, salt, and pepper. Cook for 30 seconds.
- Add the ground chuck, stirring, breaking up, and cooking until meat is no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste and cook for 1 minute.
- Pour in the broth, crushed and decided tomatoes, and Worcestershire sauce. Bring to a boil. Stir in the macaroni, reduce heat to medium-low and cook for about 20 minutes, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pot so the pasta doesn’t stick.
- Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the cheese.
This was the perfect meal to make with Ben because it is mostly dumping and stirring. I chopped the onions and peppers, and he did everything else, including making a salad.
